O Magnet: A Fake Engagement Romantic Workplace Comedy (Titans of Tech Book 2) Read online

  O Magnet

  A Titans of Tech Novel

  Tessa Layne

  Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Tessa’s Newsletter

  The heroes are here

  Introducing the Roughstock Riders

  Also by Tessa Layne

  Copyright © 2019 by Tessa Layne

  Paperback Edition ISBN-13: 978-1-948526-27-2

  EPUB Edition ISBN-13: 978-1-948526-26-5

  Published by Shady Layne Media

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, stored, or transmitted in any form or in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations included in critical articles and reviews. For information, please contact the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of copious amounts of wine, long walks, and the author’s overactive imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Foreword

  Stockton

  As the CTO of Steele Conglomerate, I work hard, and play harder, if you catch my meaning. I – and the ladies – like it that way.

  My mother has other ideas.

  For the last six years, she’s been trying to marry me off – because it’s time for grandchildren. She’s even started dropping by my office with prospects — on a daily basis.

  But I’m going to beat her at her own game. Not only am I going to convince her I’m getting married, I’m going to pick the last woman my mother would ever choose for me… my crazy, inappropriate-for-me-in-every-way assistant, Penelope Fischer — Penny.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  Penny

  I am So. Over. Stockton Ford. Just because he’s the hottest bachelor in Kansas City with the biggest wallet does not make him all that. I should know. Not only do I spend night and day helping him fight cyber bad guys and generally being his Girl Friday, I’m tasked with managing his personal life – his mother, his girlfriends... you get the picture. So yeah, I’m done. Done giving into that megawatt smile, the mischievous twinkle in his eye, and the pleading tone in his voice that somehow I can’t resist.

  I’m quitting.

  Today.

  Until he makes me an offer I can’t refuse, and I say yes for all the wrong reasons.

  A billionaire workplace fake-engagement with plenty of snark, steamy sex, and an epic HEA!

  Chapter One

  Stockton

  "PENNY," I bellow from my office, ready to throw my laptop out the seventeenth-story window. She's done it again, and I don't have time for this shit. Not with Tokyo breathing down our throats for a new security update, Amsterdam yelling amended satellite specs, and a stack of reports from my top baseball scouts. All I'm seeing on my screen is a goddamned animated laughing emoji.

  "PENNY," I holler again, louder, because she is taking god's sweet time, and I have five minutes before I'm supposed to be on a conference call.

  When she finally appears in the doorway, her black and pink-streaked hair is piled high in a messy bun, and she's wearing her favorite Ramones tee. The same one from last night, and the one she was wearing the day we met. Her black skinny jeans are strategically torn, and she's wearing a pair of chucks the same shade as her pink streak. Even now, four years later, she could still pass for a high schooler. Her eye makeup is smudged and her eyelids are a little puffy. Looking at her, you'd think she'd stayed out all night tying one on instead of staying up all night checking and rechecking the security update we're about to deliver.

  But what catches my attention is the shiny pink skin on her right forearm and a brand-new tattoo that wasn't there when I left the office after midnight last night. I eye it - a delicate pattern of vines and flowers that is at odds with the snarky brash young woman who's irritated me incessantly for the last four years. But I put up with it because Penny's brain is my kryptonite, and Steele Conglomerate would be sunk without her skills.

  I scowl. "That's new," I bark. I shouldn't be bothered about the tattoo - I'm not Penny's minder. I made sure of that the day she came to work for us. But a big decision like a tattoo? It feels like a slap in the face. Especially when we've been working around the clock on this project for Tokyo.

  Her green eyes sharpen and the barest hint of a smile pulls at the corner of her mouth. She saunters to my desk and swipes my coffee mug, draining the contents before releasing the rim with a big smack of her pretty pink lips. She lifts an eyebrow, as if daring me to comment. But we've played this game before, and I bite my tongue. "So's your flavor of the week," she sasses back, referring to the latest in a revolving door of women my mother keeps trying to set me up with.

  "Did you order a side of brat with your breakfast?" I retort.

  Wisely, she ignores me. "Sloane seems very personable. She's waiting for you in the foyer. I told her she'd outlasted the previous candidate by three days."

  Sloane Harwig is nice enough, and her bod is slammin', but the fact she's been around long enough for Penny to remember her name tells me it's time to let her down gently. Even though I just spent four hours with her late last night and she's loosely affiliated with the baseball team we own. Work hard, play hard and all that. I have no intention of settling down. A fact my mother patently refuses to believe as evidenced by the string of women she brings by the office for "lunch".

  "Is she bothering you?" I ask sharply. Penny rolls her eyes. Hard. Most people bother Penny. It's part of her charm. "Okay, let me rephrase. Is she preventing you from working?"

  Penny lifts her brows and smirks.

  Of course not. Hence the laughing emoji locking up my screen. "So this is what it's come to?"

  She lifts a slender shoulder. "You should at least benefit from my babysitting skills in some way."

  "I've got a meeting in five minutes," I growl. "And I'm paying you good money to run interference."

  "Sleep deprivation was not part of our agreement."

  Fair enough. "But you know late night's the only time things are quiet enough we can work without interruption."

  Her eyes narrow. "And whose fault is that? I practically live here, and I run interference with your mother's Find My Son a Wife campaign." She air quotes. "I think I'm going to polish my resignation letter."

  She's one-hundred-percent right. Steele Conglomerate has been growing exponentially, in large part because of Penny's mind. And even with a good team in place, I can barely keep up with the technological demands the growth is placing on our organization. Having Penny 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 the front office. Lots of it. "What in the hell?" Then it hits me. Penny mentioned something last week about a field trip visiting from a local school. They must be here.

  I throw a dark glance at Harrison who throws up his hands as he backs away. "Not my circus, not my monkeys."

  "Andrew?"

  He shakes his head, mouth quirking and following Harrison. "Sorry. We're tied up in meetings until six."

  Sorry, my ass.

  "Miss Fischer," my mother booms. She's a stickler for formality, but today it hits a nerve. She's known Penny for four years but insists on the address as a way of putting Penny in her place. "You cannot prevent me from seeing my son," she says in a voice dripping with disdain. "This is Joanie Barker, his dinner date at our foundation's Debutante dinner tonight."

  Fuck.

  Fuckfuckfuck.

  I check my smartwatch. April twelfth. How could I forget? Except, how could I not? Between the Kansas City Kings Vets & Pros game in Prairie Kansas, Opening Day, followed by the Regatta on the Thames in London, and this Tokyo deal running through all of it, it's amazing I haven't lost my mind. I have Penny to thank for that. But the Forde Family Foundation debutante dinner is one of our most important events of the year - the one where this year's debutante class is revealed.

  "Mrs. Forde," Penny says in clipped tones. "I know this is urgent and you want to introduce Ms. Barker, and I promise I'll convey your visit to him, but you have to make an appointment. Sto- Mr. Forde has back to back meetings today." I can practically see the steam streaming out of Penny's ears.

  I'm surprised to hear Sloane's voice cut in. "Wait a minute, I'm having dinner with Stockton tonight."

  What in the hell is she still doing here? And I'm pretty sure I didn't make dinner plans with anyone except my pillow and a tumbler of whiskey.

  "Clearly, you don't understand how important this evening is." I can't tell if my mother's comment is aimed at Sloane or Penny. She's terrible at disguising her dislike for my most valuable employee. Which I have to admit, makes me like Penny all the more. "Sloane dear, I'm sure you understand. It's important as the sole heir to the Ford Family Foundation that Stockton appear with a suitable companion for tonight."

  "Clearly, you don't understand how important Mr. Forde's work is," Penny tosses back. "I don't care if you're the friggin' Pope. You can't see him without an appointment."

  "Language, young lady. There are children present," my mother says sternly, as if Penny was her daughter.

  "I'm sorry," Penny tosses back. "I meant I don't care if you're the fucking Pope."

  I cover a laugh as the visiting class erupts at Penny's use of the f-bomb. I'm tempted, only briefly, to hang back and watch, because Penny is the only woman I've ever met who is unafraid to stand up to my mother. But the screech of another small voice saying "Miss Henry, she said fuck," puts an end to that.

  I plaster on a smile and push forward. "Mother. What a surprise."

  "Darling, so nice to see you. I-"

  I know the spiel and today I just don't have the patience for it, so I cut her off with a wave of my hand. "I'm so sorry ladies, but will you excuse me a minute? We have guests visiting from-" I look over to Penny for help.

  "Global Montessori. This is Miss Henry with the upper elementary class." Penny gestures toward the wide-eyed thirty-something woman dressed in jeans and a peasant blouse looking like a deer in headlights. "I've just brought them back from touring the robot labs."

  Shit. Now the conversation comes flooding back. I was supposed to give them our "Iron Man" tour. Except our conference call with Tokyo went long in part because Penny wasn't in the room to answer all the technical questions about the algorithm she designed as part of their new firewall. I flash Penny a smile. "Right. Did everyone receive their souvenir bag?"

  Her eyes narrow to glittering points and before the words fall from her mouth, I realize I'm about to pay for blowing up her morning. "They did, but Sloane decided to promise them you'd sign their Kansas City Kings hats."

  Small fact about Sloane. Her family produces our Kansas City Kings gear. Because, yeah... in addition to being CTO of Steele Conglomerate, the C-team along with a few of our other friends are the owners of the Kansas City Kings - the losingest team in the MLB. But that's changing thanks to the predictive analytics Penny developed as a recruiting tool. And now I'm really swimming in it because four pairs of eyes are glaring at me, and Miss Henry is staring at me wide-eyed.

  "Penny, get me a sharpie." The fine point r
oller ball I keep in my pocket won't suffice. Five minutes later I breathe a sigh of relief as the last of Miss Henry's class says thank you, and marches out the door.

  Miss Henry waves, pink blushing her cheeks. "Thanks again, Mr. Forde. You've made their day."

  If only the next five minutes could go as smoothly. I turn to my mother, flanked by Sloane and Joanie. My gaze floats to where Penny's perched on the corner of her desk, arms folded across her body, watching avidly as her teeth press into her lower lip. She lives to see me squirm, and I wonder what punishment she's cooking up inside that beautiful brain of hers, because she'll find a way to make me pay for this.

  But an awful, wicked idea enters my head. One that will turn the tables on Penny, and that is guaranteed to get my mother and her minions off my back for the foreseeable future. If I can get rid of my mother and get the better of Penny all in the same day, I will die a happy man. There is nothing quite so satisfying as messing with and one-upping my cantankerous, perpetually grouchy chief technology assistant.

  I spread my hands and step next to Penny. "Ladies, I apologize." I wrap an arm around Penny's shoulders, ignoring the frisson of electricity that whips up my arm and the way my body warms when I pull her against my side. "We've been so caught up in our exciting news, we completely lost track of the day."

  My mother's eyes narrow suspiciously. "What news?"

  Penny stiffens. I squeeze her shoulder, hoping it's enough to get her to play along with me. "Penny and I are engaged."