CHAPTER SEVEN
Compton Finance was located right in the center of the area called City of London, the square mile of land dominated by British finance—the banking district. The offices took up three floors in an awe-inspiring glass skyscraper. It was the sort of place Draco never thought he’d enter in physical form, but used to get a kick out of trying to hack.
Virtual invasion they’d called it. Sean came up with that one. Truth of the matter was Draco didn’t need to walk in there to wreak havoc, but it was quite a kick being able to do so.
“Stay close,” Lara murmured as they entered the reception area.
She was really nervous, he could tell.
“Sure thing, Sweetheart.” He peered at the other suited workers heading into the building suspiciously. As far as he was concerned this was not only foreign land, it was enemy territory. What would Sean think of this? he wondered as he strolled past the security guards.
“You’re not going to bail out on me are you?” Lara asked under her breath while they waited in the corridor of elevator doors.
“No, just taking it all in.” He gave her a quick smile when he saw the dismay on her face. She really thought he was going to run out on her. No way. This was a golden opportunity to wreak revenge. Plus the added bonus of the intimacy they’d shared the night before. Right by her side, that’s where he was staying.
An elevator door opened and a crowd of workers moved toward it.
They were crammed in at the back, but the bodies didn’t jostle. They stood like sentinels. He felt her arm against his and instinctively reached out and took her hand.
She glanced up at him surprised. It was the first time she’d looked directly into his eyes for longer than a moment that morning. She’d been totally business like and when he’d made reference to what happened between them the night before, in the cab, she quickly redirected the conversation.
“Here we are, tenth floor.” She nudged him when the elevator doors opened, easing through the crowd to exit.
Draco followed. Moments later they walked down a corridor flanked by glass walls, beyond which he saw numerous people at desks divided by low walls. He’d never been in a place like it. He’d imagined it enough times though, when they were hacking. They used to make jokes about people working like drones at their desks, the creativity quashed out of them by the people at the top, the people who are making the real money. Surprisingly, he felt the sharp bite of anticipation to delve deeper into the environment.
“We’re reporting to my dad first. He likes to meet everybody who comes through the doors to work here.” She stared at him as if trying to gauge his reaction.
Draco shrugged. “Suits me.”
At the far end of the corridor they passed through two sets of glass double doors into a more hushed area. An ice-maiden receptionist sat behind a flash desk with Compton scrolled artfully across the front of it, like it was handwritten. Draco stifled a laugh. The guy ought to be more precious about his signature.
“Morning Janice.” Lara nodded across the woman who rose to greet them. “Is he busy?”
The ice-maiden stood up from behind the desk and eyed Draco up and down with interest as she did so. “He’s expecting you. Go right in.”
She didn’t point out the way, but Draco supposed Lara would know exactly where they were going.
The receptionist smiled at him, which barely altered her ice-like appearance. He nodded at her. Lara watched. Was she going to supervise his every move? It didn’t bother him, but he figured all the attention might go to his head.
They approached the first non-glass door they’d encountered in the Compton offices. It bore a sign stating Compton Senior. Interesting. Compton Senior had two juniors in house, not including Lara who wasn’t even officially in house. Presumably he’d adopted the “Senior” part of his title when he invited his sons on board. To save confusion, or as some sort of announcement about their eventual destiny? Draco suddenly didn’t blame Lara for trying to elbow her way in here, under the circs. If his own sisters were treated as outsiders there’d be hell to pay for everyone involved.
Lara paused at the pale grey door, one hand raised as if to knock, the other on the polished steel door handle. The pause was overly long.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m about to put you at the driver’s seat of this crazy rollercoaster, God help me.” Her cheekbones were stained red, her eyes bright.
“You love the danger.” She really did, even if she was fretting about how it would go. There was a thrill there too.
Her eyelids lowered a fraction and she gave a wry smile. “Maybe I do, but could you try not to mess this up for me, please?”
“Chill. I’ll play my part, no messing.” Not yet anyway, he silently added.
She straightened up and took a deep breath. “Right. Ready?”
Standing to attention, he saluted. “Yes ma’am.”
She rolled her eyes. “I hope I’m not going to regret this.”
He reached out and put his hand on her arm to stop her turning the handle. “I’ll get you what you need, I promise.”
She might regret his involvement later down the line, but he’d cover his trail so she wouldn’t be implicated, and he would uphold his part of the contract. She nodded, her eyes searching his, and then tapped the door before turning the door handle.
Draco’s attention quickly focused as he entered the stronghold of Compton Finances. The office was jaw-dropping. It wasn’t the impressive office suite, the plush easy chairs around a meeting table, or the astonishing view from the windows. It was the wall of screens opposite. Floor to ceiling, they scrolled information. Trading figures, he guessed. One screen alternated bore a list of cities with digital clocks showing local time and temperature.
The man behind the desk looked powerful and wealthy, as expected, but Draco wasn’t prepared for the troubled eyes and the overcast expression. They shadowed the rugged features of the man who put out his hand as he rose from his desk.
“Welcome, Steven. Lara’s told me a lot about your skills.”
She had? “Thank you for the opportunity, Sir.”
Draco took the outreached hand and clasped it firmly, thinking of Sean standing in court, handcuffed and awaiting sentencing.
Compton Senior scrutinised him, and Draco recognized some of the keen edge he’d seen reflected in Lara’s eyes.
“We don’t take on many students, and those we do usually hope for the opportunity of a vacancy later on. If you do well, it’ll put you in a good position for any Finance house, not just this one.” He sat back down. “Right, I have a little project I’ve organized for you two to work on together.” His attention went to Lara and he smiled.
Lara seemed relieved. Perhaps she thought he’d put them on separate projects. It suited Draco to keep her close at hand. He figured it would quickly get boring otherwise.
“What did you have in mind?” Lara asked.
“Since you spoke so highly of your Steven’s IT skills I figured a database project, something you can both sink your teeth into. It’s a pretty big task, couple of week’s work, maybe more.” His attention returned to Draco. “Unless you turn out to be some sort of wonder kid, young man. Lara seemed to think you would be.” Humor flitted in his eyes as well as assessment.
“I hope Lara hasn’t raised your expectations too high, Sir.” Draco glanced her way. Her cheekbones were flushed and she looked unsure.
However, Compton Senior gave a loud belly laugh. “She clearly wanted you by her side, young man.”
Draco was getting irritated by the young man reference he kept getting. It was unnecessarily patronizing. Clearly he’d only given the opportunity because his daughter requested him to do so. Little did Compton Senior know. Draco could hardly wait to see his face when he found out Lara was plotting to outdo her brothers in sourcing the company’s breach.
He resisted the temptation to smart mouth the company owner. The less her dad suspected the better. Right now he seemed to just think he was doing his daughter right by keeping her love interest handy.
He looked at Draco expectantly. “Lara’s done you a big favor.”
Draco bristled. “Can I ask the nature of the database?”
“The Human Resources backbone. We need something a bit more tidy and usable than we currently have.”
Tidying up a Human Resources database. Riveting. Draco forced a smile. He’d been hoping for IT, something that might cover his tracks as he scouted.
Compton Senior gestured at the door. “Okay, Princess. Take Steven down to get a security pass. I’ve had two desks set up in the human resources division for you.”
The meeting was over.
After a detour to security, where he was issued a temporary access pass, they went to the HR area, a quiet corner of the ninth floor.
Susanna, the human resources manager, was warm and friendly. She explained how the division worked and informed them the current database had been outsourced and she didn’t like using it. She showed them their desks and told them to shout if they needed anything.
“Great,” Lara said, depositing her bag on the desk. “Doesn’t look like she’ll be looking over our shoulders.”
She was a good twenty feet away, well outside eavesdropping distance.
Draco eased into the chair, eagerly checking out all the kit on the desk. State of the art, set up for hot-desking. As well as the deskbound work station a shiny new tablet—still in its box—sat on each of the chairs. Feeling like a kid at Christmas, he enjoyed unwrapping the goodies while the work station fired up. He logged on and gave the password he’d been issued. Then he realized Lara was sitting in the chair next to him, anxiously looking around the room. She hadn’t logged on to her computer and looked tense. “What’s the matter?”
“I feel as if everybody knows, as if everybody’s watching us.”
“Chill out, the hardest part is done.”
She looked back at him with anxious eyes. “Now that we’re here, it feels really heavy.”
Heavy? Draco was amused but there was a serious side too, something he hadn’t anticipated. Had she bitten off more than she could chew? Did she want to go back on the plan? “And there was me thinking you were in charge of everything, you in your fancy office armor and all.”
She forced a smile.
“Hey.” He tried to speak reassuringly, and moved nearer to her, clasping her hand in his. “You’re not having a change of heart, are you?”
She shook her head, her shoulders relaxing bit. “No. Sorry. I just didn’t expect to feel like this…like I’m sticking out like a sore thumb.”
Draco peered over the edge of the cube, glancing around the vast open plan offices. “Yeah well, we’re new. They looked at us when we walked in here, but they’ve gone back to work now.” Again he squeezed her hand. “We’ll soon be part of the furniture.”
She seemed to appreciate that, and squeezed his hand back. “Thanks, it’s supposed to be me assuring you we’re safely undercover.”
“Hey moll, we’re in this together now.” He gave her his most gangster voice.
It did the trick. She had to cover her mouth as she giggled.
It was good to see her laughing.
He looked around, trying to gain his bearings. “So how do we get a coffee around here?”
“Good call. I’ll show you where the kitchenette and the bathrooms are.” She rose to her feet.
Draco followed. Scanning the room as they passed through it, he noticed a couple of the workers glanced at them with curiosity, but only momentarily. He figured the only reason they were interested was because Lara was Compton’s daughter. Otherwise they were student placements and they’d be gone in a couple of weeks. They’d been given a mundane project. It represented ticking the boxes for Human Resources, giving students the chance to have a go in the workplace.
The kitchen area was pretty impressive, housing three microwaves, a hob, an instant hot drinks machine offering a vast array of options, and an instant hot water machine on the wall. Four refuse containers were lined up, designating what sort of goods could be put in each, as well as polite notices encouraging recycling and cleaning up after yourself.
Lara grabbed two tall mugs from one of the cupboards and went over to a machine, tapping on the touch sensitive screen. “The coffee’s not great, but it’s not awful, and it’s free.”
“Perks of the job, huh?” Draco followed behind her to investigate.
Lara filled the mugs and pushed one in his direction. “I suppose you could call it that.”
He watched the sheen on her hair as she moved, noticing too the way her ear studs worked, details he absorbed into his memory. She was the real perk, and he let her fill his senses, wanting to store every memory of being around her.
When he didn’t lift the cup, she looked at him quizzically. Her eyes widened.
He realized he was staring and reached for the cup she offered. She continued to stare at him. What was she thinking?
Draco wanted to kiss her, regardless of where they were. That urge hadn’t gone anywhere since the night before. It’d only intensified.
Hell, why not? Compton Senior clearly thought they were an item. That had been obvious. Perhaps it was the only reason Compton had allowed the placement. Had Lara let him think so because he wanted her safely paired off with a man, as a dealbreaker? It wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine Compton would prefer his daughter was a nice traditional girl, not a financial ball breaker in the making, a business woman with victory on her mind. “He really thinks I’m your boyfriend, doesn’t he? As in we’re bed buddies already.”
Her eyelids dropped, but she smiled even as she looked away at the coffee cups. It was as if he’d caught her out. Was she thinking about the same thing, perhaps?
“He assumed, so I let it go. I told him you’re a friend from college.” She looked at him with a challenging glance, the smile still lingering.
“I take it you didn’t mention Steve is gay?”
She laughed. “No, I didn’t.”
“Thank God I don’t have to pretend I’m gay as well.”
“Indeed.” Again she laughed. It suited her.
He reached out his free hand and took her coffee cup from her. “It’d be pretty hard for me to act like a gay friend around a woman like you.”
She stared at him, eyes bright, as if surprised.
Fixed as he was, with a coffee cup in both hands he still had that urge to kiss her, to surprise her even more. She’d enjoyed it the night before, and now they were here in the roles of a potential couple.
Her head tipped back, and she even looked as if she was waiting for his touch.
Carefully, he leaned closer. “Look, no hands,” he whispered, then kissed her soft, lush lips.
“I take it this is your boyfriend?” The voice interjected from behind them over by the doorway, forcing them to draw apart.
Slowly, Lara shifted and looked over Draco’s shoulder. “Jamie, hi.”
Draco turned to see who it was.
A tall, skinny guy with a geeky look about him made his way across the kitchen toward them. Draco would have figured he was one of Lara’s brothers, even if the name hadn’t sounded familiar.
Lara drew away quickly, met and hugged the guy.
It had better be her brother, Draco thought, and put the coffee cups down.
“Jamie, this is Steve, a friend from college.”
“Aha, the boyfriend?”
“That’s me.” Draco wrapped his arm around Lara’s shoulder. He half expected her to ease away, but she didn’t.
Smiling up at him briefly, she nodded at the skinny guy. “This is my brother, Jamie.”
Draco noticed he got a quick once over from the brother. He figured he’d passed the inspection because Jamie smiled approvingly.
Draco put out his hand, and Jamie shook it, nodding amiably.
“Yeah, I got an email from Janice with instructions to come down and say hi.” Jamie chuckled.
“How are you finding it?” He directed the question to his sister.
“Okay,” Lara replied, “although it’s a bit of a dull project, we’re redoing a Human Resources database.”
Jamie shrugged. “It could be worse.”
“What is it you do?” Draco asked, curious.
“I’m the liaison link with the traders, the guys who go down to the stock exchange to buy and sell and generally keep an eye on the financial markets. The man at base, as it were. Any information they send through that looks potentially interesting for our clients comes via me and I flag it up with dad.”
Draco nodded, but recalled the screens on Senior’s wall. Was it a made up job, much like their own? Jamie was a middle man, although he supposed he was learning the ropes too. From what Lara had said, Jamie was only a couple of years older than her. He was just about to ask how many guys worked in the stock exchange, when someone else came in. Janice had obviously sent the message to both brothers.
Lara grinned. “This is my other brother, Charles. Charlie, Steve.”
Draco scrutinized the older guy as they shook hands. Both of them seemed laid back compared to most of the people working in the building. The privilege of being born into it, he figured. Charles was the party-guy, Draco recalled Lara saying. He had floppy hair and a beard and looked as if he’d dressed in the dark.
Why hadn’t these two dipsticks figured out the security breach already? It struck Draco as mighty suspicious.
“Charles works in Marketing,” Lara explained.
“Oh, right. What does that involve?”
“I manage a client list and market investments to them. The marketing team follows the current trends, looks for gaps in the market. I pitch clients the interesting shares.”
Draco figured it was a high-powered job, responsible. “Do you make the decisions on which stock to push?”
“Jesus, no.” Charlie laughed. “I don’t think I’d last long if I had to do that. Too much stress.”
He went into a bit more detail about what he did, while he grabbed himself a coffee. From the sound of it, he spent most of his time schmoozing with clients over the phone and going out on all-expenses-paid lunches and dinners.
Nice work if you could get it, Draco decided.
The older brother was definitely the most laid back of the family, although neither of them had the hungry, eager look he saw in the other financial people in the building. Draco figured if your dad owns the company and you’re not stressed or making big decisions, it could get a bit comfy. Was that why they hadn’t revealed the source of the financial leak yet, or was there a deeper, more personal reason for that?
Draco couldn’t help wondering if Compton Senior had given them the chance to expose the source as a warning. If C.S. could figure it out, he wouldn’t need anybody else. If one of his two sons was creaming off profits as a sideline, perhaps Lara’s father had set the task as a warning exercise. It was certainly possible. He’d given them a couple of weeks to find out before bringing in a professional investigator. That was weird in itself. Or maybe the investigator had done his work, and C.S. had already addressed it. Draco had his suspicions about what was going on here, but he needed a little bit longer to pin down proof.
He watched Lara chattering with her brothers and noticed the easy laid-back relationship they all had, despite being separated in their teens. It made him think about his own kin. If anyone watched him with his two sisters, Sky and Rowan, would it be the same? He got on with his sisters—even if they had fallen out of touch this last couple of years since he’d left Wales—and with his stepbrothers even better.
It was good to see Lara interacting with them easily, because she seemed tense around her dad. The longer Draco spent with her, the more he realized it was about impressing her dad, not beating her brothers to the prize.
When they returned to the desks, they discovered a single printed sheet of paper had arrived. It listed the requirements of the system and access codes to the old database. “Special delivery from Janice?”
“I assume so,” Lara said, picking up her tablet and unwrapping it.
Draco spent some time looking at the old database, while he also eyed the company infrastructure and subsystems with interest. A quick scan of the categories listed there made him to want to dive in, to cruise through their carefully built software and mentally list all the various kinds of havoc he could unleash on them. It was going to take some degree of restraint to keep that under wraps until later on in this so-called placement. “How long does this placement last?”
“Four weeks. But we’ve got two weeks, tops to do what we have to.” She lowered her voice. “End of the month, the pros are coming in.”
Why in hell weren’t the pros here now? What viable company wouldn’t be able to handle a breach internally? He wanted to ask her outright, and eventually have to point it out to her, but right now those questions would undermine what she saw as her mission—her chance to prove herself to her dad. He would enable her to do that, even though it wasn’t as clear cut a “project” as she assumed. The timing had to be right, that’s all.
He returned his attention to the Human Resources record system. “This database is an impeccable model of software design.”
“Really?”
“No. I was being sarcastic.”
“Oh. Seriously though, do you think there’s time to do everything we need to do, safely?”
She was staring at him innocently, querying how long it would take.
Draco nodded quickly. For a moment there he thought she could read his mind. “I’m not too impressed with the security, but I already knew it wasn’t great.” He winked at her, aiming for a joke.
Shadows of insecurity lurked at the back of her eyes.
She gave a fake smile, but he knew she was uncertain.
“Look, this database isn’t the challenge,” he offered, in an effort to reassure her, “but we need to plan our cover work carefully to make sure it pans out and fills the time appropriately.”
She nodded, brightening.
“For today and tomorrow I suggest we just familiarize ourselves with what’s there, and I’ll make a list of what we need to do.”
“Sounds good.”
“If I decide to code a new database, it could work well. When we’re inputting the individual data, it’ll also be a chance to scan each employee’s computer use for anything obviously out of the ordinary.”
She looked relieved, as if having a plan settled her doubts. “Can we send my dad updates at the end of each day, just so he knows we’ve got our heads down and doesn’t bother us?”
Draco quelled his instinctive reaction. “Sure, once we get stuck in.”
She wanted to impress her dad. No big deal, he didn’t blame her for that. But she wanted to impress him on all levels. How would Compton Senior react when he knew his daughter had gone behind his back? Lara seemed to think he’d be so dazzled by her efforts and the ability to outdo her brothers, he wouldn’t think about how she’d gone about it. If her father found out her college buddy was more than he seemed, she’d most likely be cast out for good.
The possibility shouldn’t have bothered him, but it did. She was a nice girl, he didn’t want her to end up in trouble. She’d set this up though, which meant—whatever happened—it was trouble she’d brought on herself. And it was her father who’d suffer when his software systems were hacked and viruses ran wild.
If Lara wasn’t implicated, she’d be safe from retribution.
The task was to find out what he needed to know then do it from afar, after both he and Lara had gone, and without leaving a trail. Especially not to Lara.
Draco stared at the screen in front of him trying to figure it out.
With a quick side glance, he looked at her again. She noticed, and smiled, glancing at him from under her long eyelashes. Sweet girl, hot and strangely innocent of her own appeal at the same time. The instinct for self preservation warned him to watch his own back. However, he knew if he walked away and left her in deep shit, it would haunt him forever. He’d just have to make sure it didn’t happen.
Now they were here, integrated into the Compton business, it was obvious just how complicated this project was going to be. What had appeared to be a straight forward to begin with—design a database while enabling Lara to expose the source of the in house fraud, waving goodbye while setting a little revenge loose in the system—suddenly seemed fraught with complications, traps and potholes. Why?
Because he liked her and he wanted her.
If he didn’t, there wouldn’t be an issue.