Page 1 of Friend Me

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I’d watcheda lot of women come and go from Cooper Fallon’s office, but this one was the worst. And she wasn’t going quietly.

When her shriek—something that ended with “asshole”—escaped his closed office door to echo all the way down the hall to my desk, I pressed my lips together to hide my grin and pulled up the staffing agency’s contact information.

Since his long-time assistant retired five months ago, the Chief Operating Officer of Synergy Analytics had gone through eighteen temporary assistants. Some stormed out, like this one was about to do, some slunk out, and some just didn’t bother showing up the next day.

I swear, it was all his own doing. At first. After temp number five keyed the cherry surface of his desk on her way out, he asked me to select the next one. As a favor. And I just took advantage of his own high standards—and raging temper—to ensure that none stuck. I became the Statue of Liberty of San Francisco temps:Give me your amateurs, your idlers, your novelists and poets yearning to slack off…

So I might not have been the most impartial person to hire Cooper’s assistant.

Because I had a plan. One that relied on, well, unreliable help.

As I composed the email to the agency—I had to be vague enough about why we were firing this one so they’d send us another just as terrible—a voice behind me asked, “Are they okay in there?”

I spun in my chair toward the familiar voice, banging my bare knee against the leg of my desk. I squinted at my work-buddy, Tyler Young, haloed in brightness from the hazy light coming through the converted mill’s top-floor skylight.

I rubbed my knee. With Cooper bellowing from the corner office, I hadn’t heard the soft approach of Tyler’s sneakers. “I was just about to bust out the popcorn.”

Flashing his adorable dimples, he came around to the front of my desk, as he always did so I didn’t have to stare into the skylight. When Cooper’s low growl cut across the temp’s higher voice, Tyler shoved up his black-framed glasses and asked, “Are you sure? Do we need to—?”

I tilted my head to listen. The temp was giving as good as—or better than—she got. All the swearing was on her end. “No, they’re pretty evenly matched. At least she’s not a crier.” I’d raided my desk drawer for chocolate and tissues to console the one he’d fired last week.

When the temp’s shouting escalated into a high-pitched screech, Synergy’s other founder, Jackson Jones, emerged from his office and ambled to my desk. “Hey, Marlee. Who picked”—he checked his Omega—“four o’clock?” My boss leaned his big hand on my desk and plucked a piece of candy from the ceramic bowl.

I snorted. “Someone down in payroll. I’m guessing she’ll win it.”

“Poor Cooper.” He wadded up his candy wrapper and handed it to me to throw in the trash. “Not everyone can have San Francisco’s best assistant. He’s jealous I found you first.”

My cheeks warming, I smoothed my rosebud-pink skirt.

Cooper, the COO of one of the world’s hottest tech companies, demanded a lot of his employees. He was an alpha billionaire, just like in my favorite novels.

Total romance-hero material. I just wished he were mine.

That first day I’d met him, when I was still a part-timer figuring out what exactly analytics software did and how the building full of scruffy young programmers had made it onto the Fortune 1000, my jaw had dropped and my knees had gone weak. He was more than handsome; he looked like the model on the cover of the romance novel I’d been reading. Blond hair, blue eyes, the perfect amount of stubble, impeccable clothes—though lacking a broadsword—and tall as a redwood. I’d spent my first three days at Synergy staring at him. By the end of the second week, it was a full-blown crush.

Not only was he one of Northern California’s most eligible bachelors, but he was a considerate, caring, honest man. He knew the names of all of his employees, from the executive floor down to the mailroom. He’d started a foundation to help kids from lower-income families go to coding camps. And most important—

“You going to get that?” Jackson asked, leaning a hip against the soapstone lab table I used as a desk.

Cooper’s line was lit up on my desk phone, ringing, but since both people who should’ve answered it were screaming at each other, it was up to me.

“Cooper Fallon’s office. Marlee Rice speaking.”

“Hi,” said a husky female voice. “This is Jamila Jallow. Is Cooper available? He’s expecting my call.”

He was? My heart thudded. Why was top-of-their-Stanford-class, could’ve-been-a-model, on-all-the-forty-under-forty-lists Jamila Jallow, Cooper’s BFF, calling him today?

“No, I’m sorry. He’s tied up at the moment. Can I help you?”

“Sure. Could you let him know my plans changed and Icango with him to Jackson’s wedding?”

Holy Stephen Hawking.

“You can?” Although Jamila and Cooper had attended more than one industry function together, he never brought a date to Synergy events. And while my boss’s wedding next weekend wasn’t an official company function, I’d been sure he’d go stag.

“I can. But, you know, I’ll just text him. Thanks, Marlee.”

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