“So egos, then. We know Whitney has a massive ego.” Sam said.
“You have someone providing you with good intel,” Ryland said. “Are you absolutely certain you can trust him? Or her?”
Azami looked at him with cool eyes. If he was fishing, she wasn’t biting. “Yes. Absolutely.”
“You have no objections to Sam asking permission to marry you?” Ryland asked, suddenly changing the subject.
Sam swore under his breath at that deceptively mild tone. Ryland wasn’t finished.
Azami lowered her lashes so that they feathered across her high cheekbones like twin fans. “It is the custom in my family and a matter of respect.”
“Before you go that far, Sam,” Ryland continued, “perhaps Azami might explain how she came to know about second-generation Zenith and how she came to have those patches.”
Her heart rate jumped. She didn’t so much as blink, but the pad of his finger was over her pulse, and Sam felt that jump.
“I told you, I have an informant. The work was stolen, but I don’t know how they got it. I checked your wife’s computer myself and then had Daiki recheck it. That computer is clean, but Whitney has her work. He bragged to some of his researchers how smart his daughter is.”
“He has Lily’s work on Zenith?” Ryland pounced on that. “She only puts research notes on her personal computer. How the hell did Whitney get into her computer without any of us knowing?” He glared at Gator. “I thought Flame put alarms or something on her computer for this very reason.”
Gator shrugged. “You’ll have to talk to my wife about that, Rye, not me. I don’ know a thin’ about computers. She talks a foreign language when she gets goin’.”
“If Whitney has found a way to get into our computers again … ” Ryland trailed off.
“We sweep the computers before we install software, and Daiki has written an excellent virus and Trojan protector program we install routinely with the software. I’m telling you, her computer is absolutely clean. He didn’t get her work from here,” Azami said. “Someone else has her work or you have a traitor here.”
Ryland sighed and swept both hands through his hair, clearly wondering how Whitney had managed to get his hands on Lily’s research. As far as he knew, the only other person they’d shared with was their boss, General Ranier.
“So your informant told you about Lily’s discovery,” Ryland prompted, giving up, for the moment, trying to figure out the modern technology warfare. “How did you get it?”
“I took it from his computer, of course,” Azami admitted. “Crossing computer swords with Daiki will get one cut down. Whitney sent us an inquiry about purchasing the satellite and in the email, there was a very clever virus, one that without Daiki’s new software program, we probably wouldn’t have been able to detect. To Daiki, that was a declaration of war. We replied and were in his computer just like that.”
“Does Whitney know?”
“He might eventually, but he won’t be able to trace it back to us.” She shrugged. “He’s got a brilliant mind, that brother of mine, and he can come up with incredible ways to protect our systems that would take years to unravel.”
“So what did you do with my wife’s research?”
“No one else has seen it. I took the formula from Whitney’s computer and ran it through my labs myself. It showed great promise, so when I was certain she believed she had the kinks worked out, I tested it on myself of course.”
Sam’s breath caught in his throat. The first generation Zenith killed the user unless they were given the antidote within a matter of hours. You should never have taken such a chance. It was impossible to remain silent. He allowed his anger to pour into her mind.
Those dark, exotic eyes shifted to his face. Melted. Turned hot. Not with answering anger but with desire. Everything inside him shifted to let her in. She didn’t change expression when she looked at him, only there in her eyes, but she didn’t need to. He felt her, flowing into his mind, filling him up, wrapping herself tightly around his mind and heart.
He wanted her. Not just that all-consuming urgent lust pounding in his blood, but with something softer and deeper and much more intense than the physical passion making such harsh demands on his body. He could hear his blood thundering in his ears and roaring through his veins, filling his c**k so that he pulsed with need, but still, that hot, bright passion flowed with sheer tenderness he hadn’t known even existed in him until Azami had come along.
“You tested an unknown drug on yourself, knowing the first generation could kill the user?” Ryland sounded almost as outraged as Sam had been.
“I do not ask others to do what I wouldn’t,” Azami said. “I studied the first drug’s compound as well as your wife’s version. I spent months going over the data. Your wife definitely felt she’d made a breakthrough and everything that Whitney had on his computer regarding her work was first class. Her notes are detailed and easy to follow, where his are cryptic and difficult. He encodes everything. The man is paranoid.”
“Don’t try to lead me off the subject. That was sheer lunacy testing an unknown drug on yourself and you damn well know it.”
She leaned toward Ryland. “Fortunately, I don’t have anyone else to answer to,” she replied mildly, letting him know she wasn’t under his command.
“Your brothers didn’t object?”
“We don’t boss one another. I told them what I was doing and what to do if anything should go wrong. They didn’t like it any more than you did, but the second-generation Zenith proved to be a miracle drug when one needs it.”
“You own a satellite company; why would you need a drug like Zenith?” Ryland asked. Sam very carefully slid his thumb across her inner wrist in a caress, warning her at the same time. Ryland was no one’s dummy. His carefully worded questions were designed to trip her up, casually asked or not.
“We go into dangerous countries and often must protect ourselves. Other governments use different methods to get what they want—and they want my brother’s software and the high-resolution satellite with Eiji’s lens. Our work is very unpredictable, especially if we decide against selling to a corporation or country who believes they have a right to our equipment.”
Sam was astonished at her absolute composure. He knew he shouldn’t be; she’d shown nerves of steel during the fight in the forest, and from the moment Ryland had begun interrogating her, she had been poised and collected. She even flashed her serene smile at Ryland, as if he wasn’t quite bright and he should have figured out the answer without bothering her with such an obvious question.