Free Marisela Morales 03 - Dirty Little Christmas - Julie Leto by Contemporary Romance Page B

everyone go home for the holidays.
    She got nothing but voicemail.
    Frankie booted up his laptop and asked Marisela for the name of Belinda’s company.
    “Pro-tech or Protech or Pro Tech, two words,” she answered.
    He arched a brow. “You don’t know?”
    “As you so sweetly pointed out, we weren’t exactly close.”
    They found the right website and with skills that forced Marisela to step back, literally, and re-assess Frankie’s usefulness, he breached the company firewall and entered the employee directory.
    “How’d you do that?” she asked.
    His grin lifted higher on the right than the left, bringing the dimple on his cheek into sharp relief. “I may not have been a Titan employee for long, vidita , but I paid attention. Especially once I realized I would need skills beyond breaking bones to make it on my own.”
    “I’m impressed.”
    “Don’t be,” he said. “I used a very basic encryption sequence to break through. They must not care that their employee roster can be accessed.”
    “Think that means they’re stupid or that they’re not working on anything top secret?”
    He shrugged, but she could tell he was leaning toward the latter. Pro-Tech, two words with a hyphen, was a computer software developer. Even though their main focus seemed to be video gaming technology, their security should have been top-notch. If Frankie had accessed the information so easily, it was because they didn’t care about covering it up.
    “Are there pictures?”
    He clicked, typed and scrolled. “Yea. By department.”
    “Find Belinda.”
    She leaned down and watched, fascinating by the speed and accuracy of his fingers on the keyboard. She’d always known Frankie was good with his hands, but his typing and expertise turned her on more than it should. Maybe she was just tired. Maybe she was on emotional overload. Maybe she just wanted this whole mess to be over so she could go back to being Frankie’s fuckbuddy rather than dragging her into memories of their brief, but spectacular pairing as partners before he’d left Titan to go out on his own.
    “Here she is,” he said as photos of two dozen analysts in four rows appeared on his screen, her sister practically dead center.
    She wasn’t smiling. She stared at the camera with her regular, bored expression, as if the activities in her head were infinitely more interesting than anything she might see with her eyes. Marisela supposed her sister’s brain was more exciting than most people’s lives, especially her own—until, of course, she’d gone and snagged herself a lover.
    “ ¿Puedo sentarme? ” she asked.
    Frankie got up and gestured for her to sit. She leaned in close, examining every male face, scrutinizing every pair of male eyes.
    “What are you looking for?”
    “Not what . Who.”
    “Okay, who are you looking for?”
    She threw an incredulous look over her shoulder. “The baby-daddy. Do you have tape?”
    “Tape?”
    “Scotch-tape. You know, the long strips of plastic that are sticky on one side? I know you’re all master of the computer now, but I prefer to kick it old school. I’m going to eliminate suspects, one by one.”
    Frankie padded over to his desk, giving Marisela a chance to scan the room and measure the man against his personal space. The apartment was large, but sparse, which she expected, but the few furnishings he had picked were sleek and modern and stylish. She’d never imagined Frankie with anything other than hand-me-downs and thrift store treasures. That’s how they’d both grown up. Even when she’d bought her parents a brand new house, she’d trolled estate sales and consignment shops to find nice, pre-owned stuff to put inside.
    Unlike Marisela, who couldn’t shake the fear that she could fuck up and lose everything at any moment, Frankie embraced his new life. She respected his confidence, but it widened the gulf between them. Day by day, moment by moment, they moved in circles that spun in different