And she would be happy, too, damn it. So what if she didn’t have a yummy guy to invite as her date on the cruise? So what if all her friends had either a serious boyfriend or a husband, and a few had kids, too? She wasn’t in some relationship competition with them, and besides, being unattached allowed her to concentrate on a job that she loved, a job that allowed her to live very well.
But a girl about to turn thirty might logically take stock of her situation and look for loose ends to tie up before launching into her third decade. In Taryn’s case, that meant settling the Cole Evergreen question.
She’d never found out why he had dumped her ten years before, and a lack of resolution made forgetting him near impossible. Well, that, and the memory or how perfect they’d been for each other, mentally and sexually. She needed to talk to the guy, and she knew exactly how to get his attention.
Last night she’d hacked into the Evergreen Industries database and left a clear message—You’re vulnerable. Call me. I can fix it. If he was still the Cole she’d known and loved, she figured he would respond to that. But he hadn’t called, and waiting was no fun.
Maybe he hadn’t found it yet. Maybe he’d found it and was discussing it with his staff. Maybe he was discussing it with whatever woman was currently in his life. He wasn’t married. She’d researched that.
But she was prepared to discover that he was involved with someone. At twenty-two he’d been so beautiful—brilliant green eyes, luxurious dark hair and an amazingly taut body for someone who didn’t put much effort into keeping in shape. And he could make love like no one she’d found since. Add to that his intelligence and his adorable tendency to blurt out the truth, no matter what, and he’d been all she’d ever wanted in a man.
There was the rub. She’d compared every guy who’d come along after to Cole. No one else had stood a chance. And that was why she lived alone in this elegant apartment overlooking the harbor, and why she would be dateless for her birthday party.
Draining her glass, she turned away from the view.
Her intercom buzzed before she’d made it to the kitchen to start dinner. Setting down her wineglass, she walked to the front door and pressed the button connected to the lobby’s video camera. She wasn’t expecting anyone. And then she spotted the man standing in the lobby talking to Tom, the security guard, and nearly had a heart attack. Never in her wildest dreams had she thought Cole would appear in person, and unannounced, at that. She pushed the intercom button. “Hi, Tom.”
“Hello, Miss Harper. You have a visitor. Shall I send him up?”
She gulped. “Yes.” The elevator was fast. He’d be here in no time. Running into the bathroom, she finger-combed her short curls, but she couldn’t change clothes or put on makeup, or—damn it! Her doorbell was already chiming.
Heart pounding, she made herself walk back to the front door, but she was shaking. She fumbled with the lock and finally managed to open it, but her head buzzed from a massive adrenaline rush. “Cole?”
Those emerald green eyes hadn’t lost a fraction of their intensity. His gaze swept over her in typical Cole fashion, as if he were taking inventory. “Hello, Taryn. May I come in?”
“Sure.” Doing her best to breathe normally, she stepped back from the door.
He strode through it confidently. His long wool coat, black as his hair, carried with it the cool tang of December in Seattle. There was another scent, too. Apparently he still wore his distinctive peppermint aftershave.
In college he’d shaved twice a day, especially if they were spending the night together. Judging from the smoothness of his square jaw, he’d used a razor sometime in the past hour. One whiff of his freshly applied aftershave rocketed her back to long winter nights spent in his bed.
Dear God, her physical reaction to him hadn’t changed. He showed up and instantly her body became welcoming, yielding and decidedly moist. How inconvenient, especially because he didn’t look particularly happy to see her. No smile, no warmth, only a strong sense of purpose, which she recognized from the old days.
He’d identified a problem and he’d come up with a solution. Once Cole Evergreen saw his way through an issue, he proceeded with single-minded intent. But she couldn’t figure out why he had come here instead of contacting her by phone or even by email. That didn’t seem particularly efficient.
He pulled off his black leather gloves and turned to her. “It’s about the database.”
“I figured.” She noticed he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, confirming her intel about him not being married. The coat underscored the drama that had always lurked beneath the surface of this complicated, beautiful man. As he unbuttoned it, her quick survey confirmed that he hadn’t let himself get soft in the middle. “Can I take your coat?” she asked.
“I’m not here to chat, Taryn. Obviously I need your services. Knowing your talent, the job shouldn’t take long. Two or three days, at most. Can you leave tonight?”
She stared at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“I want to hire you, exactly as you suggested. You’re the only person who’s ever hacked into my database, so I want you to fix whatever weaknesses are there. The situation is critical. I’d like you to start tomorrow. Can you do that?”
“No, I can’t do that!” She’d expected a response, a conversation, maybe even a request that she correct the problem, but not with this kind of urgency. “Look, Cole, I—” She’d thought bringing up the past would be relatively easy, and maybe it would have been on the phone. But face-to-face, her courage failed her. “Just because I did it, don’t get paranoid and think you have a huge security problem. You don’t. I was able to get in because I know your design habits, which made it easier for me.”
“What prevents you from coming with me tonight?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“You hacked into my database. That makes it my business.”
She wished that his forceful pursuit of a goal didn’t turn her on so much. But she remembered he’d been that way in bed, too. Her pleasure had been his goal at all times, and wow, had he delivered on that promise.
He sighed and glanced away. “I’m sorry. I’m going about this all wrong.”
Oh. Her heart gave a familiar lurch, as it used to do anytime he revealed the vulnerability beneath his determined exterior. With a flash of insight, she understood the motivation behind his steamrolling behavior. She’d embarrassed him by hacking into a system he’d designed.
Chances were he hadn’t kept the situation to himself, either. “Who knows I hacked in?” she asked gently. “Besides you, I mean.”
His attention returned to her, his expression resigned. “Everyone at the administration level of the business, which includes both my brothers, my sister and our new head of security. I had to tell them.”
No, he didn’t have to tell them, but she should have guessed that he would. His unflinching honesty and sense of responsibility would have forced him to admit that his database wasn’t a hundred percent secure, no matter how painful that admission had been for him to make.
She hadn’t thought
