by Anne Marsh
“It might be hard.” Something about her makes me want to break my rules and flirt shamelessly. Her touch is electric, making my body burn, my hands itch to touch her more.
“Come with me.” She’s already turning, and anticipation hums through me.
Happily.
I follow her toward the fishbowl. I assumed she knew who I was on Friday night. Founder hounders are common on the Silicon Valley social scene, looking to strike it rich and score a start-up-wealthy mate. The demand is great; the supply is low; and I’m Grade A billionaire material. My company’s grown to stratospheric levels and I have the cash and lack of a personal life to prove it. And although I’ve also got the racing cars, private jets and oceanfront property, the kicker is that I’m top five on the Billionaire Bachelors app.
Yes, there’s an app for spotting tech billionaires. My best friend Max O’Reilly launched it three years ago and his dating algorithm made him a fortune when he IPO’d. Fork over your hard-earned cash and you unlock dozens of extra date-finding features, but the one that rakes in the biggest bucks is his signature Billionaire Bachelors List. For the price of a cup of coffee and a quick download of the Happily Ever After app, he’ll push you a monthly hot list of Silicon Valley’s top bachelors and bachelorettes—complete with rankings, pictures and favorite stomping grounds so that you, too, can hunt the elusive wealthy mate in native territory. I’ve topped the list for the last two years.
Lola drops onto a yellow yoga ball and waves a hand at me. “Sit.”
Normal chairs of any type do not appear to be available. When in Rome, right? I choose a blue ball because I enjoy symbolism, roll it over and sit down. I don’t rush into explanations or accusations. I just watch her. People rush to fill up silence. You learn a lot that way, plus it makes the other person nervous and confess misdeeds.
This time, the silence stretches on and on until the soft skin between Lola’s eyes crinkles as if she’s thinking about something tricky. The frown deepens, so probably not thoughts of me naked.
She darts a longing look—at the laptop on the table. “Give me a moment?”
Her fingers are flying over the keyboard before I can respond. Okay, then. Totally lost in thought, she rolls back and forth like a metronome on top of that stupid yoga ball. She must have amazing abs.
After thirty seconds, I get bored and set the stopwatch on my phone. After ten minutes, I tap the table in front of her. “Earth to Lola.”
“Oh.” She turns bright pink and promptly loses her balance. I catch her by the elbow. For the count of three, my mouth is by her ear. Her hair brushes my cheek and that’s all it takes for me to learn that she smells like vanilla, like cookies and sugar. Danger.
I force myself to roll my ball away from hers. “We need to get going here.”
“Right.” She slides the laptop away with obvious reluctance. “So you start. Tell me about yourself.”
I haven’t decided how to play this. Threaten her with my lawyer? Present her with a hefty invoice for the software she stole? Or just inform her that her pirated e-commerce system will switch her product to rubber ducky dildos as soon as she goes live because of my anti-theft safeguards? As Inigo Montoya assured Miracle Max: humiliations galore. Making small talk, however, is not part of my revenge plot.
“You know all about me.” The words come out more growl than nice. Whatever.
“Uh-huh.” She fidgets with the edge of the laptop. Her gaze flicks to the screen. Back to me. “Well, Lev—”
“Dev,” I correct.
She makes a face. “Sorry. I thought I read—”
“You can’t believe everything you read.” I glance at her laptop as I speak. It’s just code—lines and lines of the stuff in the typical developer environment. Not my code. Not my problem. But the mess on the screen is all wrong. It’s inefficient and poorly organized.
I nudge her yoga ball abruptly, scooting her out of the way so I can pull the laptop toward me. “This is so wrong. Jesus. Who taught you how to code?”
She sucks in a pissed-off breath, reaching for the laptop. “That’s mine.”
I shoot to my feet, balancing the laptop in one hand, typing like a fiend with the other. Delete. Delete. Delete. I scroll down, check a line, scroll back up. There aren’t even any unit tests—does she really believe testing is optional? Lola yanks furiously on my arm, but not only am I much, much taller than her, I also spent a year commuting between San Francisco and Santa Cruz on the train. I’m a master at typing while the world around me sways, lurches and violates my personal space.
I hit Save at the same moment the laptop flies out of my hand. Lola glares at me from the top of the conference room table she’s climbed so she can repo her hardware. Score one for her. She transfers the glare to her screen and anger morphs into visible outrage. Whatever. I drop back onto my blue ball and smirk up at her.
“You’re welcome, sweetheart.” Love me, hate me, or plan to bury my body in the alley behind Calla—but I’ve just fixed a major showstopper of a bug in her code. She knows it, too.
Hippie Chick chooses this moment to stick her head in the conference room door. “Are you done?”
Not a chance.
But Lola jumps off the table, laptop clutched to her chest. As she lands, her hip not-so-accidentally checks my shoulder hard enough to rock my ball.
“You bet,” she tells Hippie Chick.
“No,” I snap at the same moment.
I’m supposed to discuss the reasons that brought me here. Read her the riot act. Make her life generally unpleasant and ensure that she never, ever touches anything of mine again without permission. Spank her for being a bad girl.
“He’s hired,” Lola announces as she strides out of the room. “He’ll start tomorrow.”
Wait.
What?
Hippie Chick fist pumps. “Welcome aboard, new summer intern.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Lola
“ASS,” I HISS under my breath. Exaggerated sibilance sounds way less cool than, say, when a wizard is speaking Parseltongue. Yes, I’m a nerd with a Harry Potter fixation (House Ravenclaw, naturally), and yes, some days it sucks being the girl boss. I’ve worked hard to get where I am, though, so I don’t scream the truth to the rafters of Calla’s amazing three-story loft space. If I did, that truth might deafen the departing ass.
My newly hired nemesis, Mr. Devlin King. My intern.
My Friday night crush.
I’d worked my clit feverishly remembering his muscled thighs and stern face. Even though I apologized for crash-landing on him and his magnificent lap (at least I think I did—the details are fuzzy), he’s holding a grudge. He certainly doesn’t seem to have spent his weekend fantasizing about the mystery woman who gave him a free lap dance.
He’s still impossibly gorgeous, though. To preserve what remains of my sanity, I retreat to the kitchen and pretend to deep-dive into my code while what I really do is watch Dev walk away from me for the second time: tall, built and still in possession of the most amazing backside I’ve ever ogled. He totally owns his ridiculously expensive suit. He’s also quite possibly the most brilliant programmer I’ve ever met, having solved in seconds what a team of Calla engineers has been wrestling with for a week. Unfortunately, a continental-sized ego and the suave manners of Attila the Hun accompany his stunning good looks and big brain. Working with him will be impossible, but there’s no viable alternative. The man is a genius and he works for peanuts, almost literally. Naturally, I’ve already forgotten whatever was on his résumé—UC Santa Cruz?—but he’s definitely a college student with a willingness to intern for almost nothing. Given Calla’s financial state, personality is negotiable.
Nellie woofs, poking her square white head out from behind the trash can. Nellie is a scaredy-bear and she hides whenever she spots intruders. She resembles a miniature zeppelin on squat legs. Bri
nging her to work with me is the perk of being the boss.
I reach down to stroke the soft fur on top of her head. “The coast is clear.”
Like me, Nellie prefers to people in small doses. Another surreptitious peek reveals I’ve been overoptimistic in my estimate of Devlin’s leave-taking. He’s still on the premises, talking up Katie, Calla’s receptionist.
As Nellie eases out to say hello to me, Devlin nods at Katie. Not a smile, nothing pleasant, just a brusque tip of his gorgeous head that makes parts of me long to grab him by that stupid tie and yank his head down to mine. I should look away but I can’t. I blame the way his shoulders stretch his dark suit jacket, framing all those delicious muscles. It’s too bad the man ever has to open his mouth. If he could just work and glower in silence, seen but not heard, he’d be perfect. If he could do that with a Scottish accent and a tartan, I’d come on the spot.
Katie clearly agrees with me about the pretty boy factor. She stares at Devlin King, her mouth working like a fish. I can practically hear the stunned pop, pop, pop from my hiding place as she drinks in our intern’s brand of hotness. His voice rumbles, low, rough, way too sexy. I can’t catch the words, but Katie beams as if he’s actually, finally said something nice. Finally, our sexy troll steps out into the San Francisco sunshine and is gone.
No, thank you. No excitement. Definitely don’t let the door hit your mighty fine ass on the way out.
That man is trouble, and not just because we’re an all-girl team and he’s the lone slice of chocolate cake. Diversity is good. A roomful of people who think the same way does not solve coding problems. But because Calla is on the edge, one nudge in the wrong direction will also send us careening to our doom. After getting turned down by the last venture capital firm I approached for financial backing, we’ve burned through our remaining operating capital and yet electricity and flushing toilets remain nonnegotiable items for my team members. I not only need to launch soon, but I need the launch to be a success. It would be even better if someone left a sack of large-denomination bills on our doorstep. Wishful thinking. I’m a master.
A test version of Calla’s website is up and operational in a sandbox, I remind myself. We’ve just finished integrating our new e-commerce platform. That platform is a thing of beauty, although I’m also secretly grateful I didn’t have to tell anyone how I obtained it. My small budget inspired an equal measure of creativity and embarrassing desperation.
Nellie whines, alerting me to incoming humans. I mentally flush my thoughts of Dev—mooning over my much younger intern is crazy—and find myself face-to-face with Valerie. Valerie is our director of international marketing. At twenty-three, she has a degree from UC Berkeley, pink hair and glossy pink lips that match the hair. She was an “influencer” before we landed her, which means she posted carefully curated content to Instagram and other social media. Her brand, she’d informed me during our interview, was Start-Up Chic and she makes more money documenting the start-up lifestyle than she does from Calla’s actual paychecks. I live in terror that she’ll abandon us, but so far, so good.
She leans down to pat Nellie on the head. Nellie flinches. “Who was that and why are we hiding in the kitchen?”
“I’m caffeinating, not hiding.” To back up my claim, I beeline toward the coffee bar, almost tripping over Nellie, who believes my energy level means we’re hunting doggie treats. Ugh. All ten of Calla’s team members are serious caffeine addicts, but none of us has a Martha Stewart–esque penchant for organizing or cleaning. The coffee bar is a sticky collection of used cups, spilled sugar and empty coffee pods. I made a note on my phone to Google proper intern responsibilities—maybe he can take over coffee duties.
Val points to the front door. “Our guest was gorgeous. Now tell me he’s smart. And ours.”
“He’s definitely smart. He’s got a huge brain. He has the personality of a troll.” Darn it. Out of coffee pods. I sift through the cupboard, searching for instant coffee, and discover an empty box. “I’m naming him Director of All Things Coffee.”
“Uh-huh.” Val nudges me enthusiastically. She’s a hugger, too, whereas my personal space requirements are more generous. “Bet he’s got a huge something else, too.”
I make the buzzer sound. “Inappropriate, Val. Would you want your future teammates discussing your body the minute you walked out the door?”
Pot. Kettle.
“Sorry.” She pulls a face. “You’re right. Not here.”
I look at her apologetically, but I know she understands. Lusting after the summer intern falls into the category of Shit You Do Not Stir. Above all, it’s wrong. Whether you’re Team Vagina or Team Penis (or prefer not to state your allegiance), you should be able to come to work without your coworkers imagining you naked and performing sex acts. And second and more practically, not only is everyone working all out to launch Calla in two months, but we simply can’t afford the drama and expense of a workplace harassment lawsuit.
I shut the cupboard door and toss the empty box into the recycling. “Come with me to the coffee shop?”
Val nods enthusiastically, which experience has shown is her default factory setting. She’s enthusiastic about everything. When we step outside, my head starts swiveling. I tell myself I’m just soaking in the sunshine. It’s a balmy seventy-two degrees and the morning fog has already burned off. Normally, I’d take a few centering breaths and appreciate being outside, but instead I scour my surroundings. For him.
Fortunately, Val doesn’t notice. Instead, she enthusiastically launches into conversation. “Do you have weekend plans?”
Right. It’s Friday, the day of the week normal people get excited about because they actually intend to leave the house. On purpose. I personally prefer hiding inside where there are fewer people. After I finish my monster to-do list, I have a hot date with a new book and takeout. And Nellie. Nellie and I are practically an old married couple. I tie her leash to the bench outside the coffee shop and plunge through the doors. There are thirty-two people here and the sound wave deafens me.
“No plans,” I roar, stepping up to the counter and placing my order. Don’t feel sorry for the introvert, folks. That’s how she likes it.
“No hot date?” Val examines the muffins on offer. Smart. It’s unlikely we have time for lunch and I’ve eaten my way through the box of tasteless granola bars stashed in my desk. I pull out my phone and make order snacks the two hundred and forty-seventh item on my to-do list. “When’s the last time you went out?”
I tap my calendar. Dates are violet as pink feels clichéd—and violet is as rare on my calendar as unicorns are in my life. Which is A-okay with me. My crowded schedule has no room for hearts and true love.
Val snorts. “If you have to check your calendar, it’s been too long.”
“Three hundred sixty-one days.” Precision is important.
Val digests my disturbingly long period of celibacy as the baristas bellow out names, the space-age coffee maker whoosh-whirs, and a dozen customers chat each other up and make business calls at the top of their lungs.
“You need to get out more,” she says finally. “There are apps for that.”
“Hello? Married to the firm?” I grab my chai latte off the counter and head outside. Nellie barks enthusiastically. She loves coffee dates, even if she anxious-pees if I take her inside. Popping the lid off my cup, I pour her a taste. Uh-oh. Whatever’s in this cup isn’t chai latte. Once again, I’ve stolen someone else’s drink.
I debate slinking back inside and buying—I rotate the cup until I spot the owner’s name underneath my pinkie—Ross a new drink. It’s too much work, though. Plus, if he really likes steamed coconut milk, we’ll never work out. I opt for fleeing back toward Calla, Nellie trotting alongside me, licking her chops.
Val is right behind me. “Sex is like flossing. You should do it once a day, twice a day is better, and if you haven’t done it,
you lie and say you did anyhow.”
I roll my eyes. “Who has time to do it twice a day?”
My brain helpfully supplies an image of Dev. He likely has both the time and the stamina to do it twice a day. Probably twice an hour. Bad brain. Not only is he much, much younger than me, but he’s my intern. I meant what I said to Val about respecting our team members. It shouldn’t matter if Devlin is tall, short, fat or supremely built. His outside package has no bearing on his ability to do the job, and I won’t treat him any differently than I’d want to be treated. My social skills might be lacking, but even I know having your boss come on to you is at best horribly awkward and at worst criminal.
Plus, I’ve already had naked fantasies about him, and he’s brought me to orgasm twice since Friday night even if he didn’t know it.
Shit.
Hiring him is a bad idea. If anyone finds out I’m crushing on him, I’ll look ridiculous. And then there will be the usual stupid, giddy delight at going to work, knowing that I’ll see him for a few minutes. Or our shoulders will brush, our knees bump under the table when we work together. He’ll lean in so I can point out something on my laptop screen, and his breath will rush over my arm, and then the kibbles of those brief contacts will turn me into a brainless babbler. It’s happened before.
But how can I fire him now? Not only do I need his big brain to sort out the bugs in my software, but I have no legal ground to fire him for hotness. The grumpy asshole part gives me material to work with, but I need him. And not just in a naked-and-thrusting way. Stop thinking about him.
The ache between my thighs as I walk back into the office is totally wrong. And Devlin King has given me zero reason to believe he sees me as anything other than his new boss, so this is one-sided chemistry.
I’ll just shut it down.
That’s what I’ll do.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dev
JACK LEVELS A look at me, an impressive feat since we’re bobbing up and down on our boards a quarter mile off the Santa Cruz shore.