About That Night

Three

Nine years later

THE CHILLY MARCH wind cut across Lake Michigan, an icy sting that could easily bring tears to one’s eyes. But Kyle barely noticed. When he was running, he was in the zone.

It was dark outside, after seven p.m., and the temperature hovered right around forty degrees. Every day for the past two weeks, he’d hit the jogging trail that ran along the lake and run a twelve-mile circuit from his apartment and back. His doorman, Miles, had commented yesterday on the routine, and for simplicity’s sake, Kyle had said he was training for a marathon.

In truth, he just liked the quiet solitude of running. Not to mention, he reveled in the freedom he’d come to appreciate while running. Ah…such glorious freedom. The knowledge that he could keep going, with nothing but physical exhaustion to stop him.

And, of course, a team of armed U.S. marshals if he went more than ten miles from home.

A minor technicality.

Kyle had quickly realized there was one drawback to his running routine, something he’d figured out around mile three the first morning: the electronic monitoring device strapped to his ankle chafed like a bitch while jogging. He’d tried sprinkling some talcum powder on it, but all that had gotten him was a white mess that left him smelling like a baby. And if there was anything a committed bachelor in his thirties did not need to smell like, it was babies. A woman got one whiff of that and suddenly all sorts of biological clocks came out of snooze mode and started ringing with a vengeance.

But, as Kyle knew full well, a man could have worse problems than chafing and baby powder. A man could get arrested, say, and be indicted on multiple federal charges and end up in prison. Or a man could find out that his stubborn, pain-in-the-ass twin sister had nearly gotten herself killed while working with the FBI as part of an agreement to secure his early release from said prison.

He still wanted to throttle Jordan for that one.

Kyle checked his watch and picked up the pace for the last half mile of his run. According to the terms of his home detention, he was allowed ninety minutes per day for “personal errands,” as long as he stayed within a ten-mile radius of his home. Technically, he was supposed to use those ninety minutes for food shopping and laundry, but he’d figured out how to game the system: he ordered his groceries online and had them delivered to his front door, and he utilized the dry cleaner located in the lobby of the high-rise building in which he lived. That gave him ninety minutes a day outside his penthouse, ninety minutes when life seemed almost normal.

On this evening, he made it back to his building with eight minutes to spare. He may have been gaming the system, but he wasn’t about to test it. God forbid he got delayed with a leg cramp and an alarm was triggered from his ankle monitor. All he needed was a SWAT team storming the beach and slapping him in handcuffs just because he hadn’t stretched properly.

The rush of warm air that hit Kyle as he entered the building felt stifling. Or perhaps it was just the knowledge that his return through those doors meant he would be trapped in his apartment for the next twenty-two hours and thirty-two minutes.

Only three more days to go, he reminded himself.

In little more than seventy-two hours—he’d started thinking in terms of hours ever since his prison days—he would officially be a free man. Assuming, that is, that the U.S. Attorney’s Office upheld their end of the bargain, which was a big assumption. It was safe to say that he and the U.S. Attorney’s Office were not on the best of terms these days, despite whatever deals they’d made with his sister regarding his early release from Metropolitan Correctional Center, the federal prison where he’d served four months of an eighteen months’ sentence. They had, after all, called him a “terrorist” both in open court and directly to the media, and in Kyle’s book, that got people a one-way ticket onto his shit list. Because a “terrorist,” as any moron with a dictionary knew, was a person who engaged in violence, terror, and intimidation to achieve a result.

He, on the other hand, had just engaged in stupidity.

Miles the doorman checked his watch as Kyle passed by the front lobby desk.

“Can’t even give yourself a break on a Saturday night?”

“No rest for the wicked,” Kyle said with an easy grin.

He caught an elevator and pushed the button for the thirty-fourth floor, the penthouse. Just before the doors shut, a man in his late twenties wearing jeans and a ski pullover scrambled in. He blinked in recognition when he saw Kyle but said nothing as he pushed the button to the twenty-third floor.

They rode the elevator in silence, but Kyle knew it wouldn’t last. Eventually, the other guy would say something. Some people cussed him out, others high-fived him, but they always said something.

When the elevator arrived at the twenty-third floor, the guy glanced over before stepping out. “For what it’s worth, I thought the whole thing was pretty funny.”

One of the high-fivers. “Too bad you weren’t on the grand jury,” Kyle said.

He rode the elevator to the top floor, space he shared with two other penthouse apartments. He let himself into his apartment, peeled off the sweaty nylon jacket he wore, and tossed it over the back of one of the bar stools in front of his kitchen counter. Per his instructions, his place had been designed with an open floor plan, with all of the living space except the bedrooms flowing together for an airy feel that complemented the floor-to-ceiling windows that ran along two walls. He had a spectacular view of the lake, although on most days everything outside looked gray and dull. Par for the course for Chicago in March.

“If you ever have to work a deal for me to serve home detention again,” he’d joked to his sister, Jordan, when she and their father had been visiting the week before, “make sure the Feds include a provision that says I get to spend the cold months on a beach in Malibu.”

Their father, apparently unamused, had walked out of the room to take a phone call.

“Too soon,” Jordan had said, shaking her head.

“You have no problem making prison jokes,” Kyle pointed out defensively. In fact, his sister had developed quite an annoying knack for them lately.

Jordan had waved around a Mrs. Fields cookie she’d pilfered from a tin in his pantry. “Yeah, but I’ve known since we were three that you’re a moron. Strangely, it took Dad this long to figure it out.” She’d smiled sweetly as she took another bite.

“Thanks. Hey, genius—that cookie’s five months old.” Kyle had chuckled as his sister scrambled for a paper towel.

Later, on her way out the door, Jordan had revisited the issue, more seriously this time. “Don’t worry about Dad. He’ll get there eventually.”

Kyle hoped Jordan was right. For the most part, their father had handled Kyle’s very public arrest and conviction as well as could be expected. Like Jordan, Grey had been at all of Kyle’s court appearances and had visited him in prison every week. Still, things were a little awkward with his dad these days, and there was no doubt that a man-to-man conversation was in order.

Eventually.

Pushing that issue temporarily aside, Kyle stripped out of his running clothes and took a quick shower. He checked his watch and saw that he had a good half hour before his visitors arrived, so he settled in at the desk in his office to read the evening news on his thirty-inch flat-screen monitor.

After perusing the national news, he skimmed the Tech section of the Wall Street Journal. He exhaled in annoyance when he saw that his upcoming court appearance was the second story on the page.

At least he hadn’t been one of the headlines, although he had no doubt that his picture would once again be plastered all over the papers come Tuesday, when the judge ruled on the government’s motion. It was ridiculous, really, that one screwup—yes, he’d screwed up, he fully admitted that—had gotten this much attention. People broke the law every day. Okay, several federal laws in his case, but still.

Kyle ignored the Wall Street Journal story, not needing to go over the lurid details. He knew full well what he’d done—hell, half the free world knew what he’d done. In legal terms, he’d been convicted of multiple counts of electronic transmission of malicious codes to cause damage to protected computers. In tech terms—language he preferred over all that lawyer-speak—five months ago he’d orchestrated a distributed denial of service attack against a global communications network through the use of a “botnet,” a network of computers infected via malware without their owners’ knowledge or consent.

Or, in the common vernacular, he’d hacked into Twitter and crashed the site for two days in what was undoubtedly the most boneheaded move of his life.

And the whole thing had started over a woman.

He’d met Daniela, a Victoria’s Secret model who lived in New York, at a friend’s art show in SoHo, and they’d hit it off instantly. She was beautiful, she had a genuine appreciation for art and photography and could talk passionately about the subject for hours, and she didn’t take herself too seriously. They’d spent the entire weekend together in New York, a whirlwind of sex, restaurants, bars, and fun—which was all that Kyle had been looking for at the time.

They had begun casually dating long distance after that, with Kyle flying out to New York a few times over the next several months to see Daniela, and the tabloids had begun to gossip about their relationship. The supermodel and the billionaire heir.

“Imagine that. My brother’s dating another model,” Jordan had called to say after seeing him and Daniela mentioned in the Scene and Heard column of the Tribune. “Ever think about diversifying your portfolio?” she’d asked dryly.

“Why?” he’d said matter-of-factly. “I like dating models.”

“Not enough to introduce any of them to me or Dad,” she’d shot back.

His sister always did have the most annoying way of pointing out things like that.

It was true, he’d never been in a long-term relationship, and there was one simple reason for that: he liked being single. As well he should. Over the course of the last nine years, he’d settled into his life at Rhodes Corporation, climbing up the corporate ladder all the way to executive vice president of network security. He worked hard, but he also liked to play hard, and he saw no reason to tie himself down to one woman. He always kept things light and easy, never promising anything more than a good time for however long things lasted.

Still, Jordan’s comment nagged at him. The bachelor scene had begun to feel a little…old at times. Sure, a man in his position generally never had problems meeting women, but he was starting to wonder whether casual dating and hot hookups were enough. He’d always assumed he’d settle down at some point—he’d grown up in a happy, loving family and knew that was something he wanted for himself eventually—so he figured, perhaps, it was time he started taking some steps toward that.

With that in mind, he’d begun to spend more weekends with Daniela, either flying out to New York to visit her or paying for her to come to Chicago. He wasn’t naive enough to think their relationship was perfect, but in the nine years he’d played the field, he’d yet to find this so-called “perfect fit” with any woman. So he ignored those concerns—after all, a man could do a lot worse than having a Victoria’s Secret model in his bed on a regular basis.

But about six months into their relationship, when Daniela asked about meeting his family, Kyle hesitated. Because he’d never introduced them to a woman before, it seemed like a huge step. Gigantic. For years, it had been just the three of them: him, his dad, and Jordan. Together they’d navigated the often-surreal spotlight they’d been thrust into because of his father’s wealth and, miraculously, had come out mostly normal on the other side. So despite the fact that he’d been dating Daniela longer than anyone else, and had even twice used the word girlfriend when describing her, he’d hemmed and hawed and changed the subject without giving her a direct answer.

Perhaps that had been the first sign of trouble.

The following week, Daniela had called him, speaking so fast that he could barely understand her with her Brazilian accent. She told him that she’d been cast in a music video—something she was very excited about, since she wanted to transition into acting. On her way to Los Angeles, she’d surprised Kyle by stopping in Chicago for a night to celebrate. A sweet thought, but unfortunately, he had a work conflict that evening.

“You should’ve called me first—I’m having dinner tonight with my entire management team,” he’d told her apologetically. As executive vice president of network security, he liked to meet at least twice a year with his managers in a nonwork environment. “We’re discussing intrusion prevention, network access control, and threat response products.” He’d winked. “Very sexy stuff.”

Daniela showed zero interest in the subject, which was not unusual. Actually, Kyle had yet to find a girl who showed any genuine interest in his job—although many of them were plenty captivated by the penthouse and Mercedes SLS AMG it afforded him.

“But if I’d told you, it wouldn’t have been a surprise.” Daniela pouted. “Can’t you skip it? What will your father do? Ground you for not going to some boring meeting with a bunch of computer nerds?”

Not surprisingly, that comment hadn’t gone over so well with Kyle.

Perhaps their conversations were getting lost in translation, or maybe she truly didn’t care. But Daniela had never seemed to grasp that his job at Rhodes Corporation was a real position. Not to toot his own horn, but he was a shining star at the company—and it wasn’t because he was the boss’s son. He was, simply, just that good at what he did.

Nine years ago, Kyle had had his reasons—very private, personal reasons—for dropping out of his PhD program and joining Rhodes Corporation, but the reason he’d stayed at the company for so long was because of the work experience. In his industry, there was no better man to learn from than Grey Rhodes—the billion-dollar empire he’d built from the ground up was concrete proof of that.

That being said, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. His father may have been CEO of the company, but Kyle was in charge of network security and insisted on autonomy: he ran his department the way he wanted. True, every now and then he and his father butted heads and stepped on each other’s toes…well, actually, that happened a lot. But they were professionals, and they worked through it the same way any other CEO and executive VP would work through their issues. His father respected his opinions and had come to see Kyle as his right-hand man.

The problem was, Kyle didn’t want to be the right-hand man anymore. He was good, he was ready, and he was driven. But at Rhodes Corporation, there could only be one man at the top. And that spot was taken.

He had ideas. Plans for the future that likely did not match up with those of his father. And the time to put those plans into motion was quickly coming.

That evening, he and Daniela had argued over her comment for almost an hour. In the end, however, Kyle had tried to make amends. She had flown into Chicago to surprise him, after all. He didn’t want to spend the entire night fighting, especially since they wouldn’t see each other for a couple weeks.

“I’ll tell you what,” he’d said, putting his arms around her and pulling her closer. “I’ll pick up a bottle of champagne on my way home from dinner. We can have a private celebration when I get back.”

“Aw, babe, you tempt me,” she’d said, kissing his cheek affectionately. “But I feel like…what’s the expression? Living it up tonight. I think I’ll give Janelle a call. She’s in Chicago for a shoot with Macy’s. You remember Janelle, don’t you? You met in New York that night we had drinks at the Boom Boom Room…” her voice trailed off as she strolled into his bathroom, toting her enormous makeup bag.

That night, Daniela didn’t get back to Kyle’s place until five a.m., only a half hour before he normally woke up to go for his daily run. She let herself into his place with the key he’d given her and passed out cold on his bed, on top of the sheets and snoring, with her Christian Louboutins still on. Kyle didn’t bother to wake her, and she was gone, having left for L.A., by the time he came home from work.

That was probably the second sign of trouble.

He didn’t hear from Daniela for the next four days. At first, he assumed she was busy with the music video shoot, but when she didn’t return any of his calls or text messages, he began to get worried. He knew she sometimes partied hard with her friends, and he’d begun to have nightmare visions of her becoming one of those tragic tales reported on Access Hollywood, the supermodel who drank too much and died when she slipped in a hotel bathroom and dropped her five-ton makeup case on her head.

On the fourth night of her trip, he finally got a response.

Via Twitter.

@KyleRhodes Sorry not going 2 work out 4 us. Going 2 chill in LA with someone I met. I think U R sweet but U talk too much about computers.

Kyle had to give her credit; it took skill—plus no heart and a serious abuse of the English language—to break up with someone in fewer than 140 characters. She didn’t even have the decency to send him a private message; nope, she’d just tweeted that sucker for anyone and everyone on Twitter to see. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Twenty minutes later, Daniela posted another tweet, this time with a link to a video of her making out with movie star Scott Casey in a hot tub.

That sucked.

Kyle felt like he’d been punched in the gut when he saw the video. He knew they’d had their problems, but what Daniela had done was just so…heartless. Particularly since she’d managed to make him look like a complete and utter fool. He could just see the tabloids:

STEAMY SAUNA SCANDAL!!!

Supermodel Cheats on Billionaire Heir

He worked in computers, he knew what would happen—the video would go viral within minutes. Between the wet supermodel in her skimpy bikini, the movie star, and the fact that the damn thing was even cinematically pleasing with the sweeping views of the Hollywood Hills in the background—everyone was going to see it.

Not on his watch.

Kyle grabbed the bottle of Scotch from the bar he kept in his home office and slammed a shot. And four more after that for good measure. One thought kept ringing through his head.

Fuck Daniela.

He may not have been a movie star, or the CEO of a billion-dollar corporation, or on the cover of Time and Newsweek, but he was not some also-ran. He was Kyle Rhodes, and he was a tech god. His specialty was network security, for chrissakes—he could simply hack into Twitter and delete Daniela’s tweets and the video from the site, and no one would ever be the wiser.

And he might have gotten away with the whole thing if only he’d stopped there.

But somewhere along the way, as he sat at his computer with his glass in hand, intoxicated and furious, staring at that tweet—that stupid it-was-fun-while-it-lasted-but-fuck-you of a tweet—he had a moment of Scotch-induced clarity. He realized that the true problem lay with social media itself, the perpetuation of a world in which people had become so wholly unsocial that they believed 140-character breakups were acceptable.

So he took down the whole site.

Actually, it wasn’t all that difficult. For him, anyway. All he needed was one clever computer virus and about fifty thousand unknowingly infected computers, and he was good to go.

Take that, tweeple.

After he crashed the site, he decided to cut loose. He threw his laptop, his passport, and a change of clothes into a backpack, hopped on a red-eye flight to Tijuana, and proceeded to get shit-faced drunk on cheap tequila for the next two days.

“Why Tijuana?” Jordan had asked him during the brouhaha that followed his arrest.

“It seemed like the kind of place a person could go without being asked any questions,” he’d explained with a shrug.

And indeed, it was that. In Tijuana, no one knew, or cared, who he was. He wasn’t a guy who’d been cheated on by his supermodel ex-girlfriend. He wasn’t an heir, a tech geek, a businessman, a son, or a brother. He was no one, and he loved all forty-eight hours of the anonymity—being the son of a billionaire had deprived him of that freedom long ago.

On the second night of his trip, Kyle had been sitting at the bar he’d made his home for the last two days, nursing what he had decided would be his last shot of the night. He’d never been on a bender before and, like most men, had found it to be an effective way to deal with his problems. But sooner or later, he had to get back to the real world.

The bartender, Esteban, shot Kyle a sideways look as he cleaned some glasses. “You think they’re going to catch this guy?” he asked in a heavy Mexican accent.

Kyle blinked in surprise. That was more words than Esteban had uttered to him in two days. He momentarily debated whether this query violated his no-questions policy, then ultimately found it to be acceptable. After all, it wasn’t like they were talking about him.

“What guy?” he asked.

“This tweeder terrorist,” Esteban said.

Kyle waved his glass in front of him. “No clue what a tweeder is, or how you terrorize one, but it sounds like a hell of a story, amigo.”

“Oh, you’re a funny guy, eh?” Esteban pointed to a television mounted to the wall behind Kyle. “Twee-ter, pendejo.”

Out of curiosity, Kyle looked over at the television and saw a Mexican news program. His four years of high school Spanish was little help; the female reporter was speaking too fast for him to understand what she was saying. But three words written in bold letters across the bottom of the television screen needed no translation.

El Twitter Terrorista

Kyle choked on his tequila.

Oh…shit.

He stared at the television screen with growing frustration as he tried to understand what the reporter was saying. It was tough, particularly given the fact that he was about six sheets to the wind, but he did manage to catch the words policia and FBI.

His stomach churned, and he barely made it out of the bar before he bent over and threw up seven shots of tequila, impaling his forehead on a heretofore unseen cactus in the process.

That sobered him up right quick.

In a panic, he made his way back to the cheap posada that had rented him a room on a cash, no-ID-required basis, and called the one person he could count on when shit-face drunk in Tijuana, bleeding from his forehead, and wanted by the FBI.

“Jordo, I fucked up,” he said as soon as she answered the phone.

Likely hearing the anxiety in his voice, she’d gotten right to the heart of the matter. “Can you fix it?”

Kyle knew he had to—ASAP. So as soon as he hung up the phone, he fired up his laptop and stopped the botnet’s denial of service attack.

There was only one problem: this time the FBI was waiting for him.

And they had computer geeks, too.

The next morning, sobered and chagrined, Kyle loaded up his backpack and took a taxi to the Tijuana airport. There was a moment before boarding, as he handed over his ticket to the Aeromexico flight attendant, when he thought, I don’t have to go back. But running wasn’t the answer. He figured a man needed to own up to those moments in life when he acted like a complete dickhead, come what may.

When the plane landed at O’Hare Airport, the flight attendants asked the passengers to remain in their seats. Sitting eight rows back, Kyle watched as two men wearing standard-issue government suits—clearly FBI agents—boarded the plane and handed over a document to the pilot.

“Yep, that would be me,” Kyle said, grabbing his backpack from underneath the seat in front of him.

The elderly Hispanic man sitting next to him lowered his voice to a whisper. “Drugs?”

“Twitter,” Kyle whispered back.

He stood up, backpack in hand, and nodded at the FBI agents that had stopped at his row. “Morning, gentlemen.”

The younger agent held out his hand, all business. “Hand over the computer, Rhodes.”

“I guess we’re skipping the pleasantries,” Kyle said, handing over his backpack.

The older agent yanked Kyle’s arms behind his back and slapped handcuffs on him. As they read him his rights, Kyle caught a glimpse of what had to be fifty passengers taking photos of him with their camera phones, photos that would later be blasted all over the Internet.

And from that moment on, he ceased being Kyle Rhodes, the billionaire’s son, and became Kyle Rhodes, the Twitter Terrorist.

Probably not the best way to make a name for himself.

They brought him to the FBI’s offices downtown and left him in an interview room for two hours. He called his lawyers, who arrived posthaste and gravely laid out the charges the FBI planned to bring to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. A half hour after his lawyers left, he was transferred to Metropolitan Correctional Center for booking.

“You’ve got a visitor, Rhodes,” the guard said later that afternoon.

They led him to a holding cell, where he waited at a steel table while trying to get used to the sight of himself in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs. When the door opened and his sister walked in, he smiled sheepishly.

“Jordo,” he said, his nickname for her since they were kids.

She hurried over and hugged him tightly, a somewhat awkward exercise with the handcuffs. Then she pulled back and thunked him on the forehead with the palm of her hand. “You idiot.”

Kyle rubbed his forehead. “Ouch. That’s right where the cactus got me.”

“What were you thinking?” she demanded.

Over the course of the next couple weeks, that was the question Kyle would be asked hundreds of times by friends, family, his lawyers, the press, and just about anyone who passed him in the street. He could say that it had something to do with pride, or his ego, or the fact that he’d always been somewhat hot-tempered when provoked. But in the end, it really came down to one thing.

“I just…made a mistake,” he told his sister honestly. He wasn’t the first man to overreact when he discovered his girl was cheating on him, nor would he be the last. Unfortunately, he’d simply been in the unique position to screw up on a global level.

“I told the lawyers that I’m going to plead guilty,” he said. No sense wasting the taxpayers’ money for a sham of a trial, or wasting his own money in extra legal fees. Especially since he didn’t have a defense.

“They’re saying on the news that you’ll probably go to prison.” Jordan’s voice cracked on the last word, and her lip trembled.

Hell, no. The last time Kyle had seen his sister cry was nine years ago after their mother’s death, and he’d be damned if he let her do that now. He pointed for emphasis. “You listen to me, Jordo, because this is the only time I’m going to say this. Mock me, make all the jokes you want, call me an idiot, but you will not shed a tear over this. Understood? Whatever happens, I will handle it.”

Jordan nodded and took a deep breath. “Okay.” She looked him over, taking in the orange jumpsuit and handcuffs. Then she cocked her head questioningly. “So how was Mexico?”

Kyle grinned and chucked her under the chin. “That’s better.” He turned to the subject he’d avoided thinking about since his arrest. “How’s Dad taking the news?”

Jordan threw him a familiar you-are-so-busted look. “Remember sophomore year, the night you climbed out the kitchen window to go to Jenny Garrett’s party?”

Kyle winced. Did he ever. He’d left the window open so that he would have easy access back in, and their dad had come downstairs to investigate after hearing a strange noise. He’d found Kyle missing and a raccoon eating Cocoa Puffs in the pantry. “That bad, huh?”

Jordan squeezed his shoulder. “I’d say about twenty times worse.”

Damn.

AFTER FINISHING his review of the evening news, Kyle made the mistake of checking his e-mail. His e-mail address at Rhodes Corporation had been accessible via the website, and though he no longer worked for the company—having turned in his resignation the day he’d been released on bond and thus sparing his father the awkwardness of having to fire him—the messages he received there were forwarded to his personal account.

Every day since he’d been released, he had received hundreds of messages: interview requests from the press, hate mail from some very angry people who seriously needed to take a break from Twitter (Hey @KyleRhodes—you SUCK, dickwad!!!!!), and oddly flirtatious overtures from random women who sounded a tad too interested in meeting an ex-con.

After checking to make sure there was nothing of actual importance he needed to respond to, Kyle deleted the entire lot of e-mails. He didn’t do interviews, the hate mail wasn’t worth answering, and although he may have been in prison for four months and thus in the midst of the longest period of celibacy of his adult life, he found it generally prudent to avoid having sex with crazy people.

His home phone rang, interrupting his thoughts. It was a double ring, indicating that the call came from the security desk in the lobby downstairs.

“Dex is here to see you,” Miles the doorman said when Kyle answered the phone, referring to Kyle’s best friend, Gavin Dexter. Dex was a frequent visitor to Casa Rhodes, and Miles had consequently dropped the “Mr. Dexter” routine ages ago.

“And he has several friends with him,” Miles continued with a note of amusement.

“Thanks, Miles. Send them up.”

Two minutes later, Kyle opened the door and found his best friend and a group of at least twenty people standing on his doorstep. The crowd let out a loud cheer when they saw him.

Dex grinned. “If Kyle Rhodes can’t come to the party, then the party will come to Kyle Rhodes.” He slapped Kyle on the shoulder, hearty man-style. “Welcome home, buddy.”

SOMEWHERE AROUND MIDNIGHT, Kyle finally got a chance to slip away from the crowd. His twenty-one guests had nearly tripled, and the penthouse was now packed.

Needing a few moments alone, Kyle stole away to his office, where he kept a small bar, and poured himself a glass of bourbon. He took a sip and closed his eyes, savoring the time before he needed to return to the party. To his so-called friends.

Not a single one of whom, except Dex, had once bothered to visit him in prison.

Metropolitan Correctional Center—or MCC, as the inmates referred to it—was conveniently located in the middle of downtown Chicago, and Kyle had been there for four months. Yet the entire time, only three people had come to visit him: his father, his sister, and Dex. For everyone else, he’d been out of sight, out of mind.

Apparently, Kyle Rhodes wasn’t the proverbial man of the hour when he lived in the Big House instead of a penthouse.

Those four months he’d been locked up had been a real eye-opener. At first he’d been angry, then later he’d decided it wasn’t worth the effort. He understood now the type of friends they were—people he had fun with and partied with, but it didn’t get any deeper than that. Going forward, he would never again make the mistake of thinking anything else.

So much had changed since the day Kyle had been arrested, and frankly, he wasn’t sure he’d processed all of it yet. Five months ago, he’d had a successful career at Rhodes Corporation, been dating a Victoria’s Secret model, and thought he had a circle of friends he could count on. Now he had no job, no prospects—since no one in his field would ever consider hiring a convicted hacker—and a prison record.

And it didn’t take a tech genius to see where he’d taken his first misstep.

Clearly, he and relationships did not mix well. His first—and only—real attempt at a serious commitment and he’d been cheated on, been publicly dumped, and ended up in prison. But as much as he was tempted to blame Daniela for everything, he couldn’t blame her for his own stupidity. He had been the idiot who’d hacked into Twitter; no one had made him do that. Nor could he entirely fault her for the demise of their relationship. Yes, she was a coldhearted bitch for the way she’d chosen to end things. But he’d realized, as he’d lie awake on those long, cold prison nights, that he’d only had one foot in the relationship from the very start. He’d convinced himself that he was ready for a commitment, but he—and half the free world—had seen just how wrong he’d been about that.

It was a mistake he would not be repeating. At least, not for a long, long time.

But there was an upside: he was awesome at noncommitment. Casual flings? He rocked that scene. Sex? He sure as hell had never had any complaints. So from now on, he was going to stay in his lane. Do what he did best. Trysts, flirtations, seductions, no-holds-barred monkey sex, it was all on the table. But any feelings deeper than a contented afterglow were out.

Just then, Dex popped his head into the office. “Thought you might be in here,” he said, stepping into the room.

Kyle held up his glass. “Came in for a refill. Figured it’s better than fighting through the crowd out there.”

“Is the party too much?”

Kyle pushed away from his desk and headed toward the door. Maybe the party was a little much, but he knew Dex meant well. “Not at all,” he fibbed with an easy grin. “The party’s just what I needed.”

“What do you think your friends at the U.S. Attorney’s Office would say if they got word of this?” Dex asked with a chuckle.

“Hey, it’s called home detention. I’m in my home, aren’t I?” And as long as he was abiding by the terms of his supervised release, he didn’t give a rat’s ass what the U.S. Attorney’s Office thought. In three days, he would be free and clear of them.

“Speaking of your friends…Selene Marquez just got here,” Dex said. “She’s asking about you.”

“Is she now?” Kyle knew Selene well—quite well. She was twenty-five years old, was a Chicago-based fashion model who did local work while trying to break into the New York scene, and had legs that reached the sky. Pre-Daniela, he and Selene had hooked up occasionally and had always had a good time.

“Maybe I should go say hello. Be the good host and all.” Kyle raised a curious eyebrow. “How does she look?”

“Well, if I were a sex-deprived ex-con who’d been locked in prison for the last four months, I’d say she looked pretty damn good.” Dex thunked his head. “Oh…wait.”

“That’s real funny, dude. Making jokes about a place where I lived in perpetual fear that I was going to get shanked.”

Dex’s expression changed, and he looked instantly chagrined. “Shit, I’m an ass. I shouldn’t have said…” he paused, noticing Kyle’s smile. “And…you’re totally messing with me, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Now, as an ex-con who’s been locked in prison for the last four months, I think I’ll see for myself how Selene looks.” Kyle grabbed Dex’s shoulder on the way out. “Thanks, Dex. For everything. I won’t forget it.”

Dex nodded, knowing exactly what he meant. They’d been friends since college, and nothing further needed to be said. “Any time.”

Kyle left the office and worked his way through the crowd. He found Selene in the foyer by the front door, looking spectacular in a silver minidress and three-inch heels.

She smiled when she saw Kyle approaching. “This is some party.”

Kyle’s eyes skimmed over her. “That’s some dress.”

“Thanks, I wore it especially.” She stepped closer, lowering her voice to a husky whisper. “Maybe later, I can show you what’s underneath it.” She slid past him, her hand brushing suggestively against his, and headed into the party.

Kyle looked over his shoulder, watching the sway of her hips as she walked away.

This was how things should be. Simple. Easy. No messy feelings or entanglements.

He may not have figured everything out since getting out of prison, but he at least knew that much.