Job Hunt by Jackie Keswick Page A

remit. The fact stuck in his craw, though he was honest enough to admit that Jack grown up and making his own decisions was enticing for entirely different reasons.
    The beautiful woman facing him across the tea table smiled ever so slightly. “You didn’t answer my question,” she said.
    “Alex, it’s not my place to make his choices. Do I want him to stick his head into a hornet’s nest and rip open wounds from his past? Hell no! Do I want him to do what he needs to be at peace? Yes, I do. Does that answer your question?”
    “More than you realize, perhaps.”
    His teacup rattled in the saucer, and Gareth growled in frustration. It was Friday—and yes, people were a little more relaxed on Fridays—but that shouldn’t have translated into everyone thinking that teasing him would be a good idea. Jack had almost driven him insane that morning and—within minutes of stepping into his new office—had promptly recruited Frazer to join in the mayhem.
    For two specialists of their caliber, defining the spec for Jack’s workstation should have been the work of moments. Or at least that’s what Gareth had thought. Instead the two started drooling over processors, memory, and various esoteric components as if they were pictures in a dirty magazine, arguing in high, excited voices and trading insults as if they’d been married for twenty years. And the way Jack, in his tight black jeans, kept bending over the desk to point at stuff in the catalogue Frazer was holding…. Gareth had left them to it in the end and had holed up in his office, intent on burying himself in work.
    Only to end up watching Jack on the security feed instead. Grainy images of Jack smiling and arguing blended with images of Jack barefoot and in tight leather trousers, of soft skin under his hands, of Jack writhing and shuddering in his arms until Gareth could barely contain himself.
    Yeah, he’d sure got it bad in a hurry.
     
     
    “Y OUR APPLICATION was most impressive.”
    “Thank you.” Jack leaned back in the comfortable armchair and kept his hands loosely in his lap. He wondered if the chairs were deep red for a reason, an imaginary hot seat designed to make the occupants squirm and spill secrets they’d rather keep hidden. It was a fanciful notion but not easily dismissed given the company. The woman sitting opposite him, Alexandra Marston, might look unassuming with her neat figure and neater bob, but she had a stare like a power drill.
    Fortunately, Jack was years past getting flustered by stares. Even ones as intent as hers.
    “You provided an extremely detailed analysis of the shortcomings of the company’s network as part of your approach to us.” Marston began their conversation, her voice soft and melodious. “Why?”
    “Network security is one of my specialties. You could say I was showing off my talents.”
    “I could also draw a very different conclusion.”
    Hot seat, definitely, Jack decided. At least she wasn’t beating around the bush. “I don’t list blackmail as one of my specialties.”
    Alexandra Marston’s smile lit her face from within, like the glow of a candle lights a stained-glass window on a dark night. Jack loved the expression, and it drew a smile from him in return. “It’s part of my preparation,” he offered. “I see no point in applying to a company that does not need my skills.”
    “You made your decision where to apply based on whether the company needed your skills?”
    Jack nodded. “It was one of my criteria, yes.”
    “May I ask what other criteria you applied?”
    “Integrity, cash flow, reputation, ethics, corporate policies, type and nature of competition, short- and long-term threat level,” Jack recited in an almost bored voice. Then he sat back and waited for it.
    Marston busied herself making notes on a pad. She used a type of shorthand Jack couldn’t decipher from his position, but then she listed the criteria he had just recited in plain script. “You realize you’ve