Читать книгу Dream Date with the Millionaire - Melissa McClone, Melissa Mcclone - Страница 5
ОглавлениеCHAPTER TWO
AS BRYCE sipped his coffee, hoping the caffeine would get him through the rest of the day, he stared at the four hundred unread e-mails in his in-box. No way could he get through all of them in the next fifteen minutes, but there was one reply he hoped to find.
He skimmed the list of senders and found the name he was looking for…
Sanfrandani.
That didn’t take long.
He couldn’t curb his suspicions and wanted to see what she had to say. Which would it be? A polite brush-off or a straight-to-the-point-please-don’t-contact-me-again? Curious, he opened the message.
To: “Bigbrother” <bigbrother@blinddatebrides.com>
From: “Sanfrandani” <sanfrandani@blinddatebrides.com>
Subject: RE: I read your profile
Desperately seeking…Colonel Brandon.
-sfd
Bryce frowned and reread the e-mail. He called Joelle into his office. “Who is Colonel Brandon?”
“Didn’t he kill Miss Scarlet in the library with the—”
“No. That’s a game. This one is in a book. Jane Austen.”
Joelle stared blankly at him.
“Come on,” he said. “You have to know this.”
She raised a finely arched brow. “Because I’m female?”
“Because…” Oh, hell, she had him there. “Yeah.”
“I majored in Economics, not English Lit.”
Bryce had majored in Computer Science. He pressed his lips together, still staring at the screen. “Wasn’t there a movie?”
“Not that I saw. Not with a Colonel Brandon. Colin Firth, now… Yum.”
“Spare me.”
Joelle shrugged. “Guess you’ll have to Google this Colonel guy, then. Or call your sister.”
Caitlin.
Thinking of his younger sister brought a smile to Bryce’s face. Of course, Caitlin would know the answer. She was a font of movie trivia, especially chick flicks, but a call to her would lead to a lengthy discussion about wedding preparations. Bryce was happy she’d found the love she’d been hoping for on Blinddatebrides.com. Keeping her safe had been his main reason for creating the Web site, but he didn’t have time to discuss whether champagne-pink or midnight-blue would be the better choice for bridesmaids’ dresses. And he didn’t want her probing him about whether he’d found a date for her upcoming engagement party yet.
His search query resulted in 336,000 documents. The Colonel was a character in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, but the descriptions Bryce read didn’t make sense. One article called the Colonel “sad and reserved.” Another said he was a “dull older man.”
Nothing, however, explained why Sanfrandani was desperately seeking the Colonel. She was twenty-six, according to her profile—too young for such an old, boring guy. Unless she was a gold-digger.
Bryce stared at Sanfrandani’s picture. Even though he couldn’t make out any of her facial features, she seemed to have a graceful neck. And that red bandana was starting to grow on him. Still, a woman after a rich husband would have uploaded a better photograph.
But why had she responded to him so mysteriously, almost playfully, instead of telling him to get lost? She’d brushed off the other guys who had contacted her. Was she leading Bryce on? Or not?
He was annoyed. Intrigued.
Attracted.
Not attracted, he corrected. This was an investigation, not a flirtation.
Bryce needed more information so he could figure out where she was coming from and what kind of game she was playing. Then he would know what to do. As he hit “reply”, he heard a commotion outside.
He hastily typed a response. He would have rather taken his time, but that wasn’t an option right now.
“Look at this,” someone yelled outside his office. “Am I really seeing this?”
A low hum buzzed.
Not a good kind of noise either.
Bryce hit “send” with a twinge of regret, but he needed to find out what was going on out there.
“SQL injection.”
The words stopped him cold.
“No way.”
“It can’t be.”
He understood the disbelief in the voices. The denial.
“It is.”
Damn. Bryce bolted to the door. Someone had entered an executable code disguised as data into the site. No doubt trying to steal credit card and other personal information from the database.
Outside his office, the noise level increased exponentially, his team springing into action like an Emergency Room staff with multiple casualties coming in. Except these injuries weren’t as easily diagnosed, and the damage unknown.
“Run forensics on the logs,” Bryce ordered.
“Already on it,” Christopher, a rock-star caliber software engineer, said.
Bryce nodded his approval. “We need a snapshot of the database right now.”
“I’ll do it,” someone said from across the room.
“Let’s patch the hole, people. Compromised data?” he asked Grant, his number two employee.
Compromised data—the stealing or copying of customers’ personal information—would be a PR nightmare. Even if credit card account numbers hadn’t been captured, there was the issue of privacy. Online dating may have become an accepted way to find love, but some people would be embarrassed to have their anonymous use of the Web site become public knowledge.
Grant rubbed his hand over his face. “We don’t know yet.”
“Okay.” Bryce projected calm. “Then let’s find out.”
He wanted to jump into the trenches and dig his fingers in. Bryce was a techie at heart, but he was also the boss. Sometimes the two didn’t mesh well together. Today he would make sure things worked. He couldn’t afford for them not to.
“Should we shut down the site?” Grant asked.
Bryce shook his head. “Not unless we have to.”
“Don’t want to lose the revenue?”
The money didn’t matter to Bryce right now. This was personal. “I don’t want to tip off the hackers. Not if we can nail them.”
“It’s a mess in here,” someone murmured from a few desks away.
Bryce imagined himself as one of the Jane Austen heroes Sanfrandani liked to read about, ready to clean up the mess and save the day. Yeah, right.
He sat at an empty desk, one being set up for a new hire, and logged on to the system to double-check the database. Bryce wanted to see that personal information—everything from names and passwords to credit card numbers—was encrypted. The data was. “How strong is the encryption?”
“Strong enough to keep a 100,000-computer botnet busy for years,” a security specialist answered.
Good news. But Bryce was still going to have to call their lawyer as soon as he had a better handle on things. It was going to be a long day. And most likely an even longer night.
Talk about a long day.
Dani stretched her arms above her head. She needed a nap but would settle for more caffeine. She’d spent her afternoon working on search engine optimization aka SEO. Increasing traffic to the site was a big part of her marketing job. The more hits, the more clicks. And that meant more money—advertising revenue. But turning visitors into repeat users was important, too, and sometimes harder to do. Especially when the site lacked the type of content it needed to draw people back. Content she’d found on Blinddatebrides.com. Content she now had to create for Hookamate.com.
Too bad she was more interested in checking her e-mail every five minutes to see if Bigbrother had replied. She’d never been like this before, waiting for some strange guy to e-mail her, disappointed when he hadn’t.
Pathetic.
That was what she was.
And distracted ever since she’d checked out Bigbrother’s profile. Talk about making a big mistake with a single click.
He lived in San Francisco and was cute in a geeky sort of way. In his picture, he wore a San Francisco Giants baseball cap pulled low on his brow. Dark hair stuck out from the sides. He was dressed casually in a Boston Red Sox shirt and a pair of faded jeans. The photo wasn’t a close-up, but she caught a hint of a smile on his face. He almost looked…shy. She liked that.
A beep sounded. Dani checked her e-mail again.
Jackpot.
Bigbrother had replied. Anticipation unleashed the butterflies in her stomach. She couldn’t wait to see what he’d written. She opened the message.
To: “Sanfrandani” <sanfrandani@blinddatebrides.com>
From: “Bigbrother” <bigbrother@blinddatebrides.com>
Subject: Colonel Brandon
You’re searching for a dull old guy who wears a
uniform?
The oh-so-romantic-loves-unconditionally Colonel was near perfect in her mind, but she could see how some might see him as a dull old guy. Especially a man who, based on his attire in his profile picture, preferred baseball to Jane Austen. Dani laughed.
“Care to share the joke?” James asked.
She turned in her chair. Her boss stood at the entrance to her cubicle.
Her cheeks warmed, but then she realized she had nothing to be embarrassed about. James was the one who wanted her checking out the site. “It’s an e-mail from someone on Blinddatebrides.com.”
James’s eyes narrowed. “A male someone?”
She nodded. “Just doing my job.”
“A good job at that.” He beamed. “So when are you going out with him?”
“I’m not,” Dani said with a twinge of regret. Bigbrother was the only one of the men who had contacted her that she wanted to meet.
“Too many other fish to fry?”
Oh, boy. He had that all wrong. “Uh…no.”
“So he must be a loser, then. How many other guys have you met from bdb?” James never called their local competitor by their full name. He seemed to have it in for them, but she didn’t know why and was too afraid to ask.
“None,” she admitted.
He gave her the once-over. “It can’t be from a lack of offers. None of them meet your standards?”
“Nothing like that.” She peered over the cubicle walls to see if anyone was around or listening. “I can’t accept any dates,” she whispered.
“Why not?” he asked. “And why are you whispering?”
“Because of the…you know.”
“I don’t know.”
She lowered her voice more. “The spying.”
James sighed. “It’s called market research, Danica. Every company does it, so please get over your aversion to your job responsibilities.”
Checking out a competitor was one thing, but market research had never made her feel so tacky or dirty, as if she were doing something she wouldn’t want her mother to know about. In fact she hadn’t told her mother about it. Or her sisters. The only people who knew besides James were Marissa and Grace. Dani wanted to keep it that way.
“I need to know everything about bdb,” he continued. “That includes their clients.”
The expectant look in his eyes sent a shiver down her spine. “You’re not suggesting I—”
“Go out with them,” he said at the same time. “Meet whoever contacts you. Dates are the perfect opportunity to check out whether bdb customer expectations are being met or not. You can put together a profile of their users for me, too.”
Her shoulders slumped.
When James had told her she would have to get her hands dirty with all facets of Internet marketing she had no idea this was what he meant.
“I can’t do this,” she said. “I won’t lead guys on.”
James grinned. “They won’t mind. Any guy would be thrilled to date a woman like you. Trust me.”
Her boss was the last person she trusted, but she knew what he meant. Most men never saw past her curves to her personality. Or even the color of her eyes. But this felt… “It’s still wrong.”
“What’s the big deal, Danica?” James sounded irritated, as if she’d told him the Web site needed to be patched again to work on Internet Explorer 6. “Meet them for coffee. Cupcakes. Conversation. You don’t have to sleep with them unless you want to.”
Dani’s stomach roiled. “This is a—”
“Start with the guy who made you laugh,” he interrupted.
Excitement shot through her. Okay, she liked the idea of meeting Bigbrother, especially with her boss giving her permission, but that wouldn’t be fair. “I really don’t think—”
“It’s not your call.” James read the e-mail on her screen. “Bigbrother, huh? I wonder what’s big about him.”
She cringed. The guy did not look like a player. Far from it. She was worried she might hurt him.
“Hit ‘reply’,” James ordered.
Dani didn’t. She couldn’t.
A part of her wanted to quit. Right now. But, with her student loans and family obligations, she couldn’t afford to be without a decent paycheck. That was the one thing she had to say about her boss—he paid well.
James reached around and hit “reply”. “Tell him you want to meet him for coffee.”
“But I don’t want to meet him for coffee. I have no idea who he is. I know absolutely nothing about him.”
Nothing except he intrigued her. The way he’d approached her. His brief e-mail. His quick reply. His picture.
“If you don’t ask him out,” James said with a steely glint in his eyes, “I will.”
Dani gulped. She knew he would follow through on the threat. “I’ll do it myself.”
James didn’t move. A muscle flicked at his jaw.
“I can reply right now,” she added.
Dani started typing an invite to coffee, aware and annoyed that James was peering over her shoulder.
“Make sure you tell him the meeting is your treat,” he said. “That can make a difference to some guys.”
Darn James anyway. Her exchanges with Bigbrother had been fun and flirty, but her boss was ruining it. “Do I get to expense it?”
James tossed a twenty on her desk. “No expense form needed.”
Dani hit the “send” button, lobbing the ball back over the net to Bigbrother’s side of the court. The next move was up to him. She was torn over how she wanted him to respond. She hoped he ignored her request or said no because she didn’t want to mislead him, but a part—a large part—wanted him to agree to meet her.
Just then another e-mail from Blinddatebrides.com appeared in her in-box. Maybe she’d lucked out and the system had kicked her reply for some reason. And then she saw the sender’s name. Gymguy. Oh, no. Not another one. She shook her head.
“Woo-hoo,” James said. “Looks like you’re Miss Popular. Want some help replying to Gymguy?”
Dani sighed. “I know what to do.”
Unfortunately.
“Thanks, Danica,” James said, backing out of the cubicle, much to her relief. “I won’t forget all that you’re doing for the site.”
She stared at the twenty. Neither would she.
“How’s it going?” Joelle entered Bryce’s office carrying a pizza box with a paper bag sitting on top.
The scents of oregano and freshly baked crust made his stomach growl. He glanced at the clock. Eight o’clock? He’d lost track of time, but wasn’t surprised with everything going on.
“Trying to stay a step ahead of the scammers isn’t easy. They may have found a hole, but they couldn’t crack the encrypted format.” That unfortunately wouldn’t stop them from trying to steal information again. Every time Bryce’s engineers changed something, the hackers would modify their programs to try and get around the new security. It didn’t help matters that they used stolen credit cards to register and pay for membership. If only he could run background checks on everyone who wanted to join, not just U.S. citizens. That would crack down on foreign scammers. “Talk about a cat and mouse game. It’s never ending.”
“Just remember to eat,” Joelle said.
“The team—”
“I ordered enough food for everyone.”
Always thinking. Always one step ahead. Sometimes Bryce thought Joelle could read his mind. “Thanks.”
She opened the bag and pulled out a Styrofoam box and packets of Parmesan cheese and chili peppers. “Start with the salad, please.”
He grabbed a slice of sausage and mushroom pizza from the box and bit into it. “You’re sounding a lot like my mother.”
“You think?” Joelle’s mouth quirked. “Well, then, as soon as you fix this problem, why don’t you reward yourself by seeing if those matchmaking algorithms you developed can find you a few dates?”
An image of Sanfrandani with her red bandana around her head popped into his mind. Bryce nearly choked. He swallowed and wiped his mouth with the napkin. “You’ve been talking to my mother. Those words are straight out of her playbook.”
Joelle’s cheeks reddened. After six months of his mother’s lectures about his dating more, he’d finally told her no more. She’d stopped. Now he knew why. She was trying to have Joelle take up the cause.
“You have a profile set up,” Joelle said. “You should keep it public all the time, not just when you’re investigating clients or trying to flush out scammers.”
“I’ll tell you what I told my mother,” Bryce explained. “I spend all my time working on Blinddatebrides.com. It’s a win-win situation. Others find love. I make a whole bunch of money. I can’t handle a relationship of my own right now.”
He thought about his e-mail exchange with Sanfrandani. That was the closest he’d come to flirting in…weeks. Or was it months?
“Can’t or won’t?” Joelle challenged.
“You know I can fire you.”
She tilted her chin. “Yes, but you’d never be able to replace me.”
True. One of the most successful online dating Web sites was a one-man show, but Bryce needed help. Joelle handled everything from finances to human resources. She didn’t mind answering the phones, either. Her title of Business Manager was far too bland for all she did. Business Goddess would be a more apt description. He couldn’t run Blinddatebrides.com without her. He knew it, and so did she. “Are you this hard on Connor?”
“Harder,” she admitted. “But my husband knew what he was getting into when he married me. You, however, had no idea when you hired me.”
“No regrets.” Bryce winked. “At least none yet.”
She smiled. “You have to admit, it would be excellent PR if you married someone you met at your own site. Just look at the interest in your sister’s engagement.”
“Stop. Now.”
“Okay. I’ll stop. Only because I know you have more important things to do right now, but tomorrow—”
“Out.”
“I’m going.” With a grin, Joelle walked out of his office.
As Bryce waited to hear from one of the engineers, he ate dinner. He’d forgotten everything that didn’t involve the SQL injection, but now he couldn’t stop thinking about one thing. One person really. Sanfrandani. Had she replied yet? He hoped so.
Checking his in-box, Bryce found a message from her. The corners of his mouth curved. The thrill of the catch, he told himself, and opened the e-mail.
To: “Bigbrother” <bigbrother@blinddatebrides.com>
From: “Sanfrandani” <sanfrandani@blinddatebrides.com>
Subject: RE: Colonel Brandon
Wrong on all counts except the uniform. Could go
either way there. The Colonel was always there for
Marianne. That’s what makes him a true hero.
But I won’t hold it against you if you meet me for
coffee tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock. Crossroads
on Delancey. My treat.
-sfd
So she was…assertive. Interesting. And she’d picked a great place to meet—a café that hired people who had hit rock bottom and were trying to turn their lives around. But he was wary.
Why would she make a date with him when she’d rejected everyone else?
It obviously wasn’t his knowledge of Austen. He looked again at the screen. Wrong on all counts.
So…was Sanfrandani a spy? A scammer? Worse?
He pulled up her profile on the Web site and ran a compatibility match with his questionnaire. The program deemed them highly compatible, possible soul mates. That surprised him.
He stared at her picture. The lighting was a little better than on the print version he had, but not by much.
Bryce didn’t like being caught off guard, but it had happened more than once today. Flushing out the scammers who probably used hacked computers to do their dirty work with the SQL injection was near impossible, but catching Sanfrandani might actually be…fun.
What did she want?
Only one way to find out.
Coffee tomorrow morning. My treat.
Bryce smiled. He was looking forward to it.
* * *
Remember, Dani. Proposals made after one cup of coffee are rare. Have fun!
Marissa’s instant message delivered while Dani had slept brought a needed smile to her face. She’d been a bundle of nerves ever since Bigbrother accepted her invitation to coffee.
Stop thinking about that. Him.
Don’t think of the meeting as a date. Consider
it market research.
Grace’s instant message echoed what James had said. Good advice Dani intended to follow. She wasn’t going to let Bigbrother’s profile picture or information blind her to her purpose. Okay, so she’d really liked what he’d written about the importance of family. But she knew from experience most guys would say anything to get what they wanted. Bigbrother was probably misrepresenting himself at least a little.
She winced. And she was misrepresenting herself a lot.
Face it, getting to know Bigbrother wasn’t possible under these circumstances. Thinking about him as anything other than market research would be a mistake. Downright wrong. He was not a potential date. He couldn’t be.
And neither could she be one for him.
Dani liked what she’d seen about Bigbrother. He looked like a nice guy, the type who might be a little shy and easily hurt.
She would not be responsible for leading him on.
Time to scare him off.
She walked into her closet.
Fortunately, most guys never looked past the surface. All she had to do was keep the packaging relatively unattractive and her breasts covered, and he’d lose interest.
Her hand wavered over the fitted jeans and sharp jackets hanging on the rod and settled instead on an ex-boyfriend’s pair of sweats and an oversized hoodie from her college days. She braided her blond hair into a single plait and tied a bandana around her head. She didn’t put on any makeup, but stuck on a pair of sunglasses.
She squinted at the results in the full-length mirror hanging on the back of the closet door. Perfect.
Perfectly awful. She grimaced.
Dani took the bus to an area locally referred to as SoMa, south of Market, filled with loft warehouses, galleries and restaurants. As she walked toward South Beach and the café, a place known for giving second chances—something she desperately wanted herself—her breath hung on the air. Mornings in San Francisco were usually cold and foggy, no matter what the time of year.
As she stepped inside the café, warm air blasted her. The scent of freshly brewed coffee and pastries filled the loftlike open space and made her mouth water. A good thing. She planned on spending every cent of James’s money this morning.
Hearing the din of the other customers, Dani glanced around. She’d stared at Bigbrother’s picture enough last night she should be able to recognize him, but none of the people sitting on the couches and chairs looked familiar. Maybe she’d beat him here. Or maybe her darkened sunglasses kept her from seeing clearly. She moved toward an empty table.
“Sanfrandani?” a male voice asked.
Dani turned. A man, sitting at a table back against the wall near the bookstore portion of the café, was staring at her. She took a closer look, resisting the urge to push her sunglasses up above her forehead.
Thick dark lashes framed clear, warm eyes. Brown, maybe black, hair carelessly styled, as if he’d run his fingers through it, not a comb, fell past his collar in the back. His hair hadn’t looked like this in his picture or maybe the cap had hid it. Either way, his hair changed his looks completely. But she wasn’t complaining. In fact, Dani wouldn’t mind running her fingers through his hair. “Big… brother?”
He nodded.
Heaven help her. The contrast between his dark hair and lighter complexion and eyes was, in a word, stunning. Talk about a picture not doing someone justice. His photo made him look cute, but didn’t show his true appearance at all.
Was he hiding something, like her?
Dani was willing to take that chance.
As she walked toward him, he stood. Wowsa. He was tall, over six feet. Fit, trim, perfect. Men who looked like him only existed in magazines or the movies or her dreams. Yet she was having coffee with him. Her pulse quickened.
Pull yourself together.
Dani extended her arm. His large warm hand engulfed hers, his shake solid. She cleared her throat. “Nice to meet you.”
He pulled a chair out for her. Good manners. “Thanks for suggesting this.”
She wanted to thank his parents for having him and James for forcing her to ask Bigbrother out. Intelligent, handsome, polite. A blind date couldn’t get much better than this. Or him.
Dani took the seat he offered. “You’re welcome.”
He sat across from her. Their gazes met.
Her heart bumped.
Oh, boy. She crossed her legs, tilted her head and gave him her best buy-me-a-drink smile.
He looked faintly startled.
Why…?
“I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you.” She leaned forward just a little.
“It’s an old photo,” he admitted. “Good thing I had no trouble recognizing you from your picture.”
Dani frowned. “My…”
And then she realized. That picture. No wonder he looked taken aback.
Bigbrother was totally hot.
And she looked totally…not.
