“With Mike out for the duration of this project, I’ve asked Daniel to come on as his replacement. Daniel did Quality Control on a previous project for a defense contract with the DOD. To be honest, even if Mike was available I would still bring Daniel in. He’s a good match for this team.
“As you all know, this project sprung up quickly, and has a very short, four-week turnaround, so things will move at a pretty good clip. John will serve as co-captain.” Justin paused as the door opened. “And here’s our other co-captain.”
Daniel’s stomach bottomed out. At the same time his heart skipped a beat.
Samiah walked into the conference room looking like his favorite daytime fantasy come to life. Her strawberry-red jacket cinched at her waist, and she didn’t have to turn around for him to know that the fabric of her skirt stretched perfectly over her equally perfect ass.
“Now that Samiah is here, we can get started,” John said. He turned to her. “Good news. Daniel is going to take Mike’s spot. One of us can catch him up to speed once we’re done here, but I’m sure he’ll be able to step right in.”
“Undoubtedly,” Samiah said. She inclined her head toward Daniel. “Welcome to the team.”
His heart did that triple-time beating thing again. So much for trying to keep his distance from her while on the job.
Yet that wasn’t the biggest hiccup when it came to his current situation. Last night, while discussing the near disaster that happened outside of Trendsetters’ Security Department with Quentin, they’d both agreed that instead of breaching security, the smarter move was for Daniel to get placed on the Cybersecurity team. He’d intended to start implementing the plan he’d come up with today by planting a security glitch into a small vulnerability he’d discovered in one of the projects he’d been working on, then bringing the solution to his supervisor. Being put on this new team was an unexpected curveball.
But what recourse did he have? Because he was new to the company, being placed on a special project team so soon into his new job would be seen as a huge leg up to the average employee. If he wanted to look suspicious, all he had to do was turn down such a prestigious honor.
He would have to find a workaround. Maybe he could stay late. He could simply say that he didn’t want to leave his other team members in thelurch, so he was putting in some extra hours to cover his work on his other projects.
“We all know how this works,” John was saying. “It’s full immersion time. Whatever you were working on prior to coming to this meeting, put it out of your head. Other team members on those projects will tackle the workload.”
Fuck.Was the guy reading his mind?
“We have a finite number of days to develop, test, and implement this software, and it will require one hundred percent of your time and effort,” Samiah added.
The sound of her voice alerted Daniel to his most immediate issue, figuring out how he would work so closely with Samiah Brooks without losing his ever-loving mind.
Chapter Fourteen
Booyah!”
Samiah looked up from her laptop and had to clamp her lips together to stifle her laugh.
If sexy and adorable had a baby together, the result would be Daniel Collins. He sat huddled at the table they’d commandeered in the break room/kitchen area, that zippered Phillies hoodie he loved so much shielding his eyes.
“Does anyone even use that saying anymore?” she asked.
“What saying?” His eyes remained on his computer screen.
She shook her head. “Never mind. I forgot who I was speaking to.” Going by his music taste, his head was probably filled with stale phrases from the nineties.
Her eyes narrowed as she regarded the excitement dancing in his eyes. “Are you even working over there?” She leaned forward, stretching toward his end of the table. “Will I see a video game on that screen if I come over to your side?”
“Why would I need to play a video game when working in Kotlin is so much more fun?” He stopped typing and removed the hood. “That has to be the coolest shit ever. What other programming language is this seamless?”
“You do realize if you say that to anyone outside of this office they’ll look at you as if you’ve grown a second head, right?”
“People do that already.” A thousand Adderall-addicted butterflies began to dance in her belly at the sight of his teasing grin.
Daniel shoved his hand in the brown paper bag filled with house-made potato chips that came with the sandwiches they’d had delivered and popped one in his mouth. Leaning back in his chair, he said, “So, tell me something. When a company comes to Trendsetters with a project like this, that it needs completed in a short amount of time, is there an extra fee for the rush job?”
“Definitely,” she answered. “A big one.”
His brow arched. “How big?”
“Stupid big, to use phrasing you’d understand.”
His intoxicating grin broadened and Samiah immediately started thinking of other slang she’d heard when binge-watching old episodes ofThe Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. If that’s what it took to elicit that smile, she was game.
