Two weeks passed by without any incident and the tense pressure between her shoulders had slowly relaxed as one day after another passed by without even seeing his shadow. And to top it all off her project has been doing quite well.
She made her way into the lobby of her client's building and turned as she heard her name.
"Jade!" A handsome tanned man raised a hand at her.
She walked over to him and shook his hand, "Stephan, how are you doing?"
"Much better now after seeing you," she ignored how his eyes quickly gave her an appreciative look before giving her that charming smile that had all the ladies in the office panting after him.
She kept her tone and responding smile purely professional, "I hope you and your team are ready to get busy."
She led the way to the elevators and made sure to steer the conversation towards the work they would be doing today. Stephan, though a big flirt and had been wanting to get a date out of her for years, was nothing but a professional. Despite his surfer charms, he was one of their best technology experts.
"One of their servers are on this floor and we can get a chance to get those logs you have been requesting."
Stephan nodded as they got off the elevator with the rest of his team. "We have been stuck with some of our procedures while we were waiting for the log approvals. But it is understandable, with such sensitive information I'm pretty sure our request had to jump through several hoops. I'm just glad we're still within our timeline."
Jade nodded in understanding and scanned her access card by the scanner but was confused when it beeped and turned red. She tapped her card again and got the same error.
"Your access card won't work on this floor." That familiar yet unfamiliar voice had her whipping around and nearly losing her balance on her heels.
So much for luck being on her side.
He walked calmly towards her. Seeing those green eyes so close made her unconsciously clench her hand over her bag. Those damn eyes had been the star of her dreams that had left her sweaty and aching for far too many times.
He leaned closer to her and she could smell a masculine scent she wanted more of. She fought the urge to step back and to step forward at the same time.
Before she could do something stupid, he straightened and signaled towards the now open door. It was then she realized he had leaned over her to tap his own access card against the scanner.
She suddenly wanted to find the nearest crack and crawl in mortification. How could someone who doesn't seem to recognize her still affect her this much?
She took a deep breath and followed Stephan and him through the door and into a conference room.
"I'm Jackson Maxwell, the security consultant of the company. My firm and I are providing software, technical and manpower security over all the company's assets."
Jade kept her professional smile on her face and was glad her hand was steady as it shook his, "Good to see you again Mr. Maxwell."
"Ms. Thorne, a pleasure to meet you again. Feel free to call me Jackson, Mr. Maxwell reminds me of my father."
"This is Stephan York, and the rest of his team." Handshakes and more introductions made the rounds.
Stephan proceeded to highlight the things he and his team aim to go through.
Jackson nodded, "My team would be with you the entire day and we will endeavor to provide your requests but one of my team would need to be with you the entire time. I hope you all understand, though you would not be checking the highly sensitive research data in the servers but we are being cautious. And as we have mentioned we would need to scan any laptops you bring in on this level and we would need all your phones to remain in this room alone."
"Yes, we're happy to do so and all our laptops have been scrubbed of any sensitive data on our end." One of Stephan's team turned over their laptops and someone took them for what Jade would guess was a scan.
They all followed Jackson to another room where there were several huge screens and several were busily typing away.
"This is our central station for our cyber security. Members of our team are here 24/7." He signaled towards another area, "Andrew can help you with the logs and access list."
Jade let Stephan and his team to take the lead and was barely paying attention to their discussion. She was mentally going through the status of her various projects. She was so into her own head she nearly jumped when that voice mentioned her name.
"Ms. Thorne? We might have lost you there for a while."
She mentally shook herself and put on her professional smile again, "Apologies. What did you ask again?"
Stephan chuckled, "She does that sometimes, always busy in her head."
Jade wanted to frown at him, that sounded too much like they were so close he knew how her brain worked. And for some unfathomable reason she did not want someone to arrive to wrong conclusions.
Fuck.
She stuffed that realization to the back of her mind to be dissected later or never. Whichever of the two works but never was sounding very good right now.
She watched Jackson give Stephan a smile and for a moment she thought he frowned at her and Stephan but his smile didn't seem to have moved at all.
She needed more coffee; she must be hallucinating.
"Jackson here mentioned that the accounting system is on another level and are not linked to these servers." Stephan explained with a quirk of his lips.
"We try not to house the critical servers in the same location and to avoid possible hacking through that way as well." Jackson added.
Stephan frowned a bit as he mused, "I could send someone with you to check the access rights."
Jade shrugged, "I can handle some access rights and logs on my own. And I need to run the entries list from there as well so you don't need to mind me." She turned to Jackson, "If you could have one of your team show me the way that would be brilliant."
Jackson seemed to look around the busy room and looked back at her with a slightly mischievous smile that made her little heart skip a beat, "Seems like everyone is not available, I'll be happy to show you the way myself."
She tried not to show exactly how much she did not want that. "If you're certain."
Jackson cocked an eyebrow at her as if in challenge. Challenge? Why would he challenge her? "I'm very certain."
Well, there went her luck.