“You can get an idea of how big the fee is based on the manpower that’s required. The Leyland Group is paying an obscene amount of money if they have both John and me working as co-captains.” She closed her laptop to preserve the battery as she assumed his pose, leaning back in the chair and crossing her arms over her chest. “And I’m not sure if you were told this, but there will be a bonus for being a part of the team. Trendsetters doesn’t keep all those extra earnings. They spread the wealth to the employees who helped to make it happen.”
“Just when I think this company can’t impress me more.” He shook his head. “Now I understand why the turnover rate is so low. Once you land a job here, why would you ever want to leave?”
As they sat there chatting, the pact she’d made with Taylor and London gnawed at her conscience. This was so unfair. How could she have known just one day after that impassioned, hungover speech she’d made in her living room that Daniel Collins would walk through the doors at Trendsetters and become her scrumptious new obsession?
After the shit she’d been through when it came to dating, how could anyone expect her to turn a blind eye to the undeniable attraction brewing between them?
It had been hard enough to resist him after their near kiss on the hiking trail. Now that they were working on the same team? Forget it. Resistance was for exercise bands and political activists. Not for a single woman who had to work with this delicious human being day in and day out.
But, dammit, the fact that she didn’twantto resist him was exactly why sheshould!
Her pact with Taylor and London was only the tip of a giant iceberg of reasons why she should absolutely fight this attraction to Daniel. She’d just had a mental debate over whether she had the time to devote to new friends. How much more of her energy would a brand-new relationship cannibalize? And that didn’t take into account the overtime she would have to put in over these next few weeks while working on this new project.
No. She couldn’t do it. She couldnotallow herself to get caught up in anything beyond the lighthearted flirting they’d engaged in so far. Anything else would take way too much time away from working on Just Friends. Now that she was done with her feasibility assessment and had moved solidly into the prototype development, every spare moment was precious.
Of course, when it came to reasons she should absolutely, without a doubt, not even consider dating Daniel Collins, the boyfriend project pact she’d made with Taylor and London, and the time she needed to work on her app, paled in comparison to the big, fat elephant in the room.
In thisactualroom. This room where theyworkedtogether. Ascoworkers!
There was no formal policy prohibiting interoffice relationships, but Samiah got the sense it was frowned upon, especially between supervisors and subordinates. She could recall the gossip floating around Trendsetters not long after she arrived, about a former supervisor who’d started a relationship with a programmer. There was never an official reprimand, but that gossip had lasted for months.
She wasn’ttechnicallyDaniel’s boss, but as team co-captain on the Leyland Group project, it placed her in a position of authority. She could not ignore the potential hit her reputation would take if word got out that she was getting extra friendly with the hot new guy at the office.
Then again, fuck it. She spent these past few weeks at the center of the juiciest gossip to hit the Trendsetters offices in months. What was a little more?
Daniel turned his attention back to his computer, but she continued to study him from her side of the table. After several minutes passed, he lifted his head, a wary look in his eyes.
“What?” Daniel asked.
She wanted to bring up the near kissbut knew better than to do that while they were both in this big, empty office all alone. Instead, she thought about something else from their time at McKinney Falls.
“The other day, while we were hiking, you mentioned how quickly I’ve advanced in my career, but the same can be said for you. Based on the office grapevine—”
“I’m part of the office grapevine?”
“You’re practically the vineyard. At least among a certain population. The female population,” she clarified. “And according to that grapevine, you were in the military before going to college and graduating at the top of your class from Stanford. Are you some kind of whiz kid or something?”
“Or something,” he said.
She tapped her fingers against her lips. “I don’t think so. I think youwerethe whiz kid. I’ll bet you were one of those brainiacs who graduated from high school at fourteen.”
“Sixteen.”
Her eyes widened. “Sixteen?”
“I never said I wasn’t smart.” He shrugged. “But I don’t think I qualify as a whiz kid. I finished high school a year early and enrolled in Carnegie Mellon. I got a few semesters under my belt before I enlisted, and then transferred to Stanford once I put in my four years with the Marines.”
“Why the Marines?” She held up a hand. “And please, please,pleasetell me it’s because you love their uniforms.”
He grinned. “Those are some sharp threads, aren’t they?”
“Did you just say sharp threads?” She laughed. “You listen to nineties rap music and talk like someone out of a seventies sitcom.”
“Hey!” His injured look was cuteness personified.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I think it’s adorable.”
“Nowthat’sinteresting,” he replied, his voice dipping an octave. “I take it adorable is a good thing in your book?”
