His Secret Desire Read online

  "I've got nothing to hide Mr. Hargrave. If you have something to say to me then I suggest you go right ahead and say it, because I don’t have time in my life for games."

  "Nothing to hide except that military grade privacy technology you have protecting all of your personal devices. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing the government doesn’t know much about your 'business' activities."

  Katy sat down again. If this was it, the knock on the door she had feared since she got into the business then she would have no option but to face it head on.

  "And what's your connection to the government Mr. Hargrave? Why keep me in suspense? Go ahead and tell me what's on your mind."

  "I have no connection to the government but I'm sure they would love to know about that technology you're using. Maybe they'd be interested in your client list as well."

  He was hitting her right where it hurt. It couldn't be co-incidence, this bastard knew exactly what he was doing.

  "Is this what they call a 'shakedown'? You soften me up with some threats first and then get me to play ball?"

  Hargrave watched her and smiled inwardly. The walls surrounding this mystery were coming down even faster than he had anticipated. A beautiful woman obsessed with privacy to the extent of making it her profession. Stripping her down to the bare naked truth would be about the most satisfying thing in the world, his ultimate conquest yet, but it would be, like always, on his terms; he would have her, but it would be within an environment that was entirely under his control.

  "Go." He said. "You're obviously smart enough to figure out what the flaw in your security is all by yourself. You don’t need me and I certainly don’t need you."

  It was an insult to her professionalism, a challenge to her competence, and it stung her deeply.

  "You're bluffing Hargrave. I'll admit you're good with that sexy poker face of yours--" She stopped in mid sentence and watched his lips curl up into the hint of a smile.

  "Don’t worry Ms. Maldon," he said, "I can assure you that the attraction is mutual."

  "I didn't say I was attracted to you, I just said, just said that--"

  "You said I was sexy."

  Katy threw her head back and sighed. What did it really matter anyway?

  "Okay, so I find you attractive, big deal, the important thing is that you're bluffing. Your glasses didn’t tell you jack squat because if they had you wouldn't have had to approach me and ask my name, you wouldn't have to ask about my reputation and you certainly wouldn't have to make idle threats about the government being interested in my perfectly ordinary privacy software controls."

  "I don’t bluff Ms. Maldon. Ever. Now I'm telling you that I know something about you that you can't even imagine, but I need to know more, and one way or the other I intend to find out, but I'm going to give you a choice here."

  "Is that so?"

  He reached into his jacket and drew out a sleek, embossed business card and pushed it across the table to her.

  "I'm taking a chance here by revealing to you exactly who I am." He said.

  Katy looked suspiciously at the card, as though the mere accepting of it would change her life irrevocably.

  "Take it." He said. "It's just a business card, not a subpoena."

  Everything in her told her to walk away from this. Everything except one tiny voice inside. Privacy had been Katy's holy grail for three long years and she had come to depend upon the bubble of invisibility that she had cloaked herself in, reveled in it even sometimes. The tiny voice inside her could barely be heard above all of the alarm bells going off in her head but it was there, insisting, crying out to heard, wanting to be known, needing to be seen, desperately wanting to be recognized.

  She reached out her hand and picked up the card. It read:

  Clayton Hargrave

  Hargrave Robotics Inc

  Below the name was a mobile number and email address. Katy breathed a sigh of relief; at least he wasn't government. She had heard of the company but didn't know much about it, from what she remembered it had an excellent reputation and was a pioneer in the field of nano parts for wearable technology. So she had been dead right about the glasses all along and he hadn't been lying about them either.

  "So what's the angle Hargrave? Your x-ray specs couldn’t profile me, is that such a big problem for you?"

  "I've been wearing those glasses for months and you're the first person to see them. To me that's a big deal. You're also the first person in possession of modern technology who's come up a total blank for me and that is a huge problem." He paused. "However, like all problems, there is a solution."

  "I'm all ears."

  "You come to work for me at Hargrave Robotics."

  Katy smiled.

  "Thank you Mr. Hargrave, but I'm not looking for a job."

  "You haven't heard the conditions yet."

  "Okay, if it will keep you happy, what are the conditions?"

  "Number one, you come to work for me personally and exclusively. No other clients. My business and I will be your number one and only priority."

  "I'm sorry Hargrave but I don't do exclusivity deals."

  "Number two, you will take your best year to date and then double the amount to arrive at your total annual salary."

  He watched her, waiting for her reaction. She did her best to remain cool. She didn't really know this man, this could be all hot air.

  "Triple it and then maybe." She said.

  "Done. My last and final condition is that you are totally honest with me, meaning specifically that I need to know everything about you. No question is off limits. If you are to protect my privacy this means you will learn a lot about my personal life, likewise I need to know about yours, intimately and in detail, if we are to trust each other and work together in harmony."

  Katy started to laugh, although she wasn't sure exactly why. Her entire body had suffered a kind of contraction at the idea of revealing everything to anyone, particularly to a stranger. More particularly to a stranger who she had had two lightning fast sexual fantasies about since meeting him just minutes ago. At the same time, the idea of learning more about Clayton Hargrave, whoever he really was, knowing him in intimate detail and learning about his personal life, was kind of thrilling to her. If she was crazy enough to accept it, then this would be an assignment like no other she had ever had.

  "Why are you laughing?" He asked.

  "You have no idea how totally ridiculous what you just asked me is. Like I said, I don’t do exclusivity and as for you learning everything there is to know about me? Forget it. You either trust me or you don't, so the answer is no. We can discuss you hiring me on the usual terms, but that's as far as it goes."

  Clayton took a breath and then leaned forward onto the table between them.

  "That Ms. Maldon, is unfortunately a bigger problem than you spotting my technology or being able to evade it. A much bigger problem. But it's not the problem I'm most concerned about."

  A huge part of Katy wanted to just bolt and run. This was unwanted interest at its most intense, but if she just ran wouldn't it only make things worse?

  Clayton leaned in even closer towards her. There were only a couple of people in the café now and just one teenage staff member busy cleaning off a counter top.

  "Come here." He said to her. Katy didn’t like being told what to do. Not usually, but there was something about Clayton that was different. Her heart hadn’t stopped racing since he had sat down in front of her. She had no interest in rock stars or celebrities, not unless they were clients, but this man was making her feel like a little girl again looking at her favorite boy band member. It was compelling, intoxicating and incredibly frustrating all at the same time.

  She leaned in towards him.

  He looked into her eyes with only inches between them and my God was he gorgeous. She could only imagine melting into bed with him, feeling his mouth against hers, his arms surrounding her, and then in an instant he was there, really there; his lips were
against hers.

  This was happening. This was real and the sensation was intoxicating. The daring nature of his public act of stolen intimacy sent a rush of excitement swirling through her. it was more physical contact than she had had with a member of the opposite sex in years.

  The pressure of his lips lasted just a moment, just long enough for him to reassure himself that she would not pull away from him, at least not for a moment, and then he was gone again.

  "That," he said with complete composure, "is the biggest problem of all."

  He stood up, put his glasses back on and smiled.

  "Don’t look so shocked." He said. "Surely I'm not the first man to lose control of himself in your presence."

  Uncharacteristically, Katy had nothing to say.

  "I'll be in touch." He said and then walked out of the café, leaving Katy sitting in a daze.

  Maria, the little old lady sitting opposite Katy who she regularly sat with and bought coffee for, caught her eye and smiled.

  "Sometimes you have to give a little to get a little honey. Don’t be like me and hide it all away your whole life. Nobody even knows who the hell I am anymore…" her voice trailed off into a mumble and the smile left the old woman's face.

  Chapter Two

  Katy set the business card onto the passenger seat beside her and started her drive home. She lived a little outside of town in a small farm house that she had converted into a sanctuary of absolute privacy. It was invisible from the road that led up to it and if you didn't know it was there you would never guess that any one lived there.

  She still had an impulse to throw the card away and forget about Clayton Hargrave. In fact, she felt an impulse today to throw everything away and to disappear again, leaving no trace of her existence in the little north eastern town she had called home for nearly a year. The encounter had left her profoundly unsettled. Her business had depended for a long time on a complex interaction of technology and instinct and today threatened to be her first major screw up. She shouldn't have introduced herself as a privacy specialist, that was a major mistake. Over confidence maybe? Or had she been caught off guard by the good-looking stranger?

  Then there was the eye-wear. It would have been better if she had just let him record her than to challenge him on it. Facial recognition would bring up nothing about her, she had made sure of that and there wasn't a signal coming off her that could be traced to anything, anywhere. She conducted regular scans to make sure she was clean.

  This was what you would call a bad day at the office.

  She arrived home and let herself in just as her cell phone went. It would be her celebrity client asking how things were going in shutting down the story of his x-rated, class A indiscretions.

  No more celebrities. She swore to herself. Business people were better; more rational and more serious about their privacy. This celebrated idiot was blaming her for his cocaine fuelled episode with hookers, something she had never guaranteed she could protect him against. Her specialty was electronic privacy, not damage control for idiots with self-destructive behavior patterns.

  "Maldon." She answered the phone coldly.

  "Katy Maldon?" The male voice was too familiar, too frighteningly recent. She had only left the café a bare half hour ago.

  "How did you get this number?"

  "I got it from Peter Goldstein, he recommended your services very highly."

  "Who is this?"

  "My name is Dale Hargrave, of Hargrave Robotics."

  "What the hell is this crap?"

  There was a pause.

  "Peter told me you weren't exactly friendly but this is a little too much." The man said.

  Katy's mind raced; first she meets Clayton Hargrave in her favorite local java house where he calls her out on her privacy technology but also offers her a high paying job in his company. Then he plants his gorgeous lips on hers in public, leaving her stunned. Now she gets a call from someone else from Hargrave Robotics trying to contract her services as well?

  Too much of a damn co-incidence. This day was crazy enough as it was, she was not going to let it get any worse.

  "I'm not taking on new clients at the moment Mr. Hargrave. Thanks for the call."

  "Now hold on a minute Maldon, you haven't even heard me out yet."

  "This conversation is over."

  She ended the call and sat down. This day wasn’t getting any easier. She would need to unwind somehow, so she headed to her bedroom and got her running clothes. There was a quiet five mile run she did regularly in the woods behind her home that always helped to get her back on track when she couldn't shake the unease. She put on the sneakers, grabbed her iPod and headed out. She was about a mile into the run when stopped, removed the buds from her ears and did a slow, full three sixty turn, scanning the forest all around her and the trail behind. It was something she had never thought to do before, but today she had the constant gnawing feeling that the pounding music in her ears was masking something else, hiding another noise in her surroundings.

  Come on Katy, shake it off, let's get going.

  She continued her run but didn't put the headphones back in. Something was wrong, she just couldn't put her finger on it and although her heart was racing from the run she couldn't ignore the underlying trace of anxiety adding to the rapid pace of her pulse.

  She pressed on, setting a faster pace than usual and eventually saw her house coming up ahead, the last hill before arriving home. She instinctively breathed a sigh of relief thinking of the relative security of being in her house again.

  "Oh shit." She stopped dead in her tracks.

  There was a sleek car outside her house with no reason in the world for it to be there. Katy Maldon didn’t do visitors and nobody ever got lost in the woods out this way.

  She looked behind her and considered running back into the woods, but she had just come from there and had been almost overcome by the dread feeling of paranoia.

  No. She would wait and watch from where she was. No more bad decisions today.

  She began to back away down the hill away from the house.

  "Katy." The voice made her freeze. "Ms. Maldon, I'm presuming that's you over there."

  It was him. Him again. Clayton Hargrave had come into view, standing on the edge of her porch, still dressed to run the world in his sharp business attire and looking as relaxed about having stalked her to her home as though he were an old friend she had invited over for coffee every other Wednesday.

  "What do you want Hargrave?" She said, advancing up the hill towards him, her instinct for attack kicking into high gear. "And how did you find me? No-one has this address."

  Clayton smiled.

  "Well that's hardly true, now is it?" He said playfully. "I have it. My team has it and we aren't no-one."

  Stay low. Stay clean. Leave no trace. Her mantra, the one she shared with her oldest friend and professional associate Suzy Falstaff, had just been seriously, possibly irreparably violated.

  "You're beginning to annoy me Hargrave. I said I wasn't interested in your offer and you weren't invited up here so I think you need to leave my property before I call the police."

  "Do the police have this address as well?"

  "I can give it to them pretty easily."

  "Ms. Maldon, really, I think you're getting the wrong idea here. The fact is that I tried getting your number but obviously you haven't got one listed and as your cell phone signal is masked and there's no fixed line coming into this house then I had to be creative."

  "This is bullshit. I'm calling the police."

  "There's really no need for that. Besides, something tells me that someone as interested in privacy as you probably doesn’t need any extra attention from the authorities." He stopped and waited, calling her bluff. "Why else would you be living out here in the middle of nowhere in a property listed as vacant."

  Shit. Katy had to hold on tight not to lose it. The asshole had done his homework and this was getting way too much in a very short
amount of time.

  "You really are one nosy little sun of a gun, aren't you?"

  "Ms. Maldon, may I please come inside and sit down? I'm beginning to get the impression that I'm not welcome here, standing out on your porch like this."

  Despite the fact that bringing someone inside her home was anathema to her, Katy knew he was right. She definitely did not want cops snooping around and asking questions.

  "Okay Hargrave, you can come inside but then I want answers."

  She walked up to the house and passed within inches of the tall man on the porch in order to get to her front door. He smelled good, masculine, expensive, understated, damn sexy, but it didn't make her feel any better. If anything it was having the opposite effect.

  "You'll have to excuse me." She said. "I've just been running."

  He smiled and followed her into the house.

  "Can I get you anything?" She asked.

  "Wow." He said. "No really, I mean wow. How long have you lived here?"

  "That's none of your business."

  "The house was built four years ago but never occupied. Don’t tell me you've been living here all that time."

  He was right about the house but way off on the time frame. He obviously didn't know everything, or was pretending not to.

  "What if I have?" She said.

  "Well what do you have against pictures for a start?"

  She looked around. It was true that she had never hung a single picture on the walls. They had been bare for so long she had forgotten about them.

  "I like walls." She said. "Why don’t you sit down, I'll get you some coffee."

  "Do you have any tea?" He asked, sitting down on a barstool by her kitchen area counter top.

  "No. Just coffee. I've got Costa Rican, Colombian, some Java Sumatra--"

  "Got any Jamaica Blue Mountain?"

  "You don’t ask for much do you? That stuff is a little pricy for me. Not that I wouldn't mind tasting it of course."