The Seduction Game

“It will,” Meg insisted.

But Kate shook her head. “I should have known.”

“Known what?” Meg asked.

“That it wasn’t real.”

“I don’t understand—”

“What did I tell you? Out of my league,” she whispered. “He’s a millionaire. I’m what? A computer repair geek? I make games for geeks? He’s completely out of my league. He always was. I was an idiot to think he really wanted me. God…when I think about how I dragged him around Minicon, he must have been laughing so hard inside.”

“Don’t you dare say that!” Meg snapped. “Don’t you dare.”

“But it’s true,” Kate said and even she could hear the anguish in her voice. “I went out and bought stupid dresses trying to be pretty for him. Trying to turn myself into someone I wasn’t, and all along he was probably laughing. Look at the geek trying to look like—”

“Like what?” Meg demanded. “Like what?”

“Like a real girl,” Kate admitted, the thoughts that had tortured her on the journey to Meg’s finally breaking free. “Like someone who had a chance with him.”

“Oh, Katie.” Meg sighed. “You are a real girl. You’ve never seen yourself clearly. Ever. Never realized how pretty you are. Your parents’ deaths affected you more than you realize. You put this shell around yourself and took it off for no one.”

“I took it off for him.”

“And that’s why it hurts so much.”

The doorbell rang. Meg frowned at the intrusion. “I’m not expecting anyone. It’s probs Jess from across the way. Just give me a mo and I’ll get rid of her.”

Kate nodded and pulled the blanket a little closer around her, thinking about Meg’s words. A great love affair. The very idea of that made her ache. She was cold, which made no sense, because it was hideously hot. And her chest hurt, in a really weird way, like there was a weight pressing down on it, it felt almost like…like the dark days after her parents’ accident.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to get a grip because there was no freaking way she was going to put Will in the same mindset as the people who had loved her. He didn’t. He’d used her for nothing more than dollar signs.

It was a horrible reality to face.

A moment later Meg returned with a package in her hands. “It wasn’t anyone,” she said. “Just this left on the doorstep, and…”

“What?”

Meg frowned. “It’s addressed to you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Me neither, but open it and we’ll see what the heck is going on.”

Kate took the package, her blanket falling around her waist as she began undoing the brown paper. The weight felt oddly familiar and the moment she saw the glint of gray she knew what it was. “A laptop?”

“Okay, this is fecking weird,” Meg said, puzzlement chasing across her features. “Who’d be sending you a laptop?”

“I have no idea.”

Once it was free of the packaging the mystery deepened. Taped to the cover was a note. It simply said turn me on. With shaky hands Kate did, opening up the screen and positioning it between her and Meg.

“Maybe it’s someone who needs it fixed?” Meg suggested as the laptop cranked into gear.

“But why would they send it here? Our customers don’t know your address.”

“I don’t know.”

The laptop took a while to load, much longer than Kate’s super souped-up machine would have, but the moment it did, her heart thumped in her chest, adrenaline raced through her, and her knees felt a little shaky—though how that could be when she was sitting down, Kate didn’t know. The desktop wallpaper was pink, a shockingly bright pink, and someone had loaded text. It came on letter by letter and the font was hideous—Comic Sans—but that didn’t matter. All that mattered were the words, and as she read them, her head started to spin.

Katie, log in please.

Username: Xena

Password: Geeks Do It Better

Only four people in the world had ever called her Katie. Her parents, Meg…and Will.

There was only one icon on the desktop, a web browser, and so with shaky fingers, not even considering that she might do otherwise, Kate clicked the icon open. Again it was slow loading as the processor found Meg’s Wi-Fi connection, and she fidgeted, wondering what it was going to be about. What it all meant.

She could hear Meg’s hushed breathing next to her and the moment the browser window opened her friend reached out and squeezed her hand.

It was a log-in screen.

“What the hell?” Kate shook her head, suddenly wishing that she hadn’t opened it, but even as that thought formed, she started typing in the log-ins, just as Will probably knew she would.

There was no doubt in her mind now that this was from him.

The screen went blank, then loaded again, and Kate gaped the moment she saw what was on there. Two badly formatted avatars stood on what was an equally as badly formatted replica of the Enterprise bridge. One avatar was tall, lithe, with flowing blond hair, huge glasses, and overly large breasts. She had so obviously been cribbed from another game with the glasses added on. Kate could see the joins.

The other was taller still, even more muscular, and was wearing a black bodysuit and a cape. She recognized that avatar immediately from one of her favorite games. Confused, Kate ran the mouse over the man and inhaled sharply when words appeared above him.

Will Thornton.

“Do you,” Meg whispered and Kate did, moving the mouse until her own name appeared above the blond-haired woman.

Kate Kelly.

“Will somehow did this,” Kate said slowly. “It has to be him, but why? And how? This sort of programming takes hours.”

“Guy’s a complete—” Meg began but hushed the moment a play icon appeared between the two avatars.

Kate clicked on it, checked the laptop volume, and waited. Her heart was racing, her head spinning, and she did not know what to think. Why was Will chasing her? What was there to be gained? She’d given him her building. There was nothing left.

Music started to play through the computer’s shitty speakers. Kate opened her mouth once and then again, unable to believe what she was hearing. She started to speak but no words came out because it was their song, the one they had danced to just last night. It seemed like days ago now. The lyrics whispered through her mind but the moment her chest started to clench they stopped. Silence and then the recording—it had to be that—began, ridiculously loud and crackly, as if Will wanted to be sure there was no chance that she wouldn’t hear it.

“Katie,” the Will avatar boomed in a voice that was not Will’s. In fact, it sounded distinctly teenagerish. “Everything you heard was a lie. Just a lie.”

The Kate avatar shook her head and withdrew a sword from her waistband. “You told Chris you tricked me.”

“I did it simply to trick him,” the Will avatar insisted, swinging his cloak back and raising a shield. “I knew something was wrong. Knew that Chris was lying and I owed it to you to prove it. To fix it.”

“I don’t believe you!” the Kate avatar shrieked, and actual Kate frowned as she realized that the Kate avatar’s voice was a bit too deep, almost like the words were being read by a guy.