I followed Ethan into the other room, interested to see what this little chat would be about. I was damn curious about the little spit fire that had followed Oli here to Havana and had just started to push her buttons. I was delighted to find that Payton was very attractive when she was angry. So attractive that I was willing to go out of my way to see it. Discovering more about her would be way more fun than debriefing the last couple of days with Ethan. However, the first words out of Ethan’s mouth told me that this would not be the conversation that I had anticipated.
“I need for you to back off the personal questions with respect to Payton.” Ethan told me in a broke-no-arguments kind of tone. I just raised my eyebrows in question and waited for Ethan continue. “Right now, she has a lot of power to cause trouble for Whistler. What happened back at base camp shouldn’t have happened.”
I straightened in my chair. “Are you telling me that she blackmailed her way onto this team?” I asked with an angry note to my voice. In that moment Payton moved from a temping curiosity to a potential threat.
“No, of course not. I would never let anyone willing to blackmail us work with our team.” Ethan scratched his head as he considered his next words. “Her reaction to what happened was to leave Whistler entirely. She was more than halfway out the door when I convinced your brother to talk her into giving our team a try.”
“Why does it matter so much to you that she stays and work for Whistler?” I was surprised when I had been informed that a woman would be joining our team. Female agents were notorious for causing drama within a team and Ethan had a low tolerance for drama.
“Paxton, she took out three men twice her size with her bare hands to protect a stupid doll. She scored higher than you did as a marksman and Oliver is telling me that she is well versed with hacking and encryption. If she were a man, every team leader would be tripping over themselves to get her on their team.” I considered that for a moment and wasn’t convinced that her talent was enough for Ethan to offer to work with her. For Ethan everything came down to loyalty and duty. And who was Ethan the most loyal to outside of our team? Cole Bennet.
“And Cole has a thing about getting more women on teams. Not to mention that even though she hasn’t indicated she would go to the media with her story, if she did, Cole and Whistler would take the hit.”
Ethan let a long sigh and relaxed into his chair. “He looked so old. And if helping transition this girl into Whistler will take some worry off his shoulders then I am happy to help.”
“Transition?” I asked, “You’re not planning for her to join our team long term?”
“Who knows. Maybe she will be a good fit. I will keep an open mind. But we are never going to find out if you chase her away before any trust is established." Me? Since when was I the one to chase anyone away? Everyone loved me.
“How is my asking her personal shit going to chase her away?” I asked with indignation.
“Because you’re interested in her. I could see it the first time you laid eyes on her back at the airport.” Well, of course I was interested in her, hadn’t Ethan seen Payton? She was fucking hot. Any person with a working dick would be interested in Payton. And my dick worked perfectly, thank you very much.
“Ezra has been out-and-out flirting with her since the moment she walked in the door. I don’t see him in her getting the stay away lecture.”
“Flirting is Ezra’s way of communicating,” Ethan explained with a tried edge to his voice. “He is a love em’ and leave em’ without any emotional connection type anyway. You, my friend, like to get close, get them to really connect with you. And then when you have them eating out of the palm of your hand, you pull the trigger and end things."
I was mildly surprised that Ethan had noticed that about me. I liked to discover what made women tick. The how’s and why’s behind each of their relationships including the ones that they would form with me. But I always found them to be disappointing in the end. Once the mystery was gone so was the excitement and thrill in the relationship.
“Something tells me that Payton Taylor has some juicy secrets motivating her to be so bad ass. A girl as hot as Payton doesn’t put in the work to learn the skills she has unless she has to. The world is served to women like her on a silver platter. She’s gotta have one hell of a back story. You know I can’t help but try to figure it out. That’s why I am such a good agent. And you are telling me to just leave her alone?”
“Yes” Ethan said with authority. “Yes, that is exactly what I am telling you to do. Everything that went down in Helena destroyed any trust she had towards Whistler. Our job is to show her how a real team works. How it is built on a foundation of unshakable trust that she could be a part of. She is not here so that you can dissect her for your own twisted study of the female psyche.”
I didn’t think it was twisted. I didn’t disrespect women. I loved women. And I loved to understand them. It was just that I discovered most of them really weren’t that interesting once they stopped playing games and showed their true selves. I was on a quest for a truly interesting woman.
Ethan interrupted my musings by telling me, “Plus I don’t think she likes you very much. You need to leave Payton to Oliver.”
I snorted, “Like any woman would prefer my brother over me.” When Ethan didn’t laugh but continued to look at me like a disappointed father I asked, “What do you mean she doesn’t like me? Women always like me. I am a likable guy.”
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that, boy. Now get out of my office. I have reports to review.” With that dismissal I left Ethan’s office in search of my brother. Ethan may want me to stay away from the girl but that didn’t mean I couldn’t figure her out from afar. How hard could it be to figure out one twenty-four-year-old girl?
I didn’t bother knocking on his brother’s door before walking into his room and sprawling out on his bed. Oliver was sitting at his desk with his nose in his computer as always. “Already doing your homework?” I asked in a teasing voice.
“Umm yeah. Just doing some basic research on ChemGen to make sure I know the players on the board.” Oliver replied in a distracted voice.
“Well put that on a back burner and tell me about this girl you brought home. Cause if memory serves, she would be the first one that you have introduced me to.”
Oliver’s ears turned bright red as he replied, “I didn’t bring Payton anywhere. Ethan asked us both to join the team.”
“Yeah okay, and your connection to her has nothing to do with why she is here?”
“It’s not like that. We are just friends and she is going to make a great agent. Just give her a chance Chris.”
“I think it is her that is not giving me a chance here Oli. I have been nothing but friendly while she has done nothing but give me the stink eye.”
Oliver started laughing in response. “I know. I love it. A girl that I was insta-friends with, and she won’t give you the time of day. It’s like the whole universe has been turned upside down.”
“Ha ha ha, very funny Oli. I will win her over. I always do.” I moved my arms behind my head and considered the ceiling as I casually asked, “So what’s her story? Where is she from?”
Oliver was still typing on his computer when he responded, “She is from some small town in Illinois. Outside of Chicago I think.”
“What about her family?”
Oliver paused in his typing to look over at me. “I don’t know. She doesn’t talk about them.”
“Hmmm, that’s interesting. Everyone talks about their family. Maybe something happened to them or by them.”
Oliver closed his laptop and turned to give me his full attention. “I always got the impression that she doesn’t have anyone. And when I asked if she wanted me to contact anyone when she was in the hospital all she did was shake her head no.” We both paused to consider that Payton didn’t have any family left. That might explain why she would be attracted to working in a close team environment. Maybe she was trying to replace a lost family.
“Well, I am off to bed. I have to be in early tomorrow at the chemical plant.” I said as I started to walk out of the room. “It is great to have you here little bro.” As I readied myself for bed, I couldn’t get Payton’s intense brown eyes out of my head. She was going to be one fun puzzle to crack.
I woke up the next morning and went into the research and development office of ChemGen where I was pretending to be a bright-eyed chemical engineer with a freshly minted master’s degree from MIT. I didn’t know the first thing about being a chemical engineer, but my specialty was people. It was my job to get to know each of the people working in this department and suss out who would be willing to sell corporate secrets to the highest bidder.
I spent the day charming the assistant staff, commiserating with the lab techs, and schmoozing the higher-ups. I was leaning towards either Larry the lab tech or Ivet the personal assistant to the V.P. of Development as their corporate spy. But I couldn’t find any actual evidence of them stealing company formulas. I had been through each of their work spaces and had done a cursory look at their computers. I had found Larry’s porn stash but had been unable to get into Ivet’s locked system. Now that Oliver was on the job things would move much faster.
When I entered the team house that afternoon, I heard the most beautiful light laugh coming from the den. I wandered over to find Oli doing some kind of reenactment as he pretended to dance with an unseen partner and Payton sitting on the couch watching him with delight and letting out the occasional laugh.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Payton said in between bouts of laughter, “there is no way that you said that to her.” My God. If I thought she was attractive when she was angry then she was breathtaking while laughing.
“Said what to who?” I asked from the doorway. My words must have startled Payton because in one smooth movement she stood, turned, and gripped something behind her back. My breath caught as I realized that she was armed. She was sitting in the team house with a gun tucked into her waist band. Ethan wasn’t joking when he said that she had trust issues. Recognition dawned on her face before fulling drawing the weapon and I doubted Oli even noticed that she had almost just drawn down on his brother.
“Whoa there. I didn’t mean to scare you,” I said with my patented ‘charm the pants off any girl’ smile. “I just came in here to see how the progress on the case was going.”
“Good,” Oliver replied. “We just handed most of the personal banking information over to Ethan.”
“That was fast. There are hundreds of employees working at the plant. I thought that Ethan wanted you to keep accessing peoples accounts until we found our guy.”
“Yeah well this is a small island. And Payton had the idea of just hacking into the banks instead of each individual account. There are only five banks that service ninety-five percent of the ChemGen employees.” He paused to give Payton a sly smile. “Five hacks go a whole lot faster than the hundreds it would take if we went employee to employee.”
Cleaver. Probably means that she is used to thinking outside of the box to find creative solutions. Ethan was right. If she were a man, she would be one hot commodity in the Whistler world. My interruption caused her to throw all her defenses back in place. I couldn’t make out that beautiful smile anywhere on her now scowling face. Maybe Ethan was also right about her not liking me. But what wasn’t to like? We had barley conversed. There is no way she could have formed such a dislike for me yet.
“Okay well it is my turn to cook tonight and I need to head to the store. Do you guys want to join?” Oliver was quick to reply yes but it was Payton’s answer I really wanted to hear.
“You two go ahead. I was planning on walking around and exploring the neighborhood a little,” she answered.
“A walk sounds nice. Want company?” I tried but before she could respond Oliver cut in.
“Chris you just said we needed to go to the store. And I’m starving. Let Payton go exploring while we cook dinner.” I would have pushed the issue if she didn’t look so relieved at Oli’s interjection.
“Ok. Be safe and keep that gun close. This isn’t the best neighborhood for a young woman to take a stroll.” If Payton was surprised I called her on carrying she didn’t show it. Oliver was though. He looked over at her with eyebrows raised and she shrugged her left shoulder in response. It looked like Oliver was reconsidering letting her go on a walk by herself when she strode out the front door without glancing back.
“Not much for words, is she?” I asked Oliver.
“No, Payton is all about actions that speak louder than words.” I was going to have to remember that.
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