Keeping it Professional

Chapter 6

After Emma and Killian had lunch, they went back to the office. She looked over at Neal's space and he was sitting at his computer with an angry glare on his face. She sat down at her seat with a smile, still chuckling to herself about Killian's tale from college. He had pranked his roommate by spilling ice cold water on him, which ended up getting everything in the dorm room soaking wet. Neal turned to her in his seat, with the same glare on his face.

"What were you doing with the boss?" Neal asked.

"We went out to lunch. When did you get in?" Emma asked.

"This afternoon. I was... Running late. Why did you have lunch with him?"

"Because he offered to pay. I'm sorry, I don't see a problem here."

"Stay away from him, Emma. You don't know him like I do."

"And how exactly do you know him, Neal?"

"Just trust me, okay? I don't want to see you getting hurt."

"I can take care of myself."

"Damnit, Emma! Why can't you just listen to me?" He shouted, catching everyone's attention.

"You don't get to tell me how I run my life. You don't need to protect me. I do that on my own."

Emma went back to her work, and tried to focus. But, her argument with Neal had ruined her mood. She found that the clicking from the keyboards in the room were pissing her off, and every five seconds, a phone would ring. Her computer dinged with a notification of a new email, and she rushed to it, finding that one of the servers in the system was offline. A few seconds later, the power in the entire building went out. There was chatter in the room, and then Killian's office door opened.

"Is everyone okay?" He asked, his eyes darting around the room until they landed on hers. There were murmurs of "yes," and he made his way over to Emma. "What happened?"

"I don't know, sir. All the power just cut out." The generators in the basement kicked on and the lights were back on, but none of the computers turned back on. "I think we have a hacker in the building." She turned to her left, but Neal was gone. His jacket, laptop case, and coffee mug were all missing, meaning he had fled the building. She rolled her eyes. 'Coward.'

"I want everyone out of the building." Killian said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Use the stairs and go home. Watch your emails. Do not come back into the office until I tell you to." He looked down at Emma. "Go. I got this under control."

"Are you crazy? I am not leaving you here."

"Emma, you have to. I have to get the servers back online."

"Then I'm going to help you."

"Emma, please." He begged. Emma could see genuine concern in his eyes. He didn't want her to get hurt.

"No, Killian." She had worked too hard to have it all come crashing down now. "I'm staying."

He sighed. "Fine. I need you to call the company building in New Jersey, and see if their servers are down. We can temporarily shift things to that building." He handed her his cell phone and she put it up to his ear. "My brother is going to answer, and you need to tell him ES19. He'll then get everything transfered."

Emma nodded and watched as Killian left the room. She was left alone in the empty office space while he went to do only God knows what.

Killian ran to the basement and checked the breaker switches. He flipped them all forward then backwards, then forwards again. The lights turned on again and he could hear that the generators had switched off, and he went back up to where Emma was. She wasn't on the phone anymore, but staring at the television screen. He came up next to her and saw the words run up the screen. There was a voice in the background, reading the words, but there was no face to the voice. The words were repeated over and over and over again.

'Your company has the power. It will be mine.'

"Who is that?" Emma asked, breaking from her trance.

"No idea, but we need to get the servers up and running again." Killian said and ran to his office. "Grab your laptop, Swan!"

Emma did as she was told and went into Killian's office. He let her sit down in the chair behind his desk while he leaned down in front of her. They both worked to get the servers back online and running, but there were over one hundred servers and only two of them.

It took them several hours to get all the servers up and running again. Thoughts and theories were already running through Killian's mind about who the person that could be hacking his company could be.

"So, Mr. Jones, do I get paid overtime for this?" Emma asked sarcastically as they walked out of his office.

"Aye, love."

"Really? I was just kidding."

"I know, but I wasn't." He started to head towards the elevator but then backed away. "How about the stairs? We don't need getting trapped in an elevator on our to do lists for today."

Emma giggled and nodded. They went down the steps, all the way to the ground floor. They walked out to their cars, and Emma found herself embarrassed. Here she was, standing next to Killian Jones, where he was next to his Porsche, and she was standing next to a 1970s Volkswagen Beetle. 'Good thing it's dark.' She thought.

"It was a lot of fun getting to put the company back together with you, Mr. Jones."

"I have plenty of words for what today was, but fun isn't one of them. But, I appreciate your help today. Thank you."

Emma took a deep breath in through her nose. "I guess I should get going."

"Yes, me too. Goodnight."

"Night."

Emma pulled out of the parking lot as fast as she could. She looked in her rear view mirror to see his car speeding away in the opposite direction.