He wasn’t the first coworker she’d fantasized about. She’d spent her first six months on the job visualizing her old supervisor, Carter Green, butt naked and laid out like the centerfold in an old Playgirl magazine. But never had she wanted those fantasies to become real. And never once had she gotten the impression that if she signaled her interest, it would be reciprocated. She had no doubts that Daniel would be fully on board.

It wasn’t as if he’d been subtle in his attempts at flirting. Oh, he probably thought he was being subtle, but after an entire week of the two of them just so happening to meet up at the coffee bar, it became obvious that her newest coworker was interested in more than just macchiatos.

The timing sucked so hard. She could only imagine how different things would be if he’d started working at Trendsetters just a few months earlier. Maybe she would never have met Craig and wouldn’t be racking up the views on YouTube right now.

But it also meant she wouldn’t have met Taylor and London either. She wouldn’t trade that chance meeting for anything. Those two had lit a spark in her. They were the reason she’d lifted the lid on that box in her closet.

Yet another reason why she should keep these naughty little fantasies about Daniel and his magnificent massaging abilities locked away: She’d made a pact with Taylor and London. She’d promised to focus on herself and not on dating.

Besides, she was still treating the burn marks from her last relationship Dumpster fire. She wasn’t about to jump into anything else this soon. And with a coworker? She definitely didn’t need that kind of drama. The few office romances she’d witnessed in her three years at Trendsetters had all ended badly.

She would be content with admiring those ridiculously beautiful cheekbones and engaging in a little lighthearted flirting at the coffee bar, but that was as far as she was willing to go.

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

The bell rang out, signaling the end of the three-way flash competition between R&D’s Implementation team and the Engineering and Marketing departments. The head of each sector had set the parameters for what they deemed would count as a win for their teams. Implementation met their benchmark; the other two did not.

“Okay R&D, conference room,” Barrington Jacobs called.

He was her senior by only two years, but Samiah willingly gave Trendsetters’ CEO his due. The man was a genius, and one of her inspirations. He readily admitted that he’d played the kid-stuck-in-the-middle-of-a-nasty-divorce card to get the seed money he needed from his parents, but he’d used that money to grow this company by leaps and bounds.