If she didn’t accomplish what she’d come here to do, then she might as well give up on the whole thing.

So, despite the hot chaos of feeling and satisfaction in her mind, she made it work enough to say, in a slightly teasing tone, “I guess the lesson is over. Although I’m not exactly sure what it was supposed to prove to me.”

She felt him twitch, just slightly, as if he had woken up from some sort of dream. And he felt far more like himself when he pulled out of her, straightened up, and rearranged her back on the desk.

“The lesson isn’t over yet,” he said as he took care of the condom. “I’m binding you again. You’re not to move yet.”

“Okay.” Her thighs and arms were sore from holding the earlier position for so long, so she was glad she was on her back this time, although her legs were dangling uncomfortably and her pussy was sore and still wet. But she was in the perfect position to see the computer screen and keyboard right here.

“I’m going to work some more, but I’ll get back to you later. I don’t want to see you moving.”

He was reestablishing his power in their little game. She understood it with crystal clarity. He felt like he’d lost something in their interplay just now, and he was taking it back.

In some ways, they really weren’t all that different.

She was getting her power back too. Just in an entirely different way.

Her whole body ached and was deliciously sated at the same time. It was such an incongruous combination of feelings, she could barely process it.

As soon as she heard his chair turn, she opened her eyes. She didn’t move a muscle as she watched him type his password into the prompt that appeared on the blackened screen.

He might sound perfectly cool and controlled, but he wasn’t. He’d obviously been affected by the hot sex they’d just had too. He was breathing heavily, and his typing was halting and slow.

This had always been a long shot, but she’d decided it was worth the effort. If he typed slowly enough, she might be able to follow the letters that were keyed in.

KELLY321#blossom

Her eyes were closed again when he turned back around to check on her.

—

The next day, Kelly had to wait until late afternoon before she got a chance to get on Caleb’s computer.

Breah was around all the time, and there was simply no excuse for Kelly to be in Caleb’s office, if she were to get caught.

Finally, Breah left the house to go shopping. As soon as she saw the car pull out of the gates, Kelly hurried downstairs.

The office was locked, of course, but Kelly knew where the household keys were kept now, so she grabbed them from the kitchen, ran to open the office, and then returned the keys in case Breah returned quicker than expected.

On an edge of excitement and anxiety, Kelly locked the office behind her and ran to the computer and typed in the password. To her relief, the home screen immediately opened up.

After that, it was really just a guessing game.

She tried the email first, being careful not to make any changes to his inbox, in case he had it opened on his office computer and would notice. She checked out the folders but saw nothing of interest—certainly nothing that went back eighteen years. Next, she tried the deleted and sent mail, but all of that must be purged fairly regularly.

There was nothing in the email that could help her, so she closed it down and pulled up his document folders.

There were hundreds of them—so many she stared blankly, overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of information he kept on this computer.

It was all perfectly organized, though. Each folder labeled with the project or task, and folders inside folders, compartmentalizing each document neatly.

He had an assistant, she reminded herself. He probably didn’t do all this organization on his own.

She scanned through the names of the folders, but she didn’t see one with the name of the project her father had worked on. It was so long ago, he may not even keep records of it anymore.

What she needed might be in some obscure file cabinet in his company’s storage room.

What she needed might have been destroyed ages ago.

She found a group of folders titled only by years, and clicked on the one with the year of her father’s death.

There was a whole group of folders inside it—a variety of different projects. And there was a folder with the project name she was looking for.

Tarleton.

Her hands were trembling as she clicked on it, looking at the new folders that appeared on the screen. Budget. Research. Admin. Marketing. Competition.

She clicked on Research and blinked at the number of documents that pulled up. When she started going through them, they were full of detailed scientific results she’d never be able to decipher. She pulled out the jump drive she’d brought and copied the entire project folder, glancing at the clock to reassure herself she’d only been in the office fifteen minutes.

No way would Breah get back from the grocery store that quickly.

She closed out the folder and scanned the rest of the titles. She was about to log off altogether when she saw a folder entitled Old Correspondence.

Out of curiosity, she clicked on it, discovering folders by year again. She clicked on the right year and found the same projects she’d seen listed in the other folder. When she opened the Tarleton folder, she found hundreds of memos listed by date.

She sighed. Didn’t the man ever delete anything?

She found the dates just before her father’s death and started opening them.

They were nearly all interoffice memos, from a time when email wouldn’t necessarily have been the primary means of office communication. They were mostly innocuous—about boring, mundane items connected to the Tarleton project.

She figured she’d just copy all of them, and then sort through them at a different time. But as she was closing the documents, she noticed a few words that made her halt.

The memo was to the CEO at the time, and it was made up of only two lines.

The problem we discussed has been taken care of. Please let me know if you would like me to tie up any lingering loose ends.

Kelly stared at the screen with a sickening churn of her gut.

It was too vague to be compromising, but she knew—she knew—it was referring to her father.

Caleb. He’d “taken care of” her father’s potential whistle-blowing, having the man killed instead of leaving a loose end.

It didn’t matter that he wasn’t completely a monster. Men crossed those kinds of moral lines all the time.

Caleb’s career was the thing that was most important to him, and everything else fell in service to that. Including her father.

Including her.

She’d known to expect it, but it still made her shake helplessly with emotion. There might be more in these documents. Maybe something genuinely compromising. She finished copying the correspondence folder and pulled out her drive.

She closed out the computer quickly and turned around to leave, feeling shaky and heavy and profoundly angry.

She’d only taken one step toward the door when she heard the key turn in the lock.

With a gasp, she reacted instinctively, ducking down to hide under the desk.

It was probably just Breah, straightening up or something. It wasn’t even four thirty yet, so Kelly couldn’t imagine how she’d returned so quickly, though.

It wasn’t Breah. It was a member of Caleb’s security team, and she heard him talking in his earpiece. “There’s no one here. I told you it was just that damned misfiring sensor again.”

Shit. How stupid could she be? Of course Caleb had some sort of extra security on his office.

The man continued, evidently responding to something said through his earpiece. “I’m not sure how you think someone managed to get onto the grounds and into the house, and then into the office without being caught on camera or triggering an alarm. But you still send me out to check every damned fly that triggers a sensor.”