“Tyler wants to see me.”

“Shh.” Josh ripped off his headphones. “It’s like you’re just sitting there waiting for any excuse to talk, or rip open a foil packet, or sigh, or rustle papers, or . . .”

“Have a donut.” Mia offered him a box of fresh crullers from the bakery down the street.

“I know what you’re doing,” Josh grumbled as he took a donut. “But it’s not going to work. I can’t be bought with donuts and smiles.”

“What about gossip?” Zoe asked, looking up from her computer. “I know something you don’t know.”

“Is this middle school?” Sarcasm dripped off Josh’s tongue. “Are we taunting each other now? Am I going to come to work tomorrow and find a frog on my chair?”

“Fine.” Zoe turned back to her computer. “I won’t share that Andrew’s leaving. Brad is going to hear our branding pitch. Oh, and Hunter asked Rochelle about Daisy. I guess he missed the meeting where Tyler announced she was engaged.”

“Hunter asked about me?” Daisy’s mouth went dry. If she’d known all she had to do was turn a laptop off and on to get noticed by a guy like Hunter, she would have spent more time volunteering with the Help Desk team.

Josh sniffed. “He probably forgot which end of his laptop was up.”

“Or maybe he realized a brilliant, sexy software engineer, who is so awesome she got us an audience with Brooding Brad, has been hiding on the third floor, and he wanted to make his move before anyone else snatched her away,” Mia said, snatching the box away. “I can’t believe you’re jealous.”

Josh huffed his derision. “I’m not jealous. I just don’t understand why he would ask about her and not me.” He flexed both skinny arms, puffing out his chest beneath his Coding Is Life T-shirt. “Who could resist this?”

“You’re right.” Sarcasm dripped from Mia’s tone. “Even I can barely hold myself back. How did Hunter manage to resist the siren call of your fabulous bod?”

“Exactly.” Josh gave a smug smile. “And she’s engaged. I’m not.”

“Fake engaged.” Zoe grinned. “Who wants to let Hunter know?”

* * *

• • •

TYLER was in a mood.

“What took you so long?” he demanded when Daisy walked into his office.

“I was in the flow.” She sat on the chair across from his desk and peered at him over a giant stack of papers. Unlike her tidy workstation, Tyler’s office was a sea of paper, coffee cups, pizza boxes, charts, boxes, books, and, curiously, pink paper umbrellas. No surface was clean. Every movement was a study in not knocking something over.

“Brad isn’t happy,” Tyler said abruptly. “Apparently you convinced Liam to give Mia and Zoe a chance to present the branding pitch that I rejected last year.”

Daisy shrugged. “Can he be unhappy and still hear them out? Not one of the women in that room felt that a rebrand of unicorns, rainbows, and scantily clad nondiverse women resonated with them in any way.”

Tyler ran his hands through his hair, taking his look from slightly crazy to mad scientist in a heartbeat. “I thought you were a behind-the-scenes kind of person.”

“It was all an act.” Although she’d made the comment flippantly, the words rang true. Although she’d been a high school nerd, she’d never been shy or quiet. At least not until her mom had thrown out a comment that made her wonder if her personality was one of the reasons she’d left. But something had changed in the last few weeks, and it wasn’t just the fact that she’d almost slept with her high school heartbreak. She’d made friends at Organicare and discovered a confidence she’d thought she’d lost. She had a passion for the product, and a voice that could help the company succeed.

“Good to know,” Tyler said. “Anything else you think we’re doing wrong?”

Daisy hesitated. “Is that a trick question?”

“It’s an honest one.”

She leaned back in her chair, considering. “I’d put people back in their own divisions. Developers in one corner. Marketing in another.” She slipped a side eye at Hunter in the glass-walled conference room next door. “Finance could go beside the developers because they’re generally quiet.”

“Andrew gave his notice.”

She startled at the abrupt change in topic, and the skin prickled on the back of her neck. “Yes, I heard.”

“Now I don’t have a project manager.”

“Josh could take over quite easily,” she offered. “He worked closely with Andrew.”

“So you’d pick Josh over anyone else?”

“He’s good at what he does. People like him. He’s a bit of a cowboy, but you can easily rein him in.”

Tyler studied her for a long moment. “Not you? After all, you came in here and advocated for Mia and Zoe’s rebrand, proposed an office reorganization, questioned Brad’s vision, and tried to get Josh a promotion. You have the skills and the experience. I think you’d do a good job.”

Daisy’s mouth went dry. Project manager? It was the next step in a developer’s career. More money. More prestige. More responsibility. Better work. But on the flip side, it required more commitment. The project manager was the glue that held everything together, and you couldn’t be the glue if you weren’t prepared to stick around. She had started to find her voice, but it wasn’t loud enough to lead.

“No,” she said. “Not me.”

* * *

• • •

LIAM’S phone buzzed on his desk. He picked it up and barked a hello. Usually, he enjoyed the rare opportunity to work in the office, but tonight was hockey night. He hadn’t seen Daisy all week, and every minute until quitting time felt like a damn hour.