I could feel Lena’s pointed stare even without looking at her, and I was baffled. Lawrence had never been anything other than friendly to me. He’d certainly never been “grabby.” But I didn’t want a scene in the lobby, and I actually did need to get back to work, so I rose to follow her and offered Lawrence an apologetic smile. “See you around.”

He waved languidly, but then looked up as if suddenly remembering something. “Oh, Audrey? Your friend is here.”

“My friend?” I repeated, surprised. Cat was here? Had we had a coffee date that I’d forgotten about?

“You know the one,” he said, smirking slightly. “President of your fan club.”

My stomach churned. I felt unsafe at home; I shouldn’t have to feel unsafe at work, too. A self-defense class was exactly what I needed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN HIM

I couldn’t get the post out of my mind. You can watch them all the time.

All the time.

The allure of having access to her even when she was alone, even when she wanted to remain private, was hard to ignore. I knew that installing a remote administration tool—or RAT, as they called it—on her computer was an inappropriate thing to do, but I had lost all sense of reason when it came to Audrey. Her thin, flawless fingers had burrowed an opening in my skin, and she had slipped into my bloodstream whole. She coursed through my body; every heartbeat echoed her name. I couldn’t even close my eyes without seeing her perfect face carved into the backs of my eyelids.

Midway through another sleepless night, the siren song of the forums became too insistent to be ignored. I grabbed my laptop and logged on, refusing to admit my intentions to myself even as I navigated straight to the “All Access” thread in the VIP forum.

All the time. I could see what she was doing that very minute. My fingers itched, scrolling quickly through all seventy-six responses, looking for the pertinent information. Maybe it was the lack of sleep catching up with me, or maybe it was simple depravity, but I found myself nodding along as I read. Installing the RAT began to seem reasonable. After all, it wouldn’t hurt Audrey in any way. She would never even know.

Besides, Audrey shared so much of herself online. She invited this. She wanted it.

It seemed so simple. All I had to do was download the desktop program onto my computer, and then have Audrey download another program onto hers. Once both were in place, I could control Audrey’s computer remotely. I could look through files, view her screen, and, most important, turn on her camera and microphone so I could observe her in real time.

Simple, maybe, but far from easy. Everything was predicated on convincing Audrey to download the program, and she was much too savvy to fall for some amateur attempt at spam. Navigating this would be like walking a high wire, where any misstep could prove fatal. If Audrey recognized the attempt to gain access for what it was, or even just recognized it as something suspicious, and was able to connect it to me, everything would be lost. All the stars in our universe could align and there still wouldn’t be any help for me then.