O Magnet (Titans of Tech #2) - Tessa Layne Page 0,1

has been a blessing and a curse, in more ways than one. And if I thought she was remotely serious about quitting, I'd move heaven and earth to keep her here.

I look at my watch. I'm supposed to be in the conference room in three minutes. "Penny," I say sharply. "We can't afford for this deal to go south. Not after we've worked so hard on it." I turn my screen around so she can see it. "Do not make this the thing that gets you sacked."

She snorts, trying but failing to keep a grin off her face. "Fire me. I'm begging you. I was planning to quit at four. If you do it now, I can avoid your mother and go take a nap."

It's an ongoing joke between us. She knows I'd never fire her. Not in a million years. Not if I want to keep my balls and my friendship with Harrison intact. Harrison Steele is my oldest friend and CEO of Steele Conglomerate, a company we began in our senior year at Stanford.

As if on cue, Andrew Crawford, Steele's executive assistant shows up behind Penny, laptop in hand. "Mr. Steele's in the conference room. Penny mentioned you were having technical difficulties?"

I cover a smile because he's not being sarcastic at all. Andrew's indispensable, and while he sees and knows far more than he admits, he's a consummate gentleman. I pull my laptop back around and push back from my desk. "Thanks, Andrew. I'll be right in." I come around and accept the offered laptop. If I were anything less than the asshole I am, I'd invite Penny to walk with me. I'd pull her into the meeting to demonstrate the new security updates she's worked so hard on. But it's the Tokyo Stock Exchange we're talking with, and so while I won't take credit for her work, I'll be the one handling the questions. "Penny, do your best to get rid of Sloane? Tell her my calendar's booked until late next week or something." I turn back and lean in so that Andrew doesn't catch what I say next. "And for fuck's sake, get that goddamn emoji off my screen."

Andrew heads down the back hall so I can avoid Sloane and the chaos of the front office. I follow without sparing a second glance at Penny, a necessary component of this twenty-four-seven game we've been playing for the last four years. But I want to look back, because fuck, today she smells like leather, spice, flowers, and... sex. The combination of it drives my imagination wild. I know what I was doing between midnight and my five-thirty-a.m. rowing practice with the team. What the fuck was Penny doing? Besides getting a tatt? The question rolls around in my head as I stalk down the hall to a meeting I'm now late for. It stays with me as I stumble through the entire teleconference, earning glares from Steele. But I can't help it. After four years of nearly constant togetherness, Penny Fischer remains a dangerous mystery. One that I need to keep at arm's length, I remind myself harshly. Whatever she does in the few hours a day we don't see each other, is her business. Only right now, her business is driving me crazy.

Hypocrite.

Ninety minutes later I walk back into chaos. Penny's defending my doorway, arms akimbo, against a towering blonde bob that can only belong to my mother, Honore Forde. "You know the rules, Mrs. Forde, no one is allowed in Stock- Mr. Forde's office when he's not present. There's simply too much sensitive information."

"Then clean it up, darling. Isn't that what he's paying you for?" Widowed at forty-two, my mother has spent the last eighteen years running our family's foundation and biding her time until grandmotherhood. A former dancer, she spends fully three hours a day at the gym weightlifting, toning and stretching. And while she's been harassing me for years to find me Mrs. Right, she's tripled her efforts since I hit thirty-five two months ago. Every day at precisely eleven-thirty-seven a.m., she waltzes into the front office where Penny works, unannounced, with a new prospect she just "happened to run into" on her way to lunch. Today is no different, even though I've been out with Sloane a handful of times. Mother's not resting until I've put a ring on it.

"I already clean up enough of his messes, Mrs. Forde. I draw the line at his desk."

Making matters worse, there's screaming coming from