Chapter 3

Tom walked away from the building with a sly grin plastered all over his face. His outlook on life was improving significantly with each step he took toward the front entrance. He really was a lucky guy. Feeling in his shirt pocket, he checked to make sure the little piece of paper was still there. Neatly folded in the breast pocket of his white dress shirt was the lottery ticket he purchased right after the divorce was finalized. Smiling again, he thought it would be a good thing if he could get it to pay out, even just a small amount. It would confirm his feelings of luck. Pretty much every thing he'd touched had been golden since the divorce. Before that though, he couldn't think of much of anything going his way.

Even as he was walking and thinking all this, a beautiful redhead wearing a light sundress, white with a slight flowery print, caught his eye. She was standing near the doorway to the building and the sun was shining through her dress. So much so, that he could see the delicate curve of her hips, her smooth flat stomach that led to the swell of her voluptuous breasts, and the strong athletic type legs. Boy oh boy, what a pair of legs! He almost choked; she was looking right at him as she continued to talk to Phil the security guard.

She smiled, "Hi, Tom." she said as he continued to walk toward her.

What? Is she really talking to me? Tom thought.

"Hello — um..."

"Amy", she said proffering her hand. As he took her hand, Phil looked at Tom pointedly and then glanced at Amy and back to Tom, trying desperately to let him in on some secret that Tom just couldn't figure out. He finished shaking the woman's hand, regretting the loss of the sensation of her grasp almost before it was truly gone.

"Do I know you?" Tom asked wanting desperately to have her tell him she'd been a classmate or something and that she was looking him up for a fling. OK, so that wasn't likely, but it never hurt to dream did it? Besides, it wasn't as if he was getting it on a regular basis anymore. He felt as if he was always on the verge of madness from the lack of sex.

"No, we've never met, although I know who you are. I work with a private group of hmmm" she paused. "ah contractors. We heard you were leaving your position today so I'm here to persuade you to work with us."

"I haven't got any plans to go back to work right away." Tom said quickly. His plans had been to start a competing company and try to drive his former employer out of business. A plan that included a sweet revenge scheme of making the prick look like an ass in the process. Seemed he's already accomplished that. So, there really was no 'plan' any more. He was going to just have to wing it. But how in the world did this woman know he just quit? He never told his plans to anyone other than Geoff. That guy was a rock, he wouldn't peep a word to his own mother unless Tom told him it was ok. But he'd been wrong before though. The fact that Adam knew was a complete surprise. Though, Adam found out by snooping on him. So what else had he done recently to tip off this woman that he didn't even know? Oh well, it's a little too late. She obviously knew quite a bit, and even as he was thinking about it, she continued talking to him.

"Can I take you out to dinner tonight and discuss our potential partnership?" she asked.

"Potential partnership?" asked Tom. "I'm afraid that I have to decline for tonight. I'm meeting friends tonight, but how about lunch tomorrow?"

"That will be fine Tom. I'm staying at the Marriot near the airport. I am in room 114. Please meet me there tomorrow and we can eat lunch at the hotel dining room. They have a very good lunch menu, and it's quiet." She reached over and touched Tom on the arm. "Tom, have fun tonight with your friends. When you meet me for lunch tomorrow, I want you to be relaxed and happy." She flashed a broad smile at him that made him almost groan out loud with his need, and turned toward Phil telling him thanks for keeping her company. Turning back to Tom, and almost as an afterthought, she handed him a disk. "Take a look at this before lunch tomorrow. It's a little background info for you." Without a backward glance, she left.

Tom watched her walk away for a minute, and heard a long, low whistle from Phil.

"Man is she some kind of woman or what?!" Phil was almost sweating in the cool building. "She's so hot man; I'd have given up my friends and just went to dinner with her tonight. What were you thinking?"

He wasn't sure either, turning the disk over and over. He pocketed the disk and after a few parting words with Phil, Tom resumed his departure with a little tickling on the back of his neck. Perhaps a feeling of excitement at venturing off into the unknown, or perhaps, blue balls. If the former, he was looking forward to that. If the latter, well, he could take care of that as soon as he got home, even if it was just a temporary fix for the situation.

When he got back home to his apartment, Tom showered, relieving himself in the process. The tickling feeling had not quite gone away in the process, but diminished in intensity. He sat down at his computer and loaded up the dvd's intending to copy all of them over to his hard drive and make another set of backups. On the last disk, the one that Amy had given him, he decided not to copy it yet, but rather, take a look and see what he might be getting into. He scanned the disk first for a virus, and with nothing found, he took a look at the report. Hmm, only one file on the entire disk, but it was a huge file! The file name was nondescript, just a bunch of letters and numbers, not quite in any real format he understood. The extension wasn't what he expected either. It was an executable.