The Price Of Secrecy by Ravenna Tate Read Free Book Online

for certain. He wanted her, but first he
had to make sure he hadn’t hired someone who could hurt him or his company. “If
you had met such a man, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
    Their
salads arrived, and Dominic was grateful for the distraction of eating. The
salad was perfect, just like everything he had hoped this afternoon would turn
out to be. He decided to change the subject. If he could get her talking, he
might uncover something about her mysterious past. “Why did you major in IT in
school? Was it something you always knew you wanted to do?”
    “Yes,
ever since middle school when I sort of accidentally hacked into the school’s
grade system just to prove it could be done.”
    He
nearly choked on a mouthful of lettuce and tomatoes. “Excuse me? Have I hired a
criminal?”
    She
laughed. “No. It really was a stupid thing to do.”
    “I’ll
say. Were you expelled?”
    “Almost.
A group of boys in my pre-calc class were misogynistic idiots who liked to make
everyone believe they were super smart about coding and hacking already in
eighth grade. They would bait the girls by saying things like we couldn’t code
to save our lives, and that no woman would ever amount to anything in the world
of cyber security. I think they watched a lot of old movies about teens who
hacked into government computer systems or something.”
    He
smiled and nodded. Even in this day and age, men outnumbered women in the
industry, and there was still an unspoken attitude that they weren’t good enough
for the work. It was pure bullshit.
    “So
one day our teacher got called out of the room to take an emergency call from a
family member, and the guys were bragging about having figured out how to hack
into the grading system to change their grades. I called bullshit on it, and
they dared me to do it to show it could be done, and also because they said a
girl wouldn’t be able to figure it out.”
    “Had
they actually hacked in, or were they just setting you up?”
    “They
were just setting me up, but of course I didn’t see that at the time.”
    “Your
pride was hurt.”
    “My
girl pride, yes. Exactly. You know how it is when you’re fourteen. If someone
dares you to do something, you’re going to do it.”
    “I
understand completely.” She was right. Most of the incredibly stupid things
he’d done in his life had been done between the ages of eleven and eighteen.
    “So
not only did I do it, but I did it in less than ten minutes. Unfortunately the principal
walked in just as I finished, and it took my mother calling every one of those
boys’ parents and threatening them before they all finally confessed their part
in it.”
    “Were
they expelled?”
    “No,
but all of us had to attend a seminar on cyber security and write a paper about
what we had learned. Actually, this is going to sound really geeky, but I
thought the seminar was fascinating. It opened up a whole new world to me that
I hadn’t realized existed, and that’s when I knew I wanted to explore careers
in IT. I knew I was good at it, but I didn’t have enough basic knowledge to
also be safe about it.”
    He
leaned back, impressed. “Very introspective and mature for a girl of fourteen.
I mean that.”
    “Thank
you.” When she was given a compliment her entire face lit up, and the gesture
mesmerized him. She had a vulnerability that made him want to protect her.
    “What
about you?” she asked. “Why telecommunications?”
    “Because
it’s the one industry that will never fail. No matter how many ways we can
think of to upgrade devices, or build smaller ones, larger ones, even devices
that think for us, now that we have them we’re never going backwards. It’s a
sure thing.”
    She
nodded. “That makes sense. Did you inherit your company or this something you
built on your own?”
    “I
did not inherit it. I did this on my own.” He had inherited the money, but she
hadn’t asked about that. Not yet, anyway.
    “What
business was your family