"Speaking of accomplishments, we've been told that there is none better than you for cyber security. We would like to hire you to be our chief security officer." Darrin says after Joshua nods at him.

"We understand that you might not have forgiven us yet, and might not ever do so, but you are the best and we need the best. Not to mention you are family and you should have been a part of the business years ago and if father hadn't made that impossible you would have been." Darrin tells her, looking at her earnestly.

Sharon blinks at him in shock. "Who told you that I was the best?" She's good and she knows it, but the best? That's something she never would have labelled herself.

"Do you know a Delaney?"  Darrin asks her smiley faintly.

"Delaney?" Now Sharon blinks rapidly. Delaney, the one person outside of Shaun she could see herself friends with. Unfortunately her incredibly packed schedule hadn't allowed much in the way of time for anything other than studying and working. That included sleep.

"Yes, Delaney. We were informed that you are the only one she considers better than herself that she would willingly work with or for. That if we hired any of the other candidates we were looking at then she would resign. She was very vocal on their abilities and very scathing. We did offer her the job but she declined saying that she was having a hard enough time staying ahead of the problems where she was at."

This brings Sharon's attention to Darrin. "Oh, do one of you have a laptop I could borrow? If she is having that much trouble I might be able to help her." Then she gets a sly smile on her face even as she accepts the laptop handed to her by Z. "If I do help her it will be helping your company. Since I'm not officially part of the company I expect to be paid for any help I give. I suspect I'll need to download a program I developed, no one has been able to crack it yet. I can guarantee that it will keep your files safe. But said program doesn't come cheap and yes I have managed to copyright it, but haven't had a chance to offer it on the market."

The brothers all look at each other and nod. "How much will you be asking for using said program?" Darrin finally asks her.

"One hundred thousand. That not only covers me installing it but I'll also maintain and upgrade it as necessary. That will cover the usage of it for all your businesses for three years. By the end of three years I should have a new program to replace it with that will also cost you to use. But if me working for you stops me from developing the software and having it be my own then I won't work for you." Sharon tells them even as she works on the laptop.

The brothers hear, "What the hell?" coming from the laptop.

"Hello, Delaney, I hear you told the Northrup brothers that I was the best candidate to take over as Chief officer of Security?"

"Sharon," Delaney's voice is a mixture of pleasure and irritation. "I really do need to have at least most of my screens back to the video that's happening in real time."

"Of course, how's this?" Sharon says and punches in some things then sits back with a smile.

"Much better bitch. What the hell are you doing hijacking the Northrup cameras like that? If they find out they'll destroy you."

"They told me that you recommended that I be your boss and I wanted to talk to you about that. You turned it down why?"

"I've had multiple attempts to break through the firewalls I've put up. You know me, I don't just use one firewall, I have at least ten half of which are smoke and mirror decoys. This guy is good and has managed to break through several of them. Sometimes it's all I can do to stay ahead of him and add more firewalls." Delaney is ashamed as she tells Sharon this.

"Install this," Sharon sends the program she has ready. She turns to her brothers, "I'll have my bank information sent to you and will expect to be paid no later than closing tomorrow."

"It will be," Darrin assures her. He'll personally make sure of it if the payroll department balks.

"Good, you don't want to know what I'll do to your businesses if you don't." Sharon says even as something on the screen catches her eye. She smiles and it's not a very nice smiles.

"Well now, Delaney let's find out who dares to try to infiltrate the Northrup Enterprises files." Sharon pushes a button and it piggy backs onto the hacker that's trying to get past her firewalls and starts a backward trace. Once it's complete a face takes over the security screens.

Delaney starts cussing up a storm. Sharon says mildly, "I take it you know this bastard?" She doesn't like that someone is trying to harm her brothers. She still might, but no one else gets to.

"Yeah, he's been trying to get me fired and take over my position since he was hired."

Sharon sends a couple of commands out before turning to her brothers. "What do you want done to him?"

"Industrial espionage is a crime, a major one. We'll have security take him into custody until the police can get there and arrest him." Darrin says his jaw ticking in anger that one of his employees dares to try that.

Sharon shrugs and when security reaches him allows the door to open. "Let's see what he's been hiding on his computer shall we?" Sharon says and goes over all the files he has. "Oh, he's been a naughty boy. He's downloaded and watched hours worth of porn on his computer during work hours. I believe that's wage theft. When I say hours I mean more than 120 hours worth of time. Some of the videos it shows as him having watched multiple times. Ohh he's also downloaded a lot of nasty little bugs with the porn."

"Downloading porn is strictly prohibited on company computers and is a reason to get fired." Delaney tells her. She is so relieved to have the main hacker finally caught that there are tears in her eyes.

"Sharon, I heard about Shaun. I'm sorry, I would have gone to the funeral but I didn't hear about it until after the fact. I know how close you two were."

Sharon looks away from the monitor until she's able to get her emotions under control again. She unwittingly shows the bandage on her cheek.

"What the fuck! What the hell happened to your cheek?" Delaney demands.

"Oh," Sharon had forgotten about the bandage and little traces it, "Yeah, this was a little gift from Tristan's ex."

"Whoa, hold on and back up. I think you need to tell me a bit more. I had heard you married Tristan Townsend and I warned the Northrup brothers that you might not be available to work for them if that's the case."

Sharon snorts. "Yeah, I married the bastard." She gets a sly smile once more. "I guess you haven't seen any of the news for the day then?"

"I've been pretty focused on trying to find and stop the hacker. I haven't even taken the time to eat let alone watch any news."

Sharon sends a few more commands. "What the fuck! Why is your mother-in-law and Angelina bitch being led out in handcuffs by the cops?"

"Angelina was or might still be, who the hell knows, Tristan's mistress. She came over after Tristan gave me the divorce papers. She decided at that time that she wanted the monogrammed named brand luggage Penelope Townsend gave me. I told her a few things, like she wouldn't like it if she took my luggage. She didn't listen.

"She dumped my things out and took the luggage then sent the butler to get me trash bags before using her ring to cut my cheek. I had to get like fifteen stitches in order to keep the scaring down.

"So she was arrested for assault and battery, since I had it on video she can't deny it, and grand theft since the luggage was very expensive. She couldn't say that it was hers since it was monogrammed with my initials and it's obvious I didn't give it to her on the video.

"My monster-in-law seems to have taken exception to Angelina being arrested and so attacked a police officer, well two from what I understand, and so she was arrested as well.

"Tristan, not to be out done, after the board meeting where I had him deposed as the CEO decided to attack Darrin Northrup who had been watching the meeting. Darrin knocked him out and then when the police showed up had Tristan arrested and is pressing charges."

"Damn girl, if I had known it was going to be this good I would have had you wait until I had popcorn to eat before you started reciting today's events."

"Oh, I haven't mentioned everything."

Delaney leans forward in anticipation, "What more could there be?"

"I'm pregnant, the one and only time Tristan and I had sex he got me with child and gave me Chlamydia. I told him that he should have Angelina tested as well as a test to make sure that the baby is his and not one of her other lovers. He didn't like that too much. As far as I'm concerned the two are perfect for each other. Two cheating ass holes. I hope they make each other miserable for the rest of their lives.

"You didn't tell her about the butler, Sharon." Michael tells her in amusement.

"Who was that?" Delaney demands since she can only see Sharon.

"One of my brothers."

Now Delaney is confused, "I thought Shaun was your only brother?"

"So did I until today. Apparently the Northrup brothers are also my brothers.

There is stunned silence on the other side of the computer.

"Delaney?" Sharon asks in concern.

"Those hot men are your brothers?" Delaney finally manages to squeak out.

The brothers all laugh silently at her words.

"Yes, I guess you could call them hot. By the way, they are all listening to your comments."

Now Delaney is completely embarrassed. "Okay, bye." She tries to shut down the connection, but Sharon isn't letting her.

"Um, Delaney, you do realize that I have control right now, remember?"

"Oh, I'm never going to live this down am I?"

"If they are anything like me, nope."

"Sharon, how did you and Delaney meet?" Michael finally asks to break the awkward silence that has fallen since Delaney said those embarrassing, to her, words.

"We had some classes together in college." Sharon replies off handedly.

Delaney sniffs. "We both know it's more than that. Sharon helped me by tutoring me for free. She took some of her very precious free time that she should have used to study or sleep and instead helped me. We both know that if you hadn't helped me I wouldn't have done any where near as well in those classes as I did."

"What do you mean?" Z asks interestedly.

"Sharon graduated top of our class in computer science and thanks to her I graduated second. She refused to take any money for doing so even though she was struggling herself. Honestly I don't know how she did it."

Now her brothers are all looking at her.

"What? She needed help and so I gave it. I think if I had had more time we would have been friends."

"I would have loved to have been your friend and if you would consider it, I would like to be your friend now."