Her mom smiled at that. “Thanks. And I probably don’t say it enough, but I do appreciate what you do here. I know the pay is crap.”
“I don’t mind helping. Family legacy to get the bad guys, right?”
Janet smirked. “I said all my life I wouldn’t let you become a cop, but somehow you’re here anyway. You find interesting ways to rebel, Coraline.”
“At least I didn’t do it by trying to date one of those handsome men in uniform out there.” She tapped her chin. “Though, there’s still time. Officer Cole is looking pretty hot with that beard he’s rocking now. Is he single?”
Her mother gave her a droll look. “I take it back. Stick with this course of action. I don’t want to have to murder one of my guys.”
Cora grinned and leaned over to give her mom a kiss on the cheek. “Later, Captain.”
EIGHT
Cora stretched her neck from side to side and then lifted her glasses to rub her eyes, her sleepless weekend catching up with her. Ren had set her up in a nice, though sterile, office and had given her complete access to their systems. She’d been working for hours and had already found two holes where she’d been able to break in and view secure information. There were simple patches to fix those, so she’d taken care of that, but she had no idea if that was how the hacker had gotten in. He or she had covered their tracks well. So for the last two hours she’d been painstakingly recovering email files and the activity log so they could get some idea of how widespread this was, but she was coming up empty on most fronts.
So much for walking in day one and knocking it out of the park.
A light knock sounded behind her. She slid her glasses back into place and spun her chair around. Hayes Fox’s broad shoulders filled the doorway, his presence taking up all the space in the room though he hadn’t even stepped inside yet. Her breath stalled. Today he was wearing dark jeans and this heather-gray T-shirt that hugged his body, displaying the sheer impact of how well built he was. A body that wouldn’t yield if punched.
A body built in a prison yard.
She tried to look unaffected, not at all intimidated or like she knew too much. She’d managed to avoid seeing him today, but she’d known that would only be a temporary reprieve. The man owned the company. She was going to have to deal with him.
She cleared her throat. “Hi, Mr. Fox.”
“Hayes,” he said in that rumbly voice.
“Right.” She managed a polite smile. “Sorry, that will take some getting used to. At my last job, my boss was all about the formality.”
Hayes stepped inside, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else, and set a white box on her desk. “I’m not your boss. But no one calls me Mr. Fox anyway. It sounds like I’m a neighbor of Winnie-the-Pooh.”
She blinked, the words absolutely not lining up with his deadpan delivery or what she’d expected him to say. She couldn’t help the nervous laugh that escaped. “Right. Down the road from Piglet.”
“Exactly.”
She waited to see some kind of smile from him, some hint that he wasn’t as scary as he seemed. But he wasn’t going to give her anything. He was just going to stand there like he was waiting out some obligatory time period before it was acceptable to leave. Somehow that made her feel better. He wasn’t trying to charm her. He wasn’t trying to win her over. He wasn’t putting on a front. If anything, it seemed like she was making him uncomfortable.
Which only made her want to pick him apart and figure him out. If she was going to be working with him, she needed to know, needed to get that gut read on him.
She eyed the box and then him. “So are you going to make me ask the question?”
His brows arched. “The question?”
She pointed at the package he’d deposited on her desk. “I can try to channel my Brad Pitt impression, but I warn you, it’s not very good.”
He stared at her for a long second and then his lips twitched, a dimple peeking through for the briefest of seconds. Not a smile but a preview that one could exist. “Ah. What’s in the box?”
Lord. Just that hint of amusement had transformed his face from stern intimidation to unbearably handsome, almost boyish. If the guy ever fully smiled, any ovaries in a three-mile radius would probably explode.
“Yes. What’s in the box? What’s in the box?” The second time she said it with the desperate tone from the movie, knowing she sounded ridiculous, but wanting to see what reaction she got out of him.
He rewarded her with a half-tilt of his lips. “That wasn’t bad. But I’m happy to report it’s not a human head. Ren sent me over to tell you that we actually let people take lunch breaks and that you should eat. You can go out or you can have what’s in the box—a chicken-salad sandwich, fruit, and a cookie from the restaurant across the street. We order in for everybody on Mondays.”
“Oh.” Until the mention of food, she hadn’t thought about it, but now her stomach rumbled in protest. “Thanks. I guess I hadn’t realized how long I’d been at this.”
“You and Ren will get along well. He gets so involved in stuff he forgets to eat, too. He paced the house all weekend, trying to figure this out.”
Her brows lifted. “You live together?”