Erica followed his instructions well and acted along with his plan.
…
"Oh, so this is what happened." Jack nodded his head.
"It is really scary." Erica commented.
"Yeah, the reason I actually came here is because there is someone from the Seattle branch who is leaking information to our rival firms, have you noticed we lost a few cases in the last months?"
"Yeah, but it is normal for firms to lose a few cases" Erica shared her thoughts.
"Right, but there was a pattern in it, which we observed, it is not just happening in the Seattle firm but it is happening in our other branches too but the mastermind of this is in the Seattle branch so I came here to personally investigate." Steve explained.
"Steve, then why did you not ask cops to look into it?" Erica questioned him.
"We can't, there are some dirty secrets that might come out, I have to be careful and see what exactly this person wants, it looks more like personal revenge than anything else." Steve told her why he can't hand this case to the police.
"Yeah, your father told me today morning not to involve the police." Jack supported Steve's decision.
"If I may ask, what kind of dirty secrets?" Erica was curious to know.
"Not sure, but dad didn't build so many firms by being 100% fair, there are some deep dark secrets, that is all I too know, we need to protect them too and are not sure what this hacker wants from us and until you don't know what your enemy wants from you, one has to be careful" Steve explained and Erica nodded her head.
"So, what's next?" Jack asked Steve.
Steve looked at Erica and explained, "I want to pretend that the reason I am here is because Erica is my first love, if you agree, then I'll plan a confession and will shift to your home and will live with you." Steve suggested and Erica was shocked.
"What?" She shouted at him.
"Only if you agree" Steve added as he can understand how uncomfortable it would be for her.
"What if my house is bugged?"
"We will check that today. But it would be more feasible if we stay and work on this together, the culprit will assume we are romancing but the truth is we are uncovering his crimes."
"Why this plan?" Jack asked him.
"To distract that hacker, me falling for Erica is a very convincing lie given our history, I was anyway planning to work with Erica in uncovering the truth so it would be more feasible if we stay together and work together given how dangerous this guy is"
Jack and Erica understood his point as it is indeed a very easy way out.
"So Erica, is it okay for you to act along with this lie?" Steve asked her.
Erica hesitated as she was not sure what to do, she was really scared if her true feelings would come out while pretending.