“I know everyone is dying to hear whether or not I beat Craig up after the video ended. I did not. See.” She flipped her hands back and forth, showing them her unblemished knuckles. “No scars.”

Laughter and more cheers rumbled throughout the office. Samiah hoped that was enough to satisfy them.

She should have known better.

She couldn’t take two steps without being stopped by a coworker wanting to know how it felt to be YouTube famous or asking if she really didn’t know that Craig had been conning her. Because of course she would knowingly date a guy who was conning her. Managing to not roll her eyes every ten seconds would likely be her greatest feat of the day.

It took a full twenty minutes to make it to the sanctuary of her private office, although it wasn’t all that private. Ninety percent of Trendsetters’ office space was transparent—literally. The walls and doors of most offices and conference rooms were made of tempered glass.

Before she could stow her purse in her desk drawer, Aparna from Research and Development and Christy from Engineering came into her office wanting to know the scoop, followed by Rashad and Ali from the Marketing Department. Samiah didn’t know which she wanted to do more, bang her head against her desk or scream at the top of her lungs. Neither was acceptable, so she pasted on a fake grin and entertained the teasing jibes.

She wouldn’t have to feign an illness if she wanted an excuse to leave work early. Pretending this was all some hilarious joke and not her fucking life they were laughing about had sparked a headache the size of the old Houston Astrodome.

An announcement that there were donuts and hot chocolate in the communal kitchen granted her a reprieve from the constant stream of nosy coworkers dropping in. Grateful for the first moment of quiet she’d experienced all morning, she used the opportunity to read over her notes for the presentation she and the members of her Implementation team were scheduled to give this afternoon. As she edited one of the slides, a message popped up, informing the entire team that their two o’clock meeting had been moved to noon.

“Shit.”

It was bad enough she’d lost half the morning to coworkers pestering her about that viral video. Now Grant Meecham was stealing another two hours of prep time from her.

She shouldn’t have been surprised. Grant, Trendsetters’ director of Global Sales, had called the meeting, and whenever Grant set up a meeting he did everything he could to schedule it over lunch so that he could eat on the company’s dime. Cheap bastard.

“Hey there, Miss Celebrity,” came an irritatingly sweet voice from somewhere over her shoulder.

Samiah’s eyes fell shut at the nauseating sound. She dialed up another fake smile before turning her chair around.

“Good morning, Keighleigh. Can I help you?”