Taming Lily (The Fowler Sisters #3)(62)

“Fleur is as much a part of you as it is me,” Violet says. “And Rose. We’re all equals here. Don’t ever forget, Lily.”

I’ll try my best to take her advice.

Chapter twenty-one

Max

“WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME.” I settle into the chair beside my friend—and computer expert—Levi Cates. He’s hunched over Lily’s laptop, his own laptop hooked up to it, endless streams of code filling the screen. “Got anything yet?”

“Quite a bit, actually. I’ve been saving it up so I can dump it on you all at once,” Levi says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms behind his head. He’s a big motherf*cker. I met him when we served in the army together and now he assists me on the complex computer jobs. I know plenty about code and getting into a system and I discovered a few things, but there were encrypted sections deep inside Lily’s laptop that were impenetrable. That’s when I called in Levi.

“Like what?” I crack open the water bottle I brought with me and take a few swallows, trying to calm my nerves. My forty-eight hours are up, as Pilar so kindly let me know via a nasty voicemail message she left a few hours ago. She plans on dropping by my office by the end of the day.

I never let her know I had the laptop, just informed her that the job was done. I wanted to find out what the hell was on that computer before I just handed it over.

“First, the owner of this laptop is an expert at infiltrating other people’s systems. As in, she’s a well-trained hacker,” Levi says as he continues to tap the keyboard, his gaze never leaving the laptop’s screen.

“I figured that out already.” And the realization shocked the hell out of me. I had no idea Lily had the skills in her. Though I’m sure I’m not the first person to underestimate the woman.

“Uh-huh.” Levi hits the enter key a few times and then turns to look at me, his dark brown eyes laser sharp behind his glasses. “She broke into multiple email accounts of one Pilar Vasquez.”

“Right. My client.” I nod, glad I didn’t give Levi any information before he started digging. That’s how it usually goes. I want him to find out the info on his own unless he asks me about it. “Wait a minute. Multiple accounts? I only saw one.”

“So Pilar Vasquez is your client? Interesting.” Levi returns his attention to the laptop. He hits a few more keys and brings up an in-box. “She works for Fleur, right? That’s the in-box you found? Not much to note on the surface—a few flirtatious emails between her and Forrest Fowler, who I looked up. He’s the CEO of Fleur.”

“Yeah, and he’s involved with Pilar,” I add.

“Got that from the tone of their correspondence. But here’s what’s interesting.” Levi skims his index finger across the track pad, opening a folder entitled Home Design. Most of the emails that pop up are older, but there are a couple of recent ones, including an email from a few weeks ago. “She’s been chatting up a Zachary Lawrence, who from what it looks like travels all over Europe for work—he’s also a Fleur employee—but his current home base is in France. And he’s engaging in rather explicit emails with Pilar.”

“You gotta be kidding me.” I grab my phone out of my pocket and bring up one of my old web searches, one that involves Violet Fowler. Just as I thought. “That’s Violet’s ex-boyfriend.” I feel like a complete idiot for ignoring the folders saved within Pilar’s in-box, figuring they weren’t anything important. And I was in a hurry to find out any details I could to help Lily. I should have dug deeper.

“And that is … one of Forrest’s daughters.” Levi cocks a brow.

“The daughter who’s set to run Fleur one day,” I tell him.

“Yeah, well she’s not with this Zachary guy anymore, right? Because he’s chatting up your client every chance he gets, describing in lurid detail exactly what he’s going to do to her naked body the minute he gets near it. Here’s an example.” He clicks open one of the emails.

I miss the taste of your skin, the way your nipples feel between my lips, the way you scream my name and pull my hair when I make you squirt in my mouth.

Squirt? Shit. That’s not sexy. “Uh, I didn’t really need to see that,” I say with a grimace.

Levi closes out the email. “Yeah, well I thought since I had to suffer through it, you should, too. Considering you didn’t find it in the first place.”

Way to make me feel like a loser. I can beat my own self up, thank you very much. “Great. Appreciate it,” I mutter. “I’m sure her old man, Fowler, would be pissed to discover this interesting bit of information.”

“Well, this is just the tip of the iceberg.” Levi practically bounces in his chair he’s so excited. He lives for this sort of thing. Closing out of the Fleur in-box, he clicks on a few links, taps a couple of keys, and another in-box appears. “This is Pilar’s personal Gmail account. And let me tell you, this one is full of the goods.”

“Like what?” I lean in closer, peering at the screen, reading the endless list of emails that clutter up the in-box. “Doesn’t she ever clean this thing out?”

“From what I can tell, no, and that’s what makes it such a gold mine of information. I’m sure your little hacker had a field day when she discovered it.”