The Passionate Mistake by Amelia Hart Read Free Book Online

defenses she had honed through years of hacking. No one was getting into that to find her.
    She was grinning like a loon, blood pumping. It was too long since she’d played these sorts of games against an opponent. And she didn’t mean Tui. Mike was still tapping away, and no one had finished a functioning program yet. They might be another hour.
    Impatient, daring, reckless, she searched for the file holding the r est of the competition specs and found it swiftly.
    Ahhh . This one looked like it had a simple solution, but . . . no, on further thought would require a slow, brute force attack. Hmmm. Still her instincts told her there had to be a more refined approach.
    She typed furiously, a feral grin on her face.
    With the second she found the solution too easily and glared at the screen. Did her solution really explore all the options? Perhaps she could guide a search for a solution with the right heuristics, just to double check. She was not about to turn in something that missed the correct answer.
    It took forty-three minutes to complete the rest, and she sent them off simultaneously and then sat back to watch Mike.
    But he was gone. His seat was empty.
    Her gaze flicked around the atrium. Programmers in beanbags still littered the space, but his energetic frame was nowhere to be seen.  

 
     
    Chapter Five
     
     
    “So it’s you then, is it?” he said softly, and she jumped and spun her chair, trying to put herself between the screen and him in the same motion. He was leaning against the back wall, arms crossed on his chest, head tilted to one side as he took her in. How long had he been standing there, watching her? She’d never even sensed him, in her rush to complete the programs.
    “Pardon?”
    “Competition programs from an anonymous source. The embellishments on internal documents. And the debugging too, I presume.”
    “Wh at? I don’t know what you mean.”
    He snorted in disbelief. “As if I hadn’t just watched you feverishly coding for the past five minutes. I bet if I check I’ll find a new solution has just been uploaded.”
    “Three.”
    “What?”
    “Nothing. Why would I do that? Bother with work I don’t have to do, I mean?” She was poised on the edge of her chair, fingers digging into the soft foam of it in a white-knuckled grip, though she labored to keep her tone casual.
    “Good question. Though a better one is why you would pick working as a go-fer instead of a programmer. There’s quite a difference in pay grade and perks. Not to mention kudos. If you like that sort of thing.”
    “Kudos are overrated.”
    “Bull. You’re a competitor. Don’t think I can’t see you’re high on adrenaline.” It was true. She was still quivering slightly with the tension of hunching over the keyboard, fingers flying, striving to improve on her own abilities, to push her limits and exceed them. “You’re just busting to get out of that meek, subservient guise and get your head out in the sunshine. You want everyone out there to know you just wiped the floor with them.”
    A wave of heat rolled through her, to have him watching her so intently, then sum her up to within a hairsbreadth of perfection. No one did that. No one really saw like that. Or was this why he had got the job as a manager: because he could see people like that, as virtually no one had the focus and interest to do?
    It wasn’t just a generic embarrassed heat she was feeling, though. No, it was quite specific. It was a rush that started at the back of her neck and swept downwards past her breasts, hardening her nipples, through her torso and centered on her groin.
    She was aroused by him. By his focus on her, this male animal of a man, by his challenge. She felt alive, with her heart pounding, the blood surging through her veins and the thrill of competition not yet faded. She had known already she found him attractive. Well built and powerful with a graceful symmetry. But her observation had been the next best thing