The Billionaire's Impulsive Lover (The Sisterhood)

Chapter 1

“I’m in,” Claire Johnson whispered to herself, her fingers flying skillfully over the keyboard as she typed in the various code she would need. The low murmur of voices from the other patrons faded away, her complete concentration focused on the screen in front of her. The only pause was when she sipped her raspberry flavored cappuccino when the delicious scent of the coffee momentarily broke through her focus. She had to move fast, get the information and get out, hopefully without being detected, but more importantly, without getting caught. This project,
this mission
, was too important to fail.

“Ha!” she laughed as the files filled up the screen and she absently tucked a platinum curl behind her ear. With a click and a tap, she downloaded the files onto her flash drive, unknowing and uncaring that several men stopped to admire her Marylyn Monroe-like appearance. While the data was downloading, she scanned the gourmet coffee bistro, blinking chocolate brown eyes made larger with the mascara and dramatic eye liner she’d worn this morning in an effort to create a bit of excitement to her day. She glanced to the right and left of her temporarily rented computer, wondering if anyone else might know what she was doing.

She’d chosen a computer closer to the window where no one else was working so she had a bit of privacy, but she of all people knew that privacy was illusory.

Hopefully, she was still flying under the radar but nothing was absolute. That’s one of the reasons she was doing this at a public facility with multiple terminals instead of at her house on her own computer. Hacking into company databases to search for information wasn’t a good idea if one wanted to stay out of jail. Normally, she wouldn’t have dared to do anything so drastic, but Gary had been missing for three weeks now and she was the only person who had the capability to figure out where he might have disappeared to, besides the police, who hadn’t taken her seriously during her last visit.

It was also why she only accessed one database at a time, making sure no one was able to tag her and find out where she was.

After another forty five seconds, she had the information downloaded and she carefully logged off of the computer. As casually as possible, she slid the chair back and pocketed her flash drive, now filled with the information she hoped would lead her to finding her friend. Picking up her coffee and opening magazine to the latest fashion article, she strolled through the coffee shop looking as if she were trying to understand the national debt. If anyone were to look closely, they’d notice that she wasn’t actually reading the article on the various shoes coming onto the fashion world this fall but Claire hoped no one was looking that carefully. Normally people in these sorts of establishments were absorbed in their own worlds, wanting privacy themselves.

Twenty minutes later, she badged herself through the gate at her work office, smiled to George, the security guard, and stepped into the elevator along with about twenty other workers returning from their lunch breaks.

With a sigh, she set her café coffee on the side of her desk and pulled up the latest computer code she’d been assigned to work on. Within twenty minutes, she’d fixed the code and sent it off to the programmer who was having problems, then pulled up the next code. Claire did this for four hours, one set of code after another, she worked on fixing other people’s errors. Some were simple fixes that the programmers should have figured out on their own, others were slightly more complicated, but nothing took her more than a few minutes to fix. She’d been promoted to this position six months ago after being a programmer for a couple of years. Her current company thought her position was a huge advancement, had lauded her as one of the best and brightest, an up and coming star in the corporate information technology world. Unfortunately, Claire hated the job, even though the promotion came with a window office, which was nice, but the space was still cramped, beige and boring.

She didn’t really think of her work as a career, since she knew she didn’t want to do this for the rest of her life. It was just a job, one that paid the bills. Unfortunately, her heart wasn’t really into it. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, but fixing other people’s problems definitely wasn’t it and so far, she hadn’t been able to work on any programming that was challenging and exciting. She knew how to write code quickly and efficiently, better than the average programmer by far. That didn’t mean she had to like it though. She wanted something daring and exciting, something that was cutting edge and over the top. Something that would make a difference in the world.

As soon as she walked into her apartment that night, the phone started ringing. Dumping her laptop and purse onto a red plush chair, she picked up the phone while checking caller ID at the same time. “Hi Darcy. No, I haven’t found him yet, but I downloaded a bunch of data during lunch.” While her friend spoke, she walked to her personal computer, unplugged the internet connection and moved the mouse to take the system out of hibernation mode. She didn’t want to analyze any data while connected. She wanted total privacy while reviewing this information, since she wasn’t supposed to have it in the first place.

“Give me thirty minutes and I’ll call you back. Call Emma and let her know what’s going on, okay?” Claire hung up and plugged in her flash drive. Her fingers manipulated the information and she sifted through the data.

Darcy and Emma were her best friends, had been friends since college and had stayed in touch ever since. They got together about once a week now, catching up on each other’s lives.

Well, she and Darcy got together. Emma was in some foreign country, married now to a gorgeous sheik and helping him run his empire. She’d just had a little girl a couple of months ago but Emma still took time away from her royal obligations to call or chat online with both her and Darcy. Their conversations were wonderful and it didn’t matter that they weren’t physically together anymore. Besides, Emma was madly in love with her new husband, which made her not being a physical part of their trio much easier to endure.

Claire was starting to worry a bit about Darcy though. Her friend was absolutely gorgeous with soft brown hair and the sexiest hazel eyes known to womanhood. Darcy was also estranged from her mob boss father and brother, her mother having passed away when she was younger. Darcy’s father was constantly trying to get his daughter to settle down to a good mafia marriage. Darcy on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with that world, abhorring the criminal element and what they did to society. Instead, she used her celebrity status to raise money for her one and only passion; animals.

About once a month, Darcy would hit the nightclubs, getting paid to show up simply because the paparazzi would photograph her coming and going, report on anything she did, who she danced with, what she wore and anyone she spoke with. It was the perfect advertising for the nightclubs, who got their names in the tabloids and glossy magazines, and with Darcy’s stamp of approval, their success was practically guaranteed. Any club Darcy showed up at became an instant success, and the current talk of the town, with other celebrities following wherever she appeared.

The fact that Darcy only showed up occasionally in public only increased her mystique, the papers frantically trying to anticipate where she might be and what she did while she was out of circulation. The rumors were rampant that she’d slept with many, many men. The truth was the complete opposite, but Darcy didn’t care what the tabloids said, as long as the night clubs continued to pay her to show up and she could fund her animal rescue hospital.

Claire’s concern came with Darcy’s increasing celebrity status and the way the paparazzi were following her so obsessively. Men were also considering her a challenge, which was increasing her costs because she now had to hire additional body guards when she went out. It was all a game, but Claire worried that something bad would happen to Darcy, perhaps that one of her fans would take things too far, or that her attitude towards men would continue to deteriorate. It was a difficult tightrope Darcy walked, one that could cause serious harm if she were to fail in some way.

Vowing to discuss her concerns with Darcy the next time they met for lunch, Claire’s fingers whipped through the data, sorting and filing much of it for later, but trying to zero in on anything that could give her a clue that Gary might be doing something for someone at this particular company. She knew he was a private investigator who had worked for Titus Securities, but mostly under cover.

After a half hour, she realized that the information she’d recovered today was useless. There wasn’t a single indication that Gary had ever worked for Titus Securities, but that might be simply because she hadn’t gone deep enough or that this round of data didn’t include the clues necessary to determine his assignments and where he might be now, if he was simply working and not lying in a ditch somewhere, hurt and unable to get help.

Sighing with frustration, she plopped her head in her hand, closing her brown eyes before the tears of frustration started. Claire knew in her heart that something was wrong. Gary had been so sweet and attentive, always bringing her coffee at work, meeting her for lunch and bringing her flowers before almost every date, leaving her each evening with a gentle kiss and no pressure. He was the ultimate boyfriend, she remembered as she dialed up Darcy’s number. She couldn’t leave a man like that to some horrible fate. No, any man who wanted to just be with her on a date, who didn’t make a move for something she wasn’t willing to give, was definitely worth the effort to help when he was in trouble.

Except for that one little thing, she thought. The one fly in the ointment of their perfect relationship. He just didn’t turn her on like she wanted. There was no fire when they touched, no sparks after, or during, any kiss. It was nice and pleasant, but Claire wanted passion. She wanted excitement and danger.

Sighing, she thought that perhaps she just couldn’t have that kind of experience with a man. She was starting to suspect that she’d simply have to find that through her work life. She’d dated so many men over the years and not a single one tempted her even a little bit. Gary was kind and considerate though, which covered a lot more ground than the other men of her past. Most of them were obnoxious and few had lasted more than a couple of weeks because she simply wasn’t willing to put up with their pressure to take their relationship to the next level. None of them tempted her to go down that path.

Maybe that’s why she was so interested in Gary. He represented all the things she wanted to do with her life. He was kind, considerate, fun, had a very exciting career based on the cases he’d told her about on their dinner dates, and he had to disappear every once in a while for what she thought had been exciting, secret agent types of missions. Meanwhile, she was stuck in a computer job that had her tied to a desk reviewing other peoples’ code.

Claire waited while Darcy’s phone rang, wondering if maybe an aerobics class or perhaps a pottery class could fill the void she was feeling now.

“Nothing,” she said as soon as Darcy answered the phone. “Not even a social security number that would indicate he had worked for Titus in the past.”

Darcy sighed with relief. “Are you going to accept that Gary lied to you now?”

Claire sat up straighter at her desk, surprised that Darcy had jumped to that conclusion after such a short investigation. “He didn’t lie to me. I just haven’t found the information that can help him.”

“You’re being sweet and loyal, Claire. But perhaps a bit obtuse as well because you’re lonely and bored, a dangerous combination with someone as brilliant as you are I’m realizing. If there’s no indication that the man worked for Titus Securities, then maybe he didn’t work for that company and lied about the fact that he was even employed.”

Claire instantly rejected that idea. “No. In my gut, I know something is wrong. He wasn’t the kind of person who would simply leave like this. He’s in trouble. I can feel it.”

Darcy groaned softly but the sound came through the phone lines. “Claire, you’re about as stubborn as they come, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely not. I prefer to think of it as tenacious,” she said with a mischievous smile.

“Potato, patahto,” Darcy chimed. “You’re out of your mind and one of these days you’re going to get yourself into a heap of trouble. The police should be looking into this guy’s disappearance. Not you. You’re not equipped to deal with all the intricacies of this kind of situation, despite your unquestioned brilliance at software programming.”