Billionaire Decoded (10 page)

He wasn't at all happy to learn that
his security checks had found no signs of hacking into Heather's office
computer. Those guys could track anything. That could only mean one thing. They
were dealing with a pro or a team of them. Untraceable, at least for now. He
frowned, wondering who he knew in his circle of acquaintances, friend or foe,
had such skills.

At the same time, he had to remember
that hackers could be found everywhere. They were found in small towns,
schools, and businesses throughout the country, and the world. In his heyday,
hackers were to be feared. Today, they seemed to be a dime a dozen and got
younger and younger every year.

He shook his head and thought about
an old movie he had seen. He remembered a comment by one of the characters.
Maybe he was getting too old for this shit. He shook his head, tried to focus
on several tasks that he needed to deal with. Some of them could've waited
until tomorrow, but he had nothing better to do right now anyway, so he tackled
them.

The next time he looked at the clock,
it was going on eight o’clock. He couldn't get his thoughts off of Heather. He
decided he would call her, ostensibly to give her an update on the status of
things at work, even though he knew that was not the reason he was calling her.

He wanted to talk to her, to hear
her voice. To his surprise, he realized that he missed her. How could he miss
someone he had just met, spent less than four or five hours with? Was that even
possible? Still, he remembered the feel of her in his arms as he had tried to
comfort her the other day. She was soft and squishy in all the right places.
Her hair smelled like lavender. Her breasts were firm and plump. His dick rose
to attention. What the hell?

He dialed Heather’s cell phone
number. After three rings, he was about to hang up when she answered in a
breathless voice.

"Hello?"

He heard laughter in the background.

"You busy?"

"Oh," she said. "I
didn't even look to see who was calling. It is everything all right,
Brecken?"

Her voice was like a soothing balm
to his nerves. He placed his elbow on the desk and leaned his head on his hand,
smiling. "You haven’t received any more suspicious phone calls, have
you?"

"No, but I've kept my phone
turned off for most of the days since I've been here. I just check my call logs
in the evening, but I haven’t seen any unusual numbers or received any
voicemails." She paused. "I hope you haven’t been trying to get a hold
of me. Have you returned from your business trip?"

"Yes, earlier this
afternoon."

"Have your security people
determined how my computer was hacked?"

"Not yet," he sighed.
"Look, Heather, they're working on it, and we'll have it resolved in a day
or two. In the meantime, what would you think about me coming up to
visit?" She said nothing for a moment and he wondered if he had
overstepped his bounds, at least in her eyes.

"You mean to New Hampshire? To
my parents’ house?"

He caught her uncertainty and rolled
with it. "To New Hampshire, yes. To your parent’s house? No. There
are
hotels up there somewhere, aren't
there?"

She laughed. "Of course, there
are!"

The sound of her laughter lifted his
spirits. "I'm going to be completely honest with you, Heather," he
said.
Might as well throw it out there,
see whether it stuck or bounced back and hit me square between the eyes
, he
thought. "There's something about you that attracts me. To be brutally
honest, I… I just… Well, I miss you." he spat it out, probably rushing,
but he needed to say it.

After several seconds, she replied.
He could've sworn he heard the smile in her voice.

"I feel the same way," she
admitted. "I'll tell you what. My parents are otherwise occupied tomorrow,
but I can meet you at a hotel of your choosing. I would invite you to the
house, but my parents… They wouldn't understand, Brecken."

"I understand," he said,
meaning it. He could imagine how this would look to her parents. She had just
come to work for him a little over a week ago and already he was chasing her?
Is that what he was doing? He wasn't sure.

"If you can stay a day or two,
I would love to show you around the area, give you a taste of what life outside
of the city is like. Not that you don't know. You’ve probably been everywhere
in the world, so New Hampshire, at least this part of it, may seem a little
outdated and old-fashioned to you-"

"I've never been to New
Hampshire, Heather," he admitted. “I would enjoy nothing more than get to
know you, your home, and your state a little better. I'll fly up tomorrow, get
settled, and then give you a call, let you know where I'm staying. Will that
work?"

That'll work," she said.

With that, they said their goodbyes.
To Brecken’s surprise, he felt a little nervous, almost like a schoolboy asking
someone to the prom. Since when was he nervous about anything, business aside? When
it came to romance, he was more than experienced. He had taken out, dated, and
slept with women all over the world. He had no lack of confidence when it came
to his sexual prowess, but after Alyson, he had seriously begun to doubt his
own ability to use rational judgment and not just his dick when it came to
relationships.

Besides, he didn't know where
this…whatever it was…with Heather would go, but she was a distraction. A
pleasant distraction. What with everything going on with Alyson and his
business, he didn't know if he was ready to step into another relationship. For
now, he would keep it superficial. No promises, no strings. Before he slept
with her, and he had no doubt that he would, he would make sure that she was
fully aware of that fact. He wasn't about to repeat the same mistake he had
made with Alyson.

*

The next morning, flying up to New
Hampshire in his jet, Brecken found himself strangely nervous, but not a bad
way – not in a way he had felt nervous about going down to Bolivia. This was a
totally different kind of nervous. He wondered if Heather was on pins and
needles, too. How could not she be? She was meeting her boss, outside of work,
again.

After his jet landed at the
municipal airport in Manchester, he told his pilot to enjoy a day or two off.
He would call when he needed to fly back to Boston. Then, walking into the
airport proper, Brecken approached the rental car desk. Several people he
passed stared at him. He got stared at wherever he went. He didn't think that
anybody here would recognize him, so wasn't too alarmed, but nevertheless kept
his guard up. You could never be too careful.

He decided to drive a rental car
from Manchester to the small town of Peterborough, following Heather's
suggestion when he had spoken to her again last evening that he would find a
number of comfortable lodgings at any point along the highway.

She told him that towns in New
Hampshire were spaced roughly seven miles apart or so, most of those founded in
colonial times. They were spaced that way due to convenience and travel by
coach. Interesting. She had recommended a bed and breakfast a short distance
out of downtown – a renovated farmhouse. He drove along the route Heather had
suggested to get to Peterborough, finding himself relaxing with every mile that
passed. It was beautiful out here, no doubt about it. While he considered
himself a purebred city boy, he certainly didn't mind getting away from it all
once in a while. He had never been up to New Hampshire and had not realized how
gorgeous it was. He shoved thoughts of Bolivia out of his head.

In only a short time, he pulled up
in front of a colonial-style building called Mabel's Bed and Breakfast. The
former farmhouse wasn't an old, dilapidated building, but newly renovated, yet
still quaint and attractive. Deep maroon trim and window shutters offset the
white paint on the structure. A small covered porch looked warm and inviting
with a chair swing. So cozy, and he didn’t mean that in a sarcastic way. Four
evenly spaced windows took up one half of the two-story farmhouse, and above
that was a double dormer window for what was obviously a converted room from
what used to be the attic space.

Brecken parked along the curb and
got out of his car. The air smelled like wet leaves and the rich scent of
earth. He inhaled deeply and slowly walked up to the front door, thinking he
had stepped back in time, to a simpler time and place. Potted plants hung from
the eaves. The stained glass front door was solid oak and inviting.

He was in luck. A room was
available. This early in the year, few people were out and about, the owner of
the establishment informed him with a smile as she took him up to the upstairs
attic room. She told him it would be warmer up there. Most of her guests came
during the fall season, when thousands of visitors from around the country came
to look at the colors.

The owner of the bed and breakfast
was a nice older woman, and yet Brecken found himself impatient to be shown his
room and left alone. He shook his head. He wasn't used to such a laid-back
style of living. Maybe he needed more practice at it. Maybe he really needed to
mellow. But you couldn't teach an old dog new tricks overnight.

He followed the older woman up a
very narrow staircase and toward the attic room. At first, he thought it would
be too closed and stuffy for his taste, but when she opened the door and
stepped back, allowing him to enter the room, he was pleasantly surprised.

Who needed five-star accommodations
when you had such a comfortable, warm, inviting space? A comfortable looking
bed to lay your head at night? The room wasn't fancy, but pleased him
immensely. The full-sized bed in one corner was covered with an inviting quilt
and fluffy pillows encased in white pillowcases. There was a bedside table with
an old-fashioned lamp. Under the dormer windows stood a small antique secretary
desk. A small armoire stood in the corner between the secretary desk and the
wall. An old trunk, with another quilt neatly folded on top, was situated on
the other side of the secretary. The wooden floor, which also looked old, was
covered with a beautiful tapestry rug decorated with maple leafs in varying
fall colors.

The room didn't have a TV or radio.
It did have a telephone, one of those old-fashioned rotary dial phones. He
turned her. "Does the phone work?"

She nodded and smiled. "It
does, although I found that most of my guests use their cell phones. But it
works if you need it." She paused. "As you can see, there's no
television or radio. We can bring one up for you if you wish, but again, we
find that most of the guests here come to escape and to enjoy the best Mother
Nature has to offer."

Odd, but pleasantly surprising.
"I won’t need a television or a radio. If I need to catch the news, I’ll
get it in my car." He did look around the room. "However, will I be
able to check my computer up here? Do you have wireless?"

"Yes, we're fully modernized.
The wireless access code is in the drawer of the secretary. I'm warning you,
though, that sometimes the Internet can be spotty and wireless can dip in and
out depending on the weather."

He smiled. "That's okay, is
there a Starbucks or anything in town that also offers wireless, just in
case?"

"No Starbucks, but there is a
coffee shop that does provide wireless access, as well as a library and a
McDonald's. The weather should be all right, though. We don't have any early
spring storms forecast."

"No worries, ma'am-"

"So polite," she said,
shaking her head. "My name is Mabel, and my husband is John. You can stay
as long as you wish. You'll likely find one of us around most times of the
day."

She gestured outside the room.
"There's a small bathroom just outside your door and across the
hall," the older woman explained. "You have the attic space all to
yourself so you don't have to worry about privacy. If you need more towels or
anything, just let me know."

Brecken turned to her with a smile.
"This is lovely," he said, meaning it. "I know I'll be fine.
Thank you for your hospitality."

She smiled up at him and then
gestured that she was going downstairs. "You make yourself comfortable.”
She dug into her pocket and retrieved two keys. “This small key is for the door
to your room here. The larger key is for the front door downstairs. All I ask
is that if you go in or out after ten o'clock, please do so quietly." She
gestured again. "My husband and I sleep downstairs near the kitchen."

"I’ll keep that in mind,"
he said. He was unsure how long he would be staying. It probably depended on
how he got along with Heather or if any pressing business matters required his
attention down in Boston. He wished he could totally unplug, go off grid for a
few days, but in his business, that was unheard of.

"Well, you have a good rest of
your afternoon and evening. Breakfast is served downstairs from six o’clock
until eight o’clock in the morning. The works. I hope you enjoy your stay
here."

"I'm sure I will," he said,
closing the door gently as the older woman left the room. He turned around,
nodded his head in satisfaction, and then placed his overnight bag and computer
case on the bed. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Heather's
number.