“I’d do it again. Over and over.”
He smiled. “Good.” He slowly lowered to one knee. “Ember King, would you do me the honor of renewing your vows with me next week on the beach in front of our pain in the ass family which will probably include about a dozen screaming children, give or take?”
She tipped her head back and laughed before she leaned forward. “Joseph King, I would love to renew my vows with you.” She cupped his cheeks and kissed him. “Your family would never believe what a hopeless romantic you are.”
He stood and turned off the water, grabbing a bath sheet to wrap her in. A smile spread across his face. “Oh, I think they’ll figure it out.”
Ember let him tuck in the bath sheet’s corner after he twirled her up in it. “What are you doing?” She arched an eyebrow. “You’re up to something.”
He grabbed a smaller towel and wrapped it around his hips. “I am.”
She pointed a finger at him. “No bodily injuries.”
“None.”
“Are you going to give me a hint?”
He shook his head and grabbed her hand, pulling her into the huge master suite and the soft bed that faced the ocean. “Not even a little one.” God only knew when his dipshit brothers and crazy sisters would arrive. Until that time, he was going to spend every minute he could naked next to the woman he loved.
Chapter 5
“What am I looking at?” Jason leaned back in his chair and peered over his tablet at his sister.
“That’s a good question. I don’t know.” Jewell pulled a pencil out of her hair and bit down on the eraser.
“Okay, let me rephrase that. Why are you showing me this portion of… code?” He’d taken a wild ass guess that the nonsense on the screen in front of him was some variation of computer language.
“Oh, well, when Tempest mentioned to Jacob that one of the Fates was still trying to get into a clone of the hard drive that we recovered from Vista, I went back and took another look at the information that would be available to them and what we’ve done to mitigate the data contained on the drive.”
“That sounds smart. I take it you found something?”
Jewell shook her head and said yes at the same time. Jason took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. God, he could hardly wait to board the plane to Aruba tomorrow. He needed to plant his ass on the sandy beach and let the waves take every concern away. But for now, he had to play twenty guesses with his sister, who didn’t have a clue she was pissing him off. “Explain that, please.”
“Well, everything on the drive we've scrubbed, and except for the information that I’ve already reported to you, we’ve patched all the holes.”
“Okay…” He stared at his sister. Her gaze focused somewhere over his shoulder. “Where’s Zane?” It was so much easier to get to the point when her husband was present. He was the ‘Jewell Whisperer’ and worth his fucking weight in titanium.
“What? Zane? Oh, he’s out buying a few things for Aruba. You’re going, right?” She looked at him and blinked owlishly.
“Yes, we are going. You were saying?”
“Huh?”
“About the hard drive?” He nodded to her tablet.
“Oh, yeah, I wanted to make sure we had everything covered, so I used the new program that we’ve developed and we measured the order of magnitude in the code which, for the information that was on the drive and the functionality contained in the programs, should have been substantially less than it was. So, it was either a lack of cohesion and out of sync with its functionality, or someone put the extraneous code where it is for a reason.”
“You believe he put it there on purpose.” Somehow the gift of that damn Russian hacker kept on giving, didn’t it?
Jewell nodded. “Yeah, I do. Using function point as the standard, some of the code is extraneous. But in all the time I dealt with Vista, I never knew him to do anything without a reason.”
Jason leaned forward. “What did you find in the code?”
Jewell sighed. “Nothing yet. I’m going to work on this while we are in Aruba, I mean, if you will allow me to put it onto my laptop. I’m the only person who can access the information and I never hook it up to unsecured servers.”
“Permission granted. I know you’ll safeguard the information. Do you have your team ready for your unannounced vacation?”
“I do. Well, Zane does. He handles the scheduling and stuff. Did you know it was eighty-three degrees today in Aruba? Eighty-three, Jase. I so need to thaw the heck out, I really do.” Jewell shoved her hand into the front pocket of her fluffy hoodie. “Winter has been hard this year.”
“The year has been a bitch on too many levels, winter weather included. We all deserve a break.” He leaned back in his chair.
“The cleanup of the Fates’ shit is going to take years. Stratus is probably crawling under rocks and trying to figure out who the hell is going to lead them now.” Jewell stood and stomped her foot, sending her jeans down over her high-heeled boots. “I guess that’s job security for us, huh?”
“I’d be happy if we worked ourselves out of a job.” Jason stood and ambled to the door with his sister. “See you at the airport?”
“Yep. I get to hold Royce all the way. Faith already said I could.” Jewell did a little jig. “That little boy is a cuddle bug.”
“He is.” Jason smiled at his sister and opened the door.
“See you in the morning.” Jewell waved at Sonya and let herself out the double doors.
Sonya turned and Jason tipped his head, silently asking her to come into his office. The woman stood on the stilts she called heels and wobbled into the office.
“Do you have everything you need?” Jason nodded to the computer. “I’ve reviewed all the documents you flagged. Is my laptop synced?”
“IT is on their way up with it. I wanted to make sure they’d installed and function-checked the latest crypto programs. Jewell is going with you, right?” Sonya looked up from her notepad.
“Yes, the entire family is converging.”
“Good, then you’ll have a secure hookup. I’ll forward the important things and rack and stack the busy work unless you tell me to let it dribble toward you.”
“Rack and stack is fine. If I go out of my mind with boredom, I’m sure Faith will have plenty of things planned to keep me busy. She was on the official Aruba website this morning looking at tours, places to see, and things to do. With all the aunts, uncles, and cousins, I’m hoping I’ll be able to spend some quality time alone with her.” Jason picked up his briefcase.
“I hope so. I really do. I don’t know a person who works harder than you do.” Sonya handed him a small yellow square of paper. “The address you wanted.”
He glanced at her, confused until he saw her flowery handwriting. She’d found him a daily meeting on Aruba. “You’re the best.” He hugged the tiny woman carefully.
“You’re damn right I am. Now, get out of here. I’m going to take some time off while you’re gone. I have Christmas shopping to do and then I have to wrap it all. Send me some sunshine, would you?” They walked to the door together.