Page 13 of Daddies’ Dark Desires (Forbidden Fantasies #19)

TRENT

I suck in a calming breath at Oliver’s text and cross the office in quick, efficient strides before stalking into his office.

When the door swings open, I spot Harper sitting stock still in the seat beside Oliver. She’s gone pale.

Panicked.

If she keeps holding her breath, she’s going to pass out. And Oliver sits watching her.

Shit.

He’s not made for this kind of comfort. His panic has sent him into such numbness that he’s not equipped to help others with theirs.

“What’s happening?” I hover behind her, putting my palm between her shoulder blade and leaning down to Harper’s ear. “Breathe.”

She sucks in a shuddering breath, holds it, and lets it out.

“Again.”

She follows my instructions, and together Harper and I breathe as I peer up at the screen closest to Oliver—it’s usually the most important.

Harper’s profile, a still shot of her at a computer not her own, and a password for some encrypted files. Four tries left.

What has our little girl been up to? Why did Oliver let her get this far?

Then I see the trail and the dark look in Oliver’s features.

“Someone breached our system.” My voice is low, as even as I can manage with the anger expanding inside of me.

“Yes.”

Someone has been actively searching through it. But for what?

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

Fuck. Oliver not knowing is like Einstein getting a simple math problem wrong.

“But I’m going to find out,” he promises.

Harper is holding her breath again. My hand shifts around to her chest, high enough to not feel invasive. “Breathe.”

My nose dips toward her ear, brushing the shell and finding the silk texture of her hair. She smells like coconuts.

“Keep going.” I breathe with her. My chest expands against her back as her chest presses against my hand with each inhale. And we take each step together until her lungs fill and exhale at a slow, even pace without my prodding.

I’m surprised by how satisfying it is to help her.

It only takes a couple of minutes to calm her completely, then her hand covers my own, and she whispers. “I’m okay. Thank you.”

I nod, trying not to delight in the way she shivers from the contact, and release her slowly, standing to examine the screen Oliver is actively working on, where he’s picking through bits of code, following traces that would take me long minutes to decipher in the few seconds it takes him to understand.

There’s so much information they can access with serious skill like this.

“Did they find what they’re looking for?”

“Yes and no.” Oliver’s fingers fly across the keyboard, clacking a steadying rhythm as I wait for him to elaborate.

Harper leans forward beside me, her elbows on her knees and her eyes still a bit panicked and wild. Her posture elongates the V of her shirt and doubles the volume of her breasts visible beneath it.

Fuck, I want to sink my teeth into them.

“They’re in my log. They can see every feed I’ve hacked over the last two weeks.” Oliver’s words are clipped, cold, calculating. “And they’re focusing on one trend.”

I swear I hear his back molars cracking as he clenches his jaw and overrides the system to shut it down. Boot them out.

“What trend?” Harper asks, her voice soft, breathy, scared.

What did she go digging into that has our bonafide cyber security genius in this much of a tizzy? If Oliver can ever be said to be in a tizzy. Even now, his energy is focused instead of chaotic.

That’s what makes him so good at his job. It’s rather like when you put a gun in my hand.

Oliver feeds the machine one more set of directions before he looks at Harper—heat, rage, desire kaleidoscoping all over his face. “You.”

She shakes her head like she doesn’t understand. She probably doesn’t because Oliver has been watching her illegally for some time. A lot longer than he suspects we know, but since he would never do anything to her, I’ve never seen the harm in his vigilance.

But now, if these people have access to that footage, they’re clearly after her. Whoever they are.

“But I used a different log in, a different computer. I made it so no one could trace it back to me.” Her eyes narrow at Oliver. “Unless they were actively watching me from some camera feed.”

And what did she go digging in on a different computer? Her being in the stacks has been troubling enough, but if she’s hacked into our own system… “And how did you manage to get a log in other than your own? To get past our clearance?”

Her chin lifts. “None of your business.”

I lean down into her face, relishing how she doesn’t flinch back or tremble. “It is literally our business. Where did you get the clearance?”

Harper juts out her chin.

“It’s not about what she found.”

That draws us out of our staring contest, and I turn to meet his gaze. His emotions have become a physical thing, pulling back his shoulders, making him fidgety when he can usually slump in one position for hours.

“Bring her to Grant.”

“Excuse you.” Harper’s indignant response nearly pulls a smile out of me.

I take her by the arm and help her to her feet. She slaps at my hold, trying to pull out of it. She can’t. I’ve had too much practice with women like her to give her an inch of space, and she won’t get me with those heels either.

She slaps at me again. “Excuse you, too. I am not some chess piece for you to move around where you please.”

“Come on. This is for your safety.” I tighten my grip on her just enough for her to know not to test me.

Not that it works. Harper scoffs and tries to yank her arm free again, but I pull her along, and she has to move to keep her feet under her.

I wouldn’t put it past her to stop and drop into dead weight. A smart enough move in this instance, but I would simply throw her over my shoulder, and she must see that because although she continues to fight me, she doesn’t do much that would actually be effective in this scenario.

Still, she pulls and drags her feet the entire way to Grant’s office, repeating, “Let go of me. I don’t know who gave you the right to manhandle me. I am not consenting to this. Let me go.”

None of it deters me. Harper’s simply acting like the brat I’ve always known her to be.

Once I’ve her inside Grant’s office, I let go of her and shut the door behind me, leaning against it as Harper plants her fists on her hips and glares up at me.

I almost want to smile at her.

Grant stands immediately from behind his desk, that calm fury wafting off him in waves.

I look over her head at his questioning frown. “We’ve been breached. Oliver is shutting it down. I don’t have a lot of details other than it’s centered on Harper and whatever she’s been digging into when she shouldn’t be.”

“Well, fuck.”

My thoughts exactly.

Harper spins to keep us both in her line of vision, cheeks red and proverbial smoke spilling from her ears. It’s adorable.

“We’ll need to increase our precautions.” Grant runs a hand over his chin and jaw, looking Harper up and down, assessing.

She stamps her foot and pivots, charging toward Grant’s desk where she plants her palms and glares up at him like he’s any less immobile on this. “What precautions?”

They stare at each other for a long time, just like she would have done with me. This girl has one giant backbone and no sense of the danger swarming.

“Ones that keep you safe. The same ones your dad would do if he were here.” Grant’s voice is low, not soothing per se, but filled with the kind of authority that’s hard to rail against.

And maybe it’s the small spark of genuine concern that deflates her aggressive stance. Or the fact that we would never use the memory of her father against her unless she was in serious danger.

She pulls away from his desk and runs a hand through her hair.

Grant’s hands curl into fists at his sides before he meets my gaze again.

Yes, we’re both on the same page. We need to figure out what these unknowns were doing in our system, why they’re so interested in Harper, and how the hell she got to those encrypted files to begin with.

Grant taps a button on his desk, unlocking the door behind my back, and stalks around the desk. “I’m going to go see what Oliver’s found. Stay here.”