Idolized (Hollywood Stardust Book 3) (15 page)

(Puts hands on her hips, snaps her gum and taps her foot)

I know what you’re getting at.  Why would I call the police if I was trying to hide something?  I told you I was with a boyfriend that’s it.

POLICE OFFICER

Because you’re smart enough to cover your tracks.

ROXY AS STREET WALKER

Prove it.

(She flips her hair and walks off stage.)

DIRECTOR (O.S.)

Cut!  Print!  See Roxy?  You just have to play the game.

ROXY turns back, looks at the soundstage and shrugs.

Chapter Seven

IT WAS THE PAUSE that caught Cora’s attention first.

A slight pause occurred the moment she hit enter on one of the programs for Chargge.com’s backend maintenance, something not many would have noticed, but it was a pause nevertheless.

Her software didn’t pause. At least it didn’t pause unless she authorized it to pause. The only reason for such a delay would be someone working on the system, something else she didn’t authorize.

Just to make sure she wasn’t still foggy after her Ryder extravaganza last night, she closed the program, reopened it and attempted to run a statistical analysis on hits.

She hit enter.

The screen should flash and in less than two seconds she should have her graph.

One Mississippi.

Two Mississippi.

She gulped down some coffee.

Three Mississippi.

Four Mississippi.

The screen finally began to reload.

Five Mississippi.

By the time she got her report, she could sail down the Mississippi river while she leisurely sipped a cocktail.

She stopped counting, tossed her empty cup aside, and hit her intercom. “Viktor!”

In less time than this damn report was taking to generate, Viktor rushed inside her office. “What is it?”

“Look.” She leaned back and pointed at the screen. Still, she wasn’t treated to a graph. “We are going on almost thirty seconds.”

“Not possible.” He moved in and went to the other computer on her desk. “Let’s run a password report.”

Viktor’s huge fingers flew over the keys. With a bit of a flourish, he hit enter. A groan escaped his throat and he shook his head. “Someone is trying to hack Chargge.”

Though she suspected the same thing the second her program paused, at hearing Viktor voice her fears, her face heated, and she broke out into a sweat. She gathered up her hair and held it up away from her neck. “I want to go to Chargge.”

“We can fix it here.” Viktor put his hands over the keyboard as if ready to type. “I can call over.”

“No, in person is always better.” She kicked off the heels she wore for Ryder’s benefit and slipped on her flats. “People have years of emails, everything on our servers, and I want to be right there at ground zero until it’s fixed.”

“Let’s go.” Viktor led the way.

No sooner did she slide into the front seat of the car than her phone rang. “Ryder is calling me.” She hated the way her chest tightened. What if he wanted out of their deal? They hadn’t even begun.

“Are we going?” Victor put the key in the ignition.

“Didn’t I just say that?” She motioned forward and answered the phone. “Cora Caine.” Yes, she purposely used her work voice and greeting. Truth be told she didn’t have any other voice or greeting.

“My, my aren’t we official?” Ryder chuckled. “Since our social status has changed, and I know what you look like gloriously naked, you can just answer hello with a little breathy undertone.”

With his words she allowed herself to exhale. She gave a sideways glance to Viktor. “I will take that under advisement.”

“Oh, you’re at work. Okay, no sexy talk, I get it. I had a question.”

“All right. Ask.” She rubbed her hand over her eyes.

“May I drive the car? Rodger is, how shall I say this? Driving a little slow.” He lowered his voice.

“No, you may not drive the car until you’re on our insurance. Sit back and enjoy being driven by a professional.” Did they really need to have this conversation?

“Rodger is a professional driver?” Ryder asked.

“Yes. Is that all?” At the pounding taking residence in the center of her forehead, she squeezed the bridge of her nose.

“You sound tense, well more tense than normal,” he continued. “Everything okay there?”

“I just have to take care of some things over at Chargge.” Why they were talking about this was beyond her.

“I think you have a headache. I’ll get rid of it for you later. If you can’t wait, take two aspirin, but only aspirin until I get you the proper remedies, including me.” His tone was sexy, almost hypnotic.

Only because they were stuck three red lights from her other office, and he somehow knew she had a headache did she ask the next question. “How do you get rid of headaches?”

“It’s an art baby, one that you will be privy to later. I’ll let you go.”

She only hoped it involved some sort of sex. “Get your tasks done. Goodbye.”

Before she even had a chance to take a breath, they pulled up to the Chargge.com offices. “I need to get Ryder mobile or Rodger will run him over, but he’s just going to have to wait until I have time.” She didn’t even want to picture what her secretary’s day would be like doing whatever Ryder did.

“I will put that on my to-do list.” Viktor got out of the car.

She followed. “We also need to get him a key to the apartment and on the fingerprint scanner, and let security know he’s a resident now.”

Viktor got out his cellphone and began taking notes.

“Also, I need to know what he likes to drink and eat.” They ran through the lobby of the building. “What else do you need to keep a human alive?”

In a sudden move, Viktor stopped and spun toward her.

Though she tried to skid to a stop, she banged into him anyway.

He caught her by the shoulders and held her at arms’ length. “You can’t keep a plant alive.”

“I can keep my business alive.” Through everything, she needed to keep Ryder alive as well, and it all seemed a bit overwhelming. “I wonder if he uses any special male things. I never lived with a man before.”

They both looked each other.

“Let’s go to work.” She broke the uncomfortable silence.

“Good, I really don’t want to think of Ryder’s special male things,” Viktor mumbled.

Unsure how she felt about knowing about Ryder’s special male things, she rushed in front of Viktor into Chargge’s main office. Ryder or not, she had work.

All three of her employees in the front shot up.

One of the girls dropped some papers. “Miss Caine, we weren’t expecting you.”

“You should always be expecting me, then you won’t be startled when I arrive.” She shook her head. “I’ll be in the war room. Send Matthew Sumner to me and find out if Ivy Alexander is in the building.” Without waiting for a response, she continued on her march. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her employees stand or freeze, heard them gasp or whisper. She wished they would just continue their work.

At last she came to the war room, the room off the warehouse that housed their servers, where the main programming meetings took place. She sat at the small conference table and pulled her personal laptop out of her bag, logging onto the main system right as Matthew Sumner, their lead programmer, ran inside.

“Cora.” Laptop under his arm, he shut the door and slid by her side. “I noticed it too. If you check your email, I sent you a report about servers running slow, and I asked for approval to do a password analysis.”

Maybe if she had been thinking of work rather than Ryder’s male things she would have seen the email. Before she spoke, she logged onto her email. Sure enough right around the time she and Viktor were driving here, the email arrived. He followed the rules perfectly.

“Switch to the backup servers and swipe the main ones clean. We have plenty of redundancies built into the system so the threat of going down is merely that, a threat.” She stared up at the ceiling and ran the protocol through her mind. “Have everyone do a password update. Run an IP analysis if anyone was stupid enough to leave any DNA behind.”

Both Viktor and Matthew typed away on their respective machines.

“Above all else, make sure nothing is breeched. I refuse to end up in the media with someone leaking emails or anything else.” Even making a sex tape with Ryder Scott and posting it on her site couldn’t fix that situation. “I’ll be staying here until we are safely on the other server, and all the systems have been checked by me.”

Matthew nodded and both he and Viktor continued their work.

At a light knock on the door, she held her hand up, stopping the men from moving. She opened the door to Ivy Alexander.

“The girls at the front said you asked for me?” Ivy didn’t look her directly in the eye.

“Yes, come in. Close the door behind you.” Cora turned on her heel and went to the end of the conference table far away from the men.

Ivy followed and once seated waved to Matthew. Word on the street had it the two used to date or something, Cora wasn’t really sure, all she knew was she just received Matthew’s wedding invitation to a woman named Bambi who evidently worked for Drew Fulton. Ugh. It sounded like an incestuous soap opera.

“Is everything all right?” Ivy crossed her legs and fiddled with the hem of what appeared to be a vintage 1960s dress.

If Cora had a penny for every time someone asked her that question the second they sat down in front of her, she would have another billion dollars in her account. “Has something happened that would make things not all right?”

Ivy sat back. “Well, considering you have never truly talked to me, and only talked to my husband, I think it’s a valid question.”

Finally, someone who had a reason for asking. “Fair enough.” Cora couldn’t stop a slight smile. “Everything’s fine.” She supposed a little small talk was in order. “Are you ready to start shooting next week?”

“I have only a small part, but yes.” Ivy beamed at her. “We’re going to cover the shoot for Chargge as well.”

All right, enough chatter. “I have a question for you.”

Ivy widened her eyes. “All right.”

Before leaning in to her new confidant, Cora glanced over at the men. With them still working, she went for it. “Do you know anything about Ryder?”

“Something tells me you know much more about him than I do.” Ivy’s eyes sparkled.

With a huff, she continued. “Aside from that, is there anything I should know about the care and feeding of him?”

“As far as food, he’s a vegan and likes pancakes.” Ivy pressed her lips together, then covered her mouth and coughed. “As far as care, I have heard Logan describe him as…”

Cora held her breath waiting to hear what one Mr. Alexander had to say about her new bedmate and her phone rang. Again, Ryder. She held up one finger to Ivy telling her to wait, and answered. “Cora Caine.”

“Ryder Scott.” His deep voice vibrated through the phone. “I have a question for you.”

“Seems to be a theme. What do you need?” She did her best not to glance in Ivy’s direction.

“First, I wanted to know what name comes up when I call you. Is it just Ryder? My initials, a heart?”

“This is why you called me?” What was with all the senseless conversation today?

“No, that just popped into my head when I called you. Now I want to know.” He laughed.

She quickly glanced at her phone and put it back to her ear. “It says Ryder Scott.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ivy straighten up. “What does mine say?” At her question she ground her teeth together.

“CC.”

Her heart betrayed her and sped a little at the nickname he bestowed upon her and the blunt way he said it. Not that other people hadn’t called her that before, or that her business wasn’t named CC Enterprises, his way just had more flair. “Very well, what did you need?”