In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

packing.
"Holy shit!" Penny blurted out, and they all looked at her,
thinking it had to do with the maid.
"What is it?"
"Nothing. I forgot something." Penny knew why her firewall
had crashed before.
Ula ignored them and speared each tortellini in its broth with
the accuracy of a heron.
Penny was furious with herself, she should have thought of this
right away. Love had sliced her IQ in half, at least. And all that
lovemaking had her nodding off during dinner. She had two espressos
after the tiramisu, so she could be alert for debugging.
He kept pouring the coffee into her demitasse as she sat with
him at her computer. That was how they'd gotten her. That weird email
message had been to kill her firewall, so they could get in her computer,
virtually. No tweezers needed. She found a program to purge her
laptop of Internet launched bugs and ran it through the hard drive. He
watched her methodically run through her files, not saying anything as
he leaned on his elbow, pouring her more coffee.
"I've had enough coffee, Sandro. I'm not Italian."
"I think Ula put something in your drink."
"What?"
"She does that. Her and Dick. Scopalamine, usually. Tasteless,
invisible and you remember nothing. Did you feel nauseous, dizzy,
have trouble breathing?"
"Yeah, I felt bad but that was because of something else. Date
rape drugs? How does that work on guys, anyway? Never mind."
Sandro just sighed and drummed his fingers on the desk. Much
later, with the computer swept clean, they went to sleep like proper
lovers, in his bed, wrapped around each other front to back and skin to
skin.
In the morning she awakened next to him, breathing in his
peachy warmth, and her heart started purring away. The birds weren't
around the pear tree with their usual racket as it was dark and stormy
outside, so she lay under the covers, drifting happily until he stirred
awake.
Downstairs in the solarium over plates of omelettes and
pastries, breakfast was en famille.
"You eat like a horse, what do you weigh, ninety pounds?" Ula
asked Penny as she poured tea into her empty cup.
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