He stared at the blinking cursor on his tablet but that didn't inspire him, either. He sat back and folded his arms. Maybe if he let his mind wander it might jar something loose. It's worked in the past. After a bit of mental meandering, he thought about his home. He hated to leave it for long periods like this. He was a homebody at heart and right now it had been encroached upon. At his request, of all things!
The tenants of the apartment association required the apartments not be vacant for more than one night. As he was to be gone a week, that meant he had to hire a house sitter. It was surprisingly difficult to find a house sitter among people he knew, and he'd had to depend on his last resort: Hannah.
Hanna was his coworker and for some reason, she didn't like him all that much. He supposed it had something to do with the fact that he'd discovered she was a corporate spy. How he found that out was a bit complicated but suffice it to say, it more or less fell into his lap. She knew he knew, and she also knew he didn't seem inclined to tell her secret. This made her ripe for blackmail.
He hadn't pulled that particular string until now, when he blackmailed her into watching his home. Might seem a bad idea to entrust someone who hates you to protect your valuables, but he had a feeling she'd be true to her word, no matter her feelings. He also knew she would take the opportunity to go through his things if she thought it might help her with whatever her espionage mission was.
Sure enough, he got an alert on his tablet that someone had tried, and failed, to enter the correct password three times on his home computer. He clicked it and a live feed from his webcam filled his screen. Notably, Hannah's face flooded the screen, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. She kept trying for another ten minutes before she stood up and walked to the center of his living room. She put her hands on her hips and looked around as if trying to decide what to do next.
He pulled out his phone and found her name in his contacts. He pressed the green button next to her name. He watched her pull her phone out of her back pocket and look at it. She looked ready to just ignore it but decided to answer it anyway.
'Hello?' she asked, sounding out of breath.
'Hannah,' he said pleasantly. 'Have you enjoyed your little look-around?'
Her eyes swept around the room looking for cameras, but it was a brief thing, suggesting she'd already looked for cameras before. She'd apparently forgotten about the webcam. But he supposed everyone is so used to having the camera always there, that they forget what it can do. She sat down on his sofa.
Well, she plopped, really. Her dress flew up and smacked her in the face. He got a glimpse of blue panties before she covered herself back up. 'I'm sure I don't know what you mean,' Her American accent over inflated the vowels.
'Sure, you don't,' he drawled. 'Did you find anything useful?'
A beat before she repeated, 'I'm sure I don't know what you mean.'
'Just so long as you stay out of the bottom drawer in my bedside table.' He was fibbing, of course. That drawer did contain important documents: his birth certificate, tax returns. But she hardly believed she was stealing his identity.
She swallowed, taking the bait, he knew, though she didn't get up. 'Don't worry,' she shot back, 'I already found your massive porn collection. Massive.' Then oddly, she pulled the hem of her skirt up, exposing those blue panties again.
The movement pulled him away from her words, and he had to struggle back to them. 'Oh, I'd say it's a normal amount,' he returned. Of course, she had found no such thing. Nobody keeps physical porn anymore.