Chapter: 24

Hank brought his laptop up front to begin the presentation needed for the meeting. He plugged in his USB drive, and the large, white screen flickered for a few seconds before going black.

Puzzled, Hank was about to disconnect his drive when the screen suddenly lit up again.

The silence that fell in the room was deafening, and the air crackled with tension.

The screen did not display any charts or graphs, or even a small smattering of texts. Instead, it showed a high-definition photo of a male private part in all its naked glory.

Caden's face darkened ominously.

Terrified out of his wits, Hank rushed to turn off the Laptop altogether, but the program seemed to have frozen, and the darn device wouldn't shut down.

Caden's Adam's apple bobbed once as he narrowed his eyes at the photo.

“Shut off the projector," he barked at Hank. "Your laptop is obviously infected with some kind of virus."

Hank practically lunged at the cable center to disconnect the projector from the screen. What followed was a more pregnant, almost eerie silence, likely brought about by that unexpected photo, but most definitely because of the forbidding energy coming off of Caden.

While his face remained blank on the surface, a storm of emotions was lurking beneath his icy eyes.

Hank opened his mouth to speak when Caden stood up and beat him to it. "Today's meeting is adjourned."

With that, he strode out of the room, Hank hurrying closely at his heels.

When they reached Caden's office, Hank darted forward to open the door for his boss, but the latter paused in his tracks.

"Care to explain yourself?" Caden asked, fixing his eyes on his hapless assistant.

Under normal circumstances, Hank would have scrambled to his desk to trace the source of the virus.

Today, however, not only did Hank refrain from such efforts, but he was also uncharacteristically quiet about the debacle.

Hank straightened his back, though he kept his eyes glued to the floor. "It was Ms. Bennett."

The hallway's temperature seemed to have dropped a few degrees. "I know it was Alicia, but how did she pull it off?"

Hank was a little surprised, and he whipped his head up before he could stop himself. “How did you know it was her, Mr. Ward?"

How else?

Because those were his crown jewels that had been paraded in front of his subordinates!

In his almost thirty years of existence, he had only ever slept with Alicia, and they just had an intimate encounter in his office earlier that day.

So, she hadn't blindfolded him for the sake of a fun and sexy romp, the minx had actually dared to take a photo of him when he was at his most vulnerable!

"Ms. Bennett brought coffee and pastries to my desk before she left. She asked me to give them to you to express her apology. The next thing I know, she spilled the coffee all over my desk, and she was wiping it off my computer. Everything happened so fast, and at the time, I was more concerned about the possibility that she might have tampered with the coffee or the sweets..."

For all of Hank's overthinking, he never imagined that Alicia would upload a vulgar photo to his computer and sabotage his presentation.

With a click of his tongue, Caden stormed into his office and grabbed a bottle of ice water from the coffee table.

Hank slowly followed him inside, his tone cautious as he asked, "Should I send for Ms. Bennett, Mr. Ward?"

Caden could feel the blood pumping in his temples as he gritted his teeth. "No need."

Hank studied his boss. Although Caden was still nursing his rage, it was clear that he had no intentions of pursuing the matter any further.

Hank breathed a sigh of relief. "Ms. Bennett is always so gentle and soft-spoken. I had no idea she had a hidden, wild steak."