The 5-Year Plan (Friends to Lovers Romance Book 1) Read online

  The 5-Year Plan

  By Cara Nelson

  Thank you for downloading ‘The 5-Year Plan’.

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  Dedications

  I dedicate this book to you, my loyal readers. Wherever you are in this world. Thank you for all the lovely e-mails, reviews and support. Without you, this wouldn't be possible.

  Table of Contents

  The 5-Year Plan

  Dedications

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter One

  Victoria Ashwood wasn’t the type to sneak around, lie, or get caught in a compromising situation. That was why, when she found herself using her keycard to access her office at TerraDyn, she could feel her heart pounding. Her palms slicked with damp and she pressed a hand to her churning stomach. But she was still going to do this. Outside the corridor’s pane glass window, she could see the round, silver moon, and the stars flanking it. The street below remained silent and empty. No one else would be in the office this late. This was the perfect time.

  Once she stepped into the room, Victoria stood for a moment until her eyes got accustomed to the darkness. She dared not switch on the light. Sweat trickled down her cheeks as she gathered her breath for her next move. The office around her remained eerily quiet. She moved forward, avoiding a collision with a desk chair. Behind her, she heard the metallic click of the door swinging open.

  Someone hit the light switches.

  Bright lights blinded her for a moment. She covered her eyes with one hand and when she could finally look at the other intruder, she burst out with one word. “You?”

  Trent stared at her, his mouth hanging open and a flash of anger in his eyes. “Tori! You’re the one who has been stealing information from the company and selling it? Can’t believe it! Straight-laced Victoria involved in such underhand and scandalous activity? I don’t have words to describe my heartbreak at this evidence of your treachery.”

  “Shut up! Don’t try to pin it on me.” She pointed her finger at him. She’d forgotten she had her shoes dangling from the same hand. With a muttered oath, she put down her heels and slipped her feet into them again. “I’ve caught you red handed.”

  “I caught you red handed,” Trent countered. He ran a hand through his hair, sighed, and flopped down onto the chair she’d avoided. “This was a bad idea to start with. I knew it couldn’t be this easy. The thief—whoever he or she is—wouldn’t risk coming into the office. Somehow they’re hacking into my IT system and stealing the information. Can’t believe I didn’t think of that before.” He ran a hand over his jaw. “How is this miscreant managing to mess with my system?”

  “I can’t believe you actually just admitted you could have a hole in your firewall. Are you sure you’re not here to steal company secrets—admit it!”

  He raised his hands. “Oh, yeah. Sure. That’s me. Have you lost your mind? You know damn well the only thing I ever stole was that bubble gum from the dime store—you dared me to take it!”

  She crossed her arms and tapped a toe.

  He lifted a hand, palm up. “Fine. Baring the one other incident when I took money out of my mom’s closet to buy a water gun and the time when I finagled twenty dollars out of my dad’s wallet so we could go to the fun fair, other than that, have I ever given you a chance to doubt me?”

  Victoria chewed on her bottom lip as she eyed him. Too good looking for his own good, she thought. Always had been. Sun-streaked hair that he wore long at the front and short at the back, piercing green eyes, and that lean face with its easy smile were enough to make most women swoon over him. Luckily, she wasn’t one of those who constancy made fools of themselves over him. “Then why are you sneaking into the office?”

  “Same reason as you. I hope.” He shrugged. “I wanted to catch the thief in the act. Looks like our plans backfired.”

  Victoria put her hands on her hips. “How can I trust you’re telling me the truth?”

  “Oh please! I’m not the goddamn thief and you know it. Why is it always so hard for you accept when you’ve got it wrong? And how did you even know about the thief? No one even got a wind of it until a week ago.”

  Victoria sighed as she began to pace. Her heels clicked on the tiles. Stopping in front of a window, she looked down at the busy street. “It was a good plan until you ruined it,” she muttered. And, okay, so maybe he had a point. Maybe she was being stubborn about this. But she was desperate.

  She glanced at her pale reflection in the glass. She’d tugged her hair back because she hadn’t had time to do more than knot a pony tail. Fatigue smudged her eyes—not a surprise since she’d been working around the clock the past few days. Despite her work load, she had figured out a scheme to track the thief. Someone was offloading sensitive information to their competitors. With TerraDyn close to being awarded a military contract for ship production, this wasn’t the time for them to be caught with lax security. Rather than wait for the big brass to do something, she’d devised a plan to take matters in her own hands. But trust Trent to trash her strategy. Why did he have to butt in?

  She heard him shift and turned to face him. He shook his head and said, “You really thought you could catch the thief single-handedly?”

  “Why not?” She strode over to him and faced him. “Don’t forget that I intend to make vice president this year.”

  “Ah!” He leaned back. “No so noble after all. I’d forgotten the five-year plan. Marriage. Child. And a promotion. How is that going for you, Victoria? Isn’t it, what, four years down the line and you’re not even married. The math’s not adding up to a kid by next year. Looks like your ambitious venture isn’t going to work out as well as you envisioned.”

  Damn him to hell and back! “Why did I ever tell you about that?”

  “Let me see.” He rubbed his jaw. “Might have been those five tequila shooters on grad night.”

  Victoria cringed. Straight out of college, she’d gotten a job at TerraDyn, one of the best manufacturing companies in the entire city. She’d been certain the rest of her plan would fall into place. Unfortunately, as far as relationships were concerned, her life sucked. With no man in sight, she could kiss away her fantasy of getting hitched and producing a baby. She’d dated—well, a little. She’d been busy at work, so all she had to look forward to now was her promotion to the position of the youngest VP in town. She wasn’t letting go of that. “I am getting there. You watch and see!”

  Trent stood. Walking over, he put a hand on her shoulders. “Don’t worry, dear. If it doesn’t work out, I’m here for you. You’re not that bad looking. You haven’t let the pounds stack on, and with that all-American package of honey-blonde hair, blue eyes, and that cute dimple that pops out when you pout like that, we could make a beautiful baby.”

  “Agh!” She stepped away. “Why do you have to be so annoying? And I’ve told you before—that’s never happening.”

  “Why not?” He pointed at his chest with a big grin on his face. “All the girls want a piece of this. And there’s no denying I am way better than the macho apes you date.”

  “Bob wasn’t a macho ape.”

  “No, he just had the IQ of a goat and the body of a Greek God. The man wa
s obsessed with his looks.”

  “As if you aren’t vain down to your core? I’ve seen you check out your reflection when you think no one’s noticing.”

  “Ah, darling. I didn’t know you watched me so closely.”

  She tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’d take Bob’s brain over that computer you have in your head any day.”

  Trent touched one knuckle to her chin. “Loosen up, smart ass. You should be so lucky to ever get under the sheets with me.” He grinned.

  She growled and ran a hand through her hair, pulling half of it out of the ponytail. “Don’t you ever think about straightening up your act, Trent? Sometimes it’s important to get serious in life.”

  “Hey, you’re serious enough for both of us. Always have been.” He yawned. “Anyway, let’s just get out of here. There is only one way left to catch this thief and that’s to run a trace through the IT system. If someone’s not taking files out the old fashioned way, it’s got to be going out though a leak.”

  “I thought you said that was impossible with your system?” Victoria followed him toward the door. She switched off the office light, and locked the door behind them with the keypad. Her plan was shot to hell, but she wasn’t ready to give up as yet. Trent might think he could track down the thief through his computer network, but she wasn’t sure he was right. He did have good security in place. So there had to be a better way. She just had to figure it out. “Want to grab a drink?” Trent spun his car keys into the air and caught them.

  Victoria checked her watch. “It’s after nine.”

  “So? You planning to do your turning into a pumpkin at this hour act?”

  She shook her head. Arguing with Trent was like hitting her head against a wall. “I have to be in office at seven to review a file before submitting it to Peter.”

  “Uh—Pete Iverson? Ivo the Terrible? That’ll be loads of laughs. Face it, darling, you work too hard. It’s not worth it. Learn from the master.” He patted his chest. “Have some fun before you’re so old you can’t even remember that concept.”

  Victoria lifted a hand to flag down a cab. “Life isn’t about fun, Trent. Some of us like to accomplish things—not that you’d understand that.”

  “You’re right.” The cab stopped. Trent stepped out and opened the door for her. “I never will get your driven ambition and your obsession with goals. So are you going to Betty’s dinner on Saturday?”

  She slipped inside the cab and glanced up at him. In the streetlight, the wind blowing his hair, he still looked like that kid she’d met in college—the guy with the too-attractive, too-wild streak. For a second, she was tempted to take him up on his offer of a drink, but she reminded herself she had to stay focused. “Yeah. You?”

  “I’ll see you there.” He closed the door and waved. The cab took off.

  Leaning back, Victoria chewed on a thumbnail and reviewed her strategy to nail the crook who was smuggling the company’s secrets with an ease that was baffling everyone. Could Trent be right about the leak in his IT system? The man sometimes did come up with brilliant ideas. Maybe she needed to take him seriously this one time and figure out her next move accordingly.

  Back at her apartment, she changed out of her work clothes, ate a microwave dinner, and fell into bed. Knowing Trent, he would probably hit the bar first and then stop by some late night dive where he could get Chinese or Korean. He’d come into office bleary eyed and half asleep, just like always. When he’d gotten a job in the same company as hers, she’d been shocked. Trent wasn’t the ideal candidate because he had zero ambition and no drive. But what he lacked in motivation he made up for it in sheer genius. No one knew software code like he did, and computers seemed to love his touch. Despite his less than stellar work ethics, he’d risen in the ranks until he was running the IT department with precision and efficiency. But it looked as if his luck had just turned. If his IT department was being used as the source for the industrial espionage, Trent would take a lot of heat. He might even get fired. But if she caught the thief first, she might be able to save him—and then he’d owe her one.

  Pondering that lovely idea, Victoria finally managed to sleep.

  Oo00oO

  Her alarm clock startled her out of a dream—something to do with tequila and Trent. She shivered and wondered why her mind had dragged up that memory for a dream. After a quick shower, she brushed on her makeup, climbed into a fresh suit and headed into the office. She sat down at her desk right on time—seven sharp. She’d even had time to stop at the corner coffee shop for a latte. Pushing aside her sticky notes and piles of papers, she made enough room on her desk to open the file she had to review. Peter Iverson had this odd idea that paperwork meant actual paper, not just electronic files. Victoria finished the project just as others started trickling in. After taking a few sips from her lukewarm latte, she picked up the file and made her way toward Peter’s office.

  A familiar voice yell reached her from across the office floor. “Hey, ninja! Over here!”

  Rolling her eyes, Victoria turned and strode into the IT department.

  Trent sat in front of his clean desk, tapping his fingers. In front of him his laptop beeped as it powered up. Yawning, Trent motioned for her to take a seat. “How is it going? Any news leads on the troublemaker you’re trying to catch?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Keep your mouth shut. You’re going to blow my plan if you keep blabbing like that.”

  He laughed. “Come on, don’t be so paranoid. How about we discuss this over lunch? My treat!”

  “I’m meeting Sue today,” she said as her gaze took in his clean office. If there was one good thing about Trent, it was that he kept his space meticulously organized. If only he paid as much attention to office politics and company policies, he could make it big here. But Trent was just the opposite. “How about tomorrow?”

  “Only if it’s Thai. And how is the five year plan coming along today?” He grinned.

  She lifted her chin. “I have—prospects. More than you do with this lousy scheme of staying in this office all your life.” She waved at his bare, windowless walls.

  “You know, a promotion always means extra work. That’s going to cuts into the rest of your life. Oh, wait—that’s right. You don’t have one of those. You should try it sometime. Works wonders for the soul.”

  She stuck out her tongue. “I’ll stick with earning good money and my boss’s respect. You should try that—might give you a better perspective on life.”

  Trent laughed. “You know, I’d ask if you’d always been this uptight, but I know you have. I remember you counting sand in the sandbox in Kuwait. Must be a genetic flaw. A defect in your DNA.”

  “Don’t you wish you had the same flaw? You’re the one who has a bug in your brain. Remember the teacher in school who called your parents and asked them to take you to a psychologist? She wasn’t that far off the mark.”

  Trent groaned. “Hey, it wasn’t my fault that I nearly managed to burn the chemistry lab down. An experiment went wrong.”

  “You changed the labels on the bottles of the chemicals.”

  He winced. “How was I to know it’d go that far south?”

  “Yeah, well, I’d have let you hang for it.”

  “You would not. I know you asked your dad to use his military pull so the principal wouldn’t kick me out. How’s the old man doing in Hawaii anyway?”

  Face hot, she shook her head. She hadn’t meant to bring up that memory, but she was surprised that Trent knew she had asked her father to help Trent. Despite Trent being a lazy pain in her side, he’d always been there for her—he was the only man she really trusted other than her dad. She waved a hand. “Other than really hating retirement, he loves it. Mom’s finally got the house the way she wants it and they want me to fly over for Christmas.”

  “Well, aloha! Maybe I should take my next vacation in Hawaii. It wouldn’t hurt to have a few drinks with your old
man. And I miss your mom’s lasagna.”

  She slapped the file in her hand on the edge of his desk. “Instead of planning your next vacation, it wouldn’t hurt for you to burn the midnight oil a bit.”

  He grinned and folded his hands behind his head. “You work hard enough for both of us. Hey, Julie!” Sitting up, he waved to the tall, curvy brunette. Victoria glanced over at her. Julie had joined the firm only a few months ago, but she’d already been promoted to a manager spot. She didn’t know Julie all that well—Victoria worked in development, while Julie was in marketing—but it did seem like Julie was always hanging around the IT department—and in Trent’s office

  Julie sauntered in with a sheaf of papers in her hands. She cast a glance at Victoria, and Victoria got the message—sizing up the competition. She’d seen that look all too often over the years. Folding her arms, she gave the look back. Julie’s dress fit her as if she’d been poured into it. Turning to Trent, Julie batted her eyelashes. “I can’t access my files, Trent. Something happened to my computer.”

  He stood. “Did you leave it on all night again? You know the rules, Julie. It’s important to log out before you leave the office otherwise it goes into the security mode and shuts down.”

  Biting her lower lip, Julie cast a worried glance at Victoria. Eyes narrowing, Victoria wondered if Julie could be the leak at the company. She worked in the accounts department, and wasn’t one of Victoria’s subordinates, so Victoria didn’t know her all that well. But Julie didn’t really seem the type to pull off the thief of company information—right now she looked worried that Victoria might say something to get Julie into trouble. “Don’t tell anyone, Trent. Maybe…I am not sure… I might have forgot to log out.”

  “Mum’s the word, Julie.” He winked. “You go on back to office. I’ll be right there. It won’t take that long to fix it.”

  After she left, Victoria put a hand on her hip. “If you keep on protecting these imbeciles, you’re going to end up losing your job. She should be more careful.”