Cora.
Cora was Lenore.
She frowned. “I mean, I obviously don’t want to put the company at any legal risk. I just . . . If we can find out who this is, we may be able to press charges or at least know why . . .”
His thoughts were like a tornado in his head and he had to curl his hands to keep them from trembling. “Dmitry isn’t the guy.”
She blinked behind her glasses, probably put off by the tone and harshness of the words. “What?”
“I know who Dmitry is. He’s not the guy.”
“You—” Her lips opened, closed. “You know Dmitry?”
“I do.” He stared down at his blotter, unable to look her way. He was afraid his poker face would falter. God, how had he not considered Cora could be Lenore? Lenore had been smart like Cora. She’d not shown up online the night of the attack. And then that last night they’d talked . . . I met a guy. A dom. She’d met Ren. It all seemed so obvious now.
But everything about her was so different from what she portrayed as Lenore. He knew that people altered their appearances in the game, but Hayes had been expecting a tall, outgoing blonde. Not the quirky techie who wore shirts with eighties’ cartoon characters on them. Cora had her own look, her own style, and sex appeal in spades. And she didn’t apologize for that. Why had she changed so much about herself in the game?
But Ren’s words came back to him—about how Cora had been hurt, overlooked, passed over because she was different. The realization made his chest ache. Cora had created Lenore to be the woman she thought people wanted, who she thought she was supposed to be.
Cora shifted in her chair. “Is the guy someone who might want to mess with the company?”
“No.” Hayes peered up, finding her tense and worried. “Cora, I’m Dmitry.”
She stared at him, her expression going lax. “What?”
The shock in that one uttered word was absolute. Stark.
He wanted to reassure her, to explain, but he was reeling himself. She was Lenore. This was the woman he’d started to fall for. The thought was like a slow-burning wick inside him, one that had a bomb on the end.
She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “You’re Dmitry.”
“Cora—”
“Give me a second here.” She didn’t lower her hands. “Did you know? Please tell me you didn’t know. Tell me that I haven’t been some joke since I started.”
“Of course I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have— I would’ve never put that together. You—”
“Aren’t blond and stacked and built like a brick shithouse?” she bit out. “Yeah, I’m aware.”
He frowned. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
She shook her head, lowered her hands, and stared at her lap. “God, I thought I’d been through some mortifying moments in my life, but the universe keeps upping the ante. I can’t even look at you right now. The things we talked about, did . . . Shit.”
“Yeah, you probably shouldn’t look. If I see your face, your international espionage career will be ruined.”
The words seemed to catch her off guard, and she made some sound in the back of her throat, like a laugh with a rope tied around it. He wanted to reach out, touch her, pull her into his lap and curl his body around her, more so than any moment in the office earlier. This was a fucking revelation, a blinding light. Two hours ago, she’d been Cora, the smart, sexy woman Ren was pursuing. A stranger. But now she was Lenore. A woman he’d trusted, one who’d snuck past the guard. In so many ways, that woman felt like his. His submissive. His girl.
But he wasn’t stupid enough to think she felt the same way. This changed everything. He wasn’t Dmitry. This wasn’t Hayven. This was no fantasy.
“I know I’m not who you wanted me to be,” he said in a low voice. “The big bad dominant spy turns out to be an ex-con who’s just trying to put one foot in front of the other each day without fucking everything up. That’s not very sexy. I’m sorry.”
She finally lifted her gaze to his, her eyes flickering with too many things to pick out one. “That’s what you think? That’s what you think I’m freaking out about?”
“I—”
“You know you’re more than that, right? Where you’ve been the last few years isn’t who you are.”
His jaw flexed. “It’s a big part.”