Rich (Benson Security #5) - Janet Elizabeth Henderson Page 0,24
been parked in all morning to offer it to Elle. “I rock,” she told him as she plopped into the vacated chair.
“I’m getting more coffee,” Harvard said with an amused shake of his head. “Want some?”
“Totally.” Elle bounced in place.
“It looks like you’ve already had too much caffeine. And this dress is Chanel, not Gucci,” Rachel felt the need to point out.
“My mistake.” Elle didn’t sound contrite. “Anyway, I’m going to ignore the fact you’ve sent me about a million texts—some of which were pretty damn insulting—asking why I wasn’t here catering to your every whim. For your information, I got in at five this morning and spent the hours before the IT department turned up checking their protocols. After that, I was given a tour of the facility as part of my orientation. I didn’t complain as it was a good way to scope out the place. And now I’m here. Not playing video games, as you so rudely suggested.”
Rachel sat down in her desk chair again. It was like sitting on rocks. Slippery, jagged rocks. The shiny leather meant her backside kept shifting forward, while hard little lumps under the cushion made it painful to move. Or stay still. The chair had to go. She could put up with everything else—the furniture that looked like it had been used in the production set for the movie Wall Street, walls painted a delicate shade of vomit green, and overhead lighting that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a government building. But she could not sit on that damn chair a second longer.
She grabbed her phone and stood while she opened the website of a reputable office supply company. “One second,” she said, as she ordered a top-of-the-line desk chair—in red. “Okay, carry on. What were you saying?”
“It’s good to know I have your full attention. I was saying that TayFor’s head of security has a bug up his butt the size of a VW Beetle.”
“Terrance? He seems capable enough. What’s the problem with him?”
“You mean apart from the fact it’s Terrance and never Terry?” Elle was saying as Harvard came into the room and handed her a coffee.
“Terrance King knows what he’s doing,” Harvard said. “He’s just an asshole about it. He thinks he could have handled this situation in-house and sees bringing in Benson Security as a slight to his ego. Big-fish-little-pond syndrome.” He looked around for another chair, but there wasn’t one.
“Have mine,” Rachel told him and watched carefully as he sat. He didn’t appear uncomfortable. “Don’t you feel like you’re sitting on rocks?”
“Nope.” He sipped his coffee.
“Well, you can keep the chair. I’ve ordered another one that should arrive later today. Sitting on that is agony.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about; this feels fine.”
“Either Rachel has a really boney backside—” Elle piped up.
“Rachel’s ass is perfect,” Harvard interrupted.
“Or,” Elle carried on, “this is a case of The Princess and the Pea. Which I could totally see, because if ever there was a princess…” She trailed off and glared at Harvard. “Stop looking at her backside. There’s no place for flirting on this job.”
His grin was wicked. “If I don’t flirt, how will I tease her into giving in? There’s a bet to be won.”
“Could we please focus on the reason we’re here?” Rachel snapped.
Harvard’s wide smile seemed far more intimate than it should have. “Tell us what you found on the servers, Elle,” he said.
Elle looked up from her laptop and reached for her drink on the small glass and steel box that served as a coffee table. “To cut a long story short, there’s been no tampering with the main backup server in the basement. It’s locked up like Fort Knox. Someone would need access from security and one of the tech team at their side to get in there. Any hacking of research files must have been done in the labs.”
“And we’re sure we can strike the IT department techs off our suspect list?” Rachel asked.
Ever since accepting the job from her father, Benson Security had been hard at work investigating the staff and eliminating them from the suspect pool. Unfortunately, all the clues they’d uncovered so far had led the team to believe that a senior staff member of TayFor must be selling secrets. And most of the senior members were family.
“The IT department isn’t involved.” Elle took another gulp of her coffee and followed it with a blissful sigh. “The way things are set up, they wouldn’t recognize the pertinent information