Bedding the Billionaire (Book 3) (Legacy Collection) (39 page)

His m
other looked uncomfortable–
almost nervous
–
as she said,
“I know we weren’t the parents you wanted, Jake.
You wanted someone to rush to school w
hen you scraped a knee or cook
for some bake sale.”

Not about to sugar coat the past, Jake said,
“I would have
been
happy if you had just attended one of my
graduations
.”

“It’s not an excuse, Jake, but research can be addictive.
You get so close to a breakthrough – you don’t want to walk away.
Time escapes you and suddenly you realize another day has gone by.”

“
Well, then I suppose I should thank you for coming here at all,” Jake said unkindly.

To his surprise, his mother clasped her hands in front of her as if she found his words upsetting.
“Your father and I made some mistakes. We didn’t protect ourselves or our discoveries
as
well as we should have and because of that we lost
some of
them to others.
But do you know what we regret more than any of that?”

Jake shook his head and glanced at his watch.

“
We didn’t protect you from our obsession.”
Her voice shook
and Jake felt
an anger burning in his stomach. H
e did
n’t want her words to touch him,
to reawaken a yearning he’d put behind him years ago.
“We missed your childhood and I know that you’d rather be anywhere but here with us, but don’t shut us out. We love you.”

“Love?”
Jake recoiled from the word. “Love is for people who have nothing better to believe in.
I don’t need love.
I need to know if you can fix the server and then disappear back to that northern farm you think you’ll change the world from.”

A gasp from the doorway echoed through the painful silence that had followed Jake’s harsh words.

“Lil!” he said and took a few steps toward her.

She held up a hand to stop his advance. “No
, don’t say anything else.
I had almost convinced myself that you actually cared about me and Colby, but now I see that you’re not capable of caring for anyone, are you?
”

A
man
who appeared to be in his mid-twenties, dressed in a
brown checkered
dinner jacket
that did
n’t look like it quite fit him
–
too long at the sleeves a bit loose around the waist.
With zero dress sense and even less survival skills, the man chose that moment to walk over to Jake’s parents and
say,
“Hey
, aren’t you the
Waltons
? This is so cool.”

Jake grabbed one of Lil’s arms as she was turning to leave. “You misunderstood what you heard.”

She gave her arm a yank, but he didn’t let it go.
“Oh, I understood perfe
ctly.
You really mean all that
trash you say.”

“This was not about you.”
Regardless of what happened between him and Lil, chances were good that she would never see his parents again, anyway.

Lil
shook her head violently.
“I disagree.
I feel sorry for whatever happened to you that left a black hole where your heart should be, but I can’t be with a man w
ho thinks love is something you
outgrow believing in like Santa Claus.”

“Don’t do this, Lil,
”
he warned.

His tone seemed to enrage her.
Instead of pulling away, she went
nose to nose with him and
spat
,
“
Don’t
do what? Don’t expect better from you? Get your hand off
of me.”

Jake didn’t. He cou
ldn’t.
He had to make her see.
“You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

His words didn’t have the s
oothing effect he’d hoped for.

“That’s because I just realized that what
we have is exactly that…nothing.” She closed her eyes as if the thought hurt her. “
I can’t believe I was willing to put my friends in jeopardy for you. I’m such an idiot.”

“What are you talking about?”

Lil opened her eyes, hurt turning to anger. She
tore her arm out of Jake’s grasp. “Ask
Jeremy.
But understand that
I’m
only
helping you now
for
Abby and Dominic’s sake.
”

With that she
ran
out of the room.

Jake’s loyalty was torn.
You can only fix one problem at a time.
He
turned his attention to the man who was already deep in conversation with his parents. “Will someone explain to me what the hell is going on?”

Jeremy took a bite out of a crab
cake and said, “Man, women will make you nuts, won’t they? First I’m
asked
to hack into your computer
like it’s no big deal
.
Then
I’m told I could meet
two programming
icons as
long as I take that
secret with me to the grave.
Now I’m supposed to save your company by spilling what I know about the backdoor I found to your mainframe…”

“You found a backdoor access point?”

The young man held up a hand.
“
Only if it means you’re not going to prosecute me for admitting any of this.
Not that you could prove it, anyway.
I cover my tracks well.”
He smiled at Jake’s mother, looking quite pleased with
himself
.

Jim interjected, “Knowing what we are dealing with is going to make all the difference.
We should be able to have
the
server debugged in plenty of time now.”

The news didn’t
b
ring Jake the sense of relief he thought it would.

What did this mean in terms of Lil?

He looked at Jeremy more closely, “Who are you?”

“I’m a friend of Lil’s.
Well,
Alethea
, really. I’ve had a crush on that woman since
high school.
” Jeremy’s eyes widened at the audible growl Jake emitted. He quickly clarified, “
Alethea
, not Lil.”

“
You
ha
cked into my computer for them.
That was you?”

“Yes.”

“
Lil
wanted to keep me away from my computer
that day
.”

Jeremy nodded.

The more he thought about it, the
angrier
he became.
It had all been a lie.
The date.
The
fake
outrage that he didn’t love her.
Everything.
What he couldn’t understand, though, was why Lil had wanted to access his files at all?
Was she working for someone?
He usually had a good idea of what was happening in most situations, but this one had his head spinning and grasping at theories. “What were you looking for?”

Jeremy wiped his greasy fingers on the
hem of his checkered jacket.
“
I knew you were paying off programmers around the country.
I kno
w you gave them hush money, but for a rich man, you are way too cheap with your bribes. Anyway,
Alethea
thought Abby might be in danger.
Lil said she needed proof before she’d say anything to Abby.
” Jeremy shrugged. “
I probably shouldn’t have
accessed your computer
, but I have a hard time saying no to
Alethea
.
However, I got in by piggybacking on a
backdoor code that I stumbled on.
It was surprisingly easy so I went deeper than your email.
The hacker community is not all that big. I took a guess that someone had been there before me and I was right.
” He smirked. “
It was that west coast weasel, Sliver.
He’s pathetically predictable when it comes to
his
attack codes
and, luckily, his passwords, too.
He had complete access to your mainframe.
I changed his password just to piss him off.
He thinks he’s big time because he’s caused some crashes that have made the news.
” He rolled his eyes. “
He’s an idiot.”

All this from a man who looked like he’d dressed himself in a dark closet back in the 1950s.
Jake had been around long enough to understand that appearances did not equate to performance.
Some of the best
code writers on his team looked like they hadn’t seen the light of day in years and to say that their social skills were quirky would have been kind.

Jake said, “
You’ve just changed the outcome of the game. Trust
me,
you’ll be well compensated for whatever information you can give us.”

“I don’t
want your money,” Jeremy said.

“What do you want?”

Jeremy rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“I’m a smart guy.
I may not have your level of wealth, but I’ve made enough selling apps and
codes that I’m comfortable. There is one area that I seem to require some assistance in, however.”

“Name it.”

“You need to make me into a man that
Alethea
would want to date.”

You couldn’t have asked for something easier like
world
peace or an end to global hunger
?

From what Jake had heard about Lil’s friend, this guy was dreaming way out of his league.
Alethea
would eat him alive. She was a shark and he was a sheep, albeit very intelligent
one
.