He smiled and, for a moment, Samiah forgot that she’d said just yesterday that she was putting men on the back burner.

It’s just a smile. Calm the hell down.

It was a nice smile, but still just a smile.

“Samiah?” she heard her name a second before John Kim, a member of her Implementation team, walked up to them. “Oh, sorry,” John said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I was hoping we could go over the presentation before today’s meeting.”

“I’m sorry?” She frowned. It took her a moment to remember she was at work. “I mean of course,” Samiah said with a breathy laugh. What the hell? She never got flustered.

She turned to John. “Yes, of course. Grab Katie and meet me in my office. I’ll be there in a sec.”

John nodded to Daniel and held out his hand. “You’re the new hire in R&D, right?”

“Daniel Collins,” he answered.

“I’m John. I’ll be the one bugging you when it’s time to work on the regression testing for the new CRM software.”

“I look forward to it,” Daniel said with a smile.

Good Lord, the man had dimples. He had outrageously gorgeous cheekbones and freaking dimples. So not fair.

John left them standing at the coffee bar. An awkward silence stretched between them.

No! No! No! No!

Why did this feel so awkward? There should be no awkwardness here. He was just her coworker.

Samiah cleared her throat and held up her coffee mug. It was probably cold now, but she wouldn’t dare stick around to brew another cup. “I should finish this in my office. I have a presentation to give at noon.”

“I heard,” he said, pitching his chin toward where John had just left. He stepped aside, giving her ample room to pass. She slid past him, ignoring the quiver in her stomach.

“Hey, Samiah?” Daniel called after she’d taken a couple of steps.

She coaxed herself into showing a bit of restraint by turning slowly. “Yes?”

“Don’t sweat all the attention that video is getting. You did what you had to do.”

Her heart lifted with a rush of gratitude that nearly brought tears to her eyes.

“Thank you,” she said. “I really needed to hear that.” Then she raced for the sanctuary of her office.

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

She couldn’t hear it, but she felt it. The methodic ticktock of her internal clock as the seconds quickly ticked away. It was getting closer. Closer.

Samiah reached for her phone and extended the time on the alarm before it had the chance to blare with the annoying sound that was the bane of her existence. She’d set the alarm to go off at seven thirty, determined to leave the office, whether her work was done or not.

Yeah, that wasn’t happening.