“Patty or Jessica, talk,” Alex commanded. He sounded pissed, and I was uncertain if it was at Jessica or me. Alex had promoted Jessica to CFO of Ross Enterprise about six months ago. I could understand why he would be mad at us. We were both part of his and Bridget’s life, and we had decided not to share that we were sisters.

I’d been working for Bridget at White Hat Security for the last three years, and I liked it. They didn’t know who I was, about my past, or my real personality. I liked being around them because they made me feel like family. I worked hard to keep it that way.

“You two have so much to explain,” Bridget demanded. She was sitting with Alex on the black leather couch in Sam’s office.

“Okay, let me start by explaining Jessica is my fraternal twin sister.”

Everybody started talking at once, trying to ask questions.

“This story is complicated to communicate, so will you all shut up?” I yelled at the room. When the room quieted down, I started the story about how I ended up in Sam’s club. “So tonight, I might’ve hacked my brother-in-law’s iPhone to find out his location because I knew he was lying about where he was. My main goal tonight was to see what Doug was doing here. When I walked in and saw him with a woman, I lost it. Jessica is everything to me, and it hurt to see him doing this to her. I might have broken his nose and gotten him ejected from the club,” I said quickly, in one breath.

Before I could continue with the story, Jessica explained, “I had it under control. I wish you wouldn’t have gotten involved. You know, he might try to sue us for a few extra million to keep quiet about the fact that you punched him.”

“Okay, how could he sue you guys for a few million when you’re my receptionist? I’m sure Alex doesn’t pay you enough to have millions sitting at home,” Bridget said to Jessica and me.

“If you guys would let me finish my story, you would understand all this. Jessica, if he tells anybody anything, he’ll lose more with the prenuptial agreement you have. He was the one who told Sam about me, so he broke the nondisclosure agreement already. We can go after him—let’s work on one thing at a time.”

The room had quieted down while everyone waited for me to explain. Jessica and I had told no one about our personal life without making them sign a nondisclosure agreement. But because these were my friends, I couldn’t ask them to do that. Jessica and I needed to trust people, and if it backfired, we would just have to fix it.

“I will start from the beginning. My father came here thirty-five years ago and got our mom pregnant. They didn’t want to get married, and she didn’t want to move to Shialia. Dad and Mom agreed we could stay with Mom during the winter and visit my dad in the summer. In the summer, we learned about my father’s side of the family. I’m the oldest and should be the next in line for the crown. I chose a different route. I was able to graduate high school early and got my master’s in computer engineering from MIT. My dad still wanted me to run the country, so I got a master’s in business from Wharton. While getting my master’s in business, I designed cybersecurity systems. The system I designed you might know as Black Hat Security. Once my father knew my heart wasn’t in leading the country, he chose another one of my siblings. Jessica has also declined the crown. That is why one of my brothers is supposed to be next in line. Which also means our offspring are no longer in line for the throne. We have an agreement with Daddy: as long as we aren’t in danger and don’t do anything wrong, we don’t have to move.”

Everyone in the room remained quiet. Mouths opened, closed, opened, and closed.

“The only people who know who we are our immediate family, maids, and Doug. This is our first time letting any friends know our secret. I only work remotely for Black Hat Security and talk directly to the vice president.”

Bridget got her voice back and didn’t look happy. “Okay, one fucking second here. Let’s take a step back. I pay you jack shit to be my assistant, and you have a lot of degrees, including one from MIT. You own one of the top security companies any IT person would love a job at. Why the fuck are you working for me?”

Before I could answer Bridget’s question, CJ asked a question. “Furthermore, if you are that good, why the fuck did you get a virus and make me clean it off your computer the other day?”

Okay, that was funny. I wasn’t in the mood to work that day and had wanted to give him the challenge. I wanted to see how long it would take him to fix a new experiment I was working on.

I didn’t want to answer the question, but I needed to get the information out. “I was working on a new code and wanted to test it. You did great and helped me figure out what I needed to tweak. As for the other stuff, I wanted to work with people who didn’t know who I was. When people find out who I am, they treat me differently, and I wanted a mindless day job. As for what you pay me, I don’t keep it. The money goes to charity.”

Alex had been quiet during the whole conversation. I could see the wheels in his head turning. I knew my sister loved her job and didn’t want to lose it. “Jessica, you are my employee, and if you want to keep your job, detail is on your ass. We don’t know what your soon-to-be ex-husband might do. He is about to lose millions and his lifestyle. Asher is putting security on you for the foreseeable future. We have to be careful Doug doesn’t retaliate.”

“I think this spitfire also needs protection. Doug was mad when he left here,” Sam declared with way too much arrogance.

“Jessica, why don’t you take tomorrow off and work on getting divorced from your piece-of-shit husband?” Alex said. She looked stressed, and I knew she was mad at me more than anything.

I never liked being in arguments with my sister. It broke my heart when she was mad at me. “Jess, can we meet up tomorrow for lunch? I can go to Mr. Richardson’s office with you, if you want.” I was hoping she would let me come with.

“That’s fine. Let’s meet at the coffee shop on Third around noon. I will let Mr. Richardson know we will be at his office after lunch. This has been all so exhausting. I will see you tomorrow,” Jessica said while heading toward the door.

Asher rose and told CJ they still had a scene to do.

CJ turned and asked, “What coffee shop are you meeting at tomorrow? I want more information—you are so not off the hook.”

I ignored CJ’s question for a second. I didn’t want Bridget to fire me or lose them all as friends. “Bridget, please don’t fire me. I love working for you, and you guys are my only real friends. I didn’t want to bring this baggage in to work. I will let you know everything you want.”

“I will not fire you. I wish you felt you could have told us what was going on in your life or who you were. Damn, we could use your skills as a hacker instead of making you do stupid jobs. I’m going home. Take tomorrow off to help Jessica with the lawyer, but when you come back to work, you are no longer a receptionist. You will do computer work.”

I couldn’t turn her down.

“Patty and I have unfinished business,” Sam stated to the room. “I will make sure she gets home safe.”

* * *

Everyone had just left my office, and the little pixie squirmed on my lap again. I was still trying to figure out what to do with her.

“I’m not admitting to anything about hacking your system. Maybe tell your IT people to double-check their code on the website for a back door. Second, I’ve known Doug for years, and he’s not a threat. So can I go now?” Patty pleaded.

I called Brock through the paging system on my desk and repeated what Patty had just said. I had confidence he would be able to fix it.

“I noticed you seem to enjoy what you saw in the club before you went all knockout. So here are your options: One, I take you to your car and have Brock follow you home to make sure you are okay. Option two is you read the rules, sign a club contract, and come as my guest for the night.” I was hoping she would take the second option.

I could sense by how tense her body was—she was trying hard to decide what she wanted to do. It was almost like an internal war going on in her head. A few seconds later, I got the answer I wanted.

“If I go down to the club, are we going to do what those other people are doing?”

“No, I will let club members know what happened. If you break another rule after reading the contract, I will have to punish you.” I almost wanted her to break a rule so I could get my hands on her.

“Okay.”

I picked up the phone and called down to the receptionist desk, where Mia was working. I asked her to bring up a contract and a list of club rules for Patty to read. A few minutes later, Mia was in my office with the requested documents.

“Here you go, boss man. Do you need anything else?” Though Mia was submissive in the club, she was one of the deadliest people on our team. She was known in the military for her hand-to-hand combat.

I stood up and moved Patty to one of the leather-back chairs next to my desk so she could concentrate on reading the contract. I also needed to go get my body under control. There was no way I would sleep or scene with Patty tonight. In the future, she would make a great Sub. I didn’t want to scare her away.

“I will be right back. I’m going to talk to Brock for a second. When I get back, we’ll go over the contract.” She shook her head but was already deep in reading the rules and regulations.

Brock was at his station of computers, munching on licorice and drinking a Mountain Dew. “You heading back down to the club tonight?” I asked Brock.

“Once I fix this code. I think Patty got in so easy because her company owns the software we use for security.” Brock’s fingers were still flying across the keyboard.

“Wait. I thought we paid Neal Cross for a security system upgrade on the network. That cost me a mint.”

“I think she’s Neal’s boss. I also think he is at the club tonight. I’m trying to get this done so I can see what happens when they see each other. So bug off so I can get this done.” Brock sounded too joyful.

It wasn’t my place to tell her Neal was a member. We didn’t out our members, and if he was not here tonight, I would tell her something for no reason.

I went back to my office, and Patty was a nice shade of red. “Did you read through all the rules and fill out the limit list?” I asked while walking over. I picked up the limit list, and it took everything in me not to burst out laughing.

Patty had drawn all over the contract. To the right of “anal,” she’d made her own box that said “hell no,” and she’d drawn a little demon beside the line that said “fisting.” Where it said “threesomes,” she’d created a box that said “two males only.” To the right of the box, she’d drawn a woman with a picket sign that said No Vaginas Allowed.

“Well, it looks like you filled it out pretty well as long as you read the rules. Let’s head downstairs. We’ll have to address some of these things on this list. But you aren’t playing tonight. You will only watch and see if anything interests you.” She would only be playing with me in the future, but I left out that part.