piled.
Whoever had been here was stupid enough to leave a trail.
He should have heard. He should have known someone was in the room next door.
That's what came of temporarily losing your sanity because some woman was hotter than hot.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Moving into the room, he shut the door, locked it, and methodically went through every sheet of paper on the work tables. Then he checked out the security codes on his computers. All of them had been tampered with but not breached. Not that it was likely. His security was solid as Fort Knox.
Not that he was happy that the printouts had been seen. But they were only variations on his original game and not likely to give clues to the new series he was creating.
He'd have to begin using his safe again. He'd gotten lazy when he shouldn't have—lulled into a false sense of security by his bucolic setting that could out-Mayberry the TV ideal. At least his wake-up call was relatively benign. No major damage had been done.
So—with industrial espionage rampant in his business— lock-down mode was back in effect. No way was he going to let his competitors crack the code on his next game, introduce it before him, and make a God-damned fortune.
But who the hell had broken into his office? And when?
With his fucking brain on hold all night, it could have been anytime between when Stella arrived and morning.
An outsider was a real long shot; the list of suspects was more likely those at the pool last night. Buddy wasn't a problem. He had more money than God. Brian was an unknown. Suspect number one. Kirsty? He doubted it, but maybe she wasn't as spacey as she looked. And she liked what money could buy. Nah… not likely. But okay, suspect number two.
Although, a certain amount of brains were required to hack into his computers, so Kirsty might be out of the lineup of likely suspects—unless she had some accomplice. Maybe Brian knew computers. He'd have to look into it.
The person he was getting twitchy about though, not only had the opportunity—if Brian and Kirsty had decamped early— but the time. And he was pretty much dead to the world this morning, thanks to the strenuous paces little Stella had put him through last night. Jesus, talk about being played for a sucker.
Sex aside, of course.
Compartmentalize to the max when it came to sex like that.
Dropping into a worn leather chair, he slid down and contemplated the injustice of finding some of the best sex this side of Bangkok and then discovering little Miss Comic Book Girl and her hot body were on a competitor's payroll.
Talk about paying a high price for a piece of ass.
Maybe. Perhaps. Definitely within the realm of possibility. Although he'd been the one who'd gone to her house. But she might have known any guy would have come to her eventually. She probably knew from past experience that all she had to do was sit and wait. Flipping back through his memory, he tried to recall whether Stella had shown any surprise at his unannounced arrival. She'd done that little I'm-not-sure-I-want-to-screw number, but come to think of it, she hadn't indicated any surprise. As for that little fiction about no sex, they'd blown that one—literally… in more ways than one.
Which begged the question, what was real and what was make believe about the fascinating, flame-hot Stella?
He found himself smiling despite his major break-in crisis, his brain flooding with sexually explicit, berween-the-sheets images of the hot-to-trot lady he'd spent the night with.
Maybe he should just chalk it up in the no-harm-done category and be more watchful and vigilant in the future. Put in a few more safeguards. Ramp up his security system. Take care not to fall asleep if he's entertaining Miss Comic Book at home.
On the plus side—and it was a very large plus—everything was secure, no fire walls had been breached, and
Universe X
was still safely within the circuits of his computer.
Although, no doubt, the time had come to use his safe
Whoever had been here was stupid enough to leave a trail.
He should have heard. He should have known someone was in the room next door.
That's what came of temporarily losing your sanity because some woman was hotter than hot.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Moving into the room, he shut the door, locked it, and methodically went through every sheet of paper on the work tables. Then he checked out the security codes on his computers. All of them had been tampered with but not breached. Not that it was likely. His security was solid as Fort Knox.
Not that he was happy that the printouts had been seen. But they were only variations on his original game and not likely to give clues to the new series he was creating.
He'd have to begin using his safe again. He'd gotten lazy when he shouldn't have—lulled into a false sense of security by his bucolic setting that could out-Mayberry the TV ideal. At least his wake-up call was relatively benign. No major damage had been done.
So—with industrial espionage rampant in his business— lock-down mode was back in effect. No way was he going to let his competitors crack the code on his next game, introduce it before him, and make a God-damned fortune.
But who the hell had broken into his office? And when?
With his fucking brain on hold all night, it could have been anytime between when Stella arrived and morning.
An outsider was a real long shot; the list of suspects was more likely those at the pool last night. Buddy wasn't a problem. He had more money than God. Brian was an unknown. Suspect number one. Kirsty? He doubted it, but maybe she wasn't as spacey as she looked. And she liked what money could buy. Nah… not likely. But okay, suspect number two.
Although, a certain amount of brains were required to hack into his computers, so Kirsty might be out of the lineup of likely suspects—unless she had some accomplice. Maybe Brian knew computers. He'd have to look into it.
The person he was getting twitchy about though, not only had the opportunity—if Brian and Kirsty had decamped early— but the time. And he was pretty much dead to the world this morning, thanks to the strenuous paces little Stella had put him through last night. Jesus, talk about being played for a sucker.
Sex aside, of course.
Compartmentalize to the max when it came to sex like that.
Dropping into a worn leather chair, he slid down and contemplated the injustice of finding some of the best sex this side of Bangkok and then discovering little Miss Comic Book Girl and her hot body were on a competitor's payroll.
Talk about paying a high price for a piece of ass.
Maybe. Perhaps. Definitely within the realm of possibility. Although he'd been the one who'd gone to her house. But she might have known any guy would have come to her eventually. She probably knew from past experience that all she had to do was sit and wait. Flipping back through his memory, he tried to recall whether Stella had shown any surprise at his unannounced arrival. She'd done that little I'm-not-sure-I-want-to-screw number, but come to think of it, she hadn't indicated any surprise. As for that little fiction about no sex, they'd blown that one—literally… in more ways than one.
Which begged the question, what was real and what was make believe about the fascinating, flame-hot Stella?
He found himself smiling despite his major break-in crisis, his brain flooding with sexually explicit, berween-the-sheets images of the hot-to-trot lady he'd spent the night with.
Maybe he should just chalk it up in the no-harm-done category and be more watchful and vigilant in the future. Put in a few more safeguards. Ramp up his security system. Take care not to fall asleep if he's entertaining Miss Comic Book at home.
On the plus side—and it was a very large plus—everything was secure, no fire walls had been breached, and
Universe X
was still safely within the circuits of his computer.
Although, no doubt, the time had come to use his safe
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