1
Piper Barry was in love with an amazing, brilliant, funny, good-looking man.
Who, at least twice a day, she wanted to smother with the stuffed dragon that sat on the corner of his desk.
Okay, maybe not smother. That was extreme.
But duct tape over his mouth? Oh yeah, she thought about that often.
“Is spit better than snot?” Oliver Caprinelli, that man—and her boss—asked her as she crossed his office to refill the water pitcher by the window.
“In every single context, yes.” Piper was also aware that in any other workplace with any other boss, that question would be strange. Here though, not so much.
On her way back past his desk, she set the two folders and the manila envelope she carried in front of him. He was just one of her five bosses and the least likely to open those folders or that envelope. She put them down anyway.
“Grant said that a soda flavor called unicorn piss wouldn’t sell well,” Ollie said, almost as if he was thinking out loud.
He did that a lot. Thought out loud.
That never stopped Piper from chiming in though.
“And you think that calling it unicorn snot would make it sell better?”
This wasn’t even the strangest conversation she’d ever had with Ollie.
“Wouldn’t you assume that unicorn piss or snot tasted good?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Uh, piss and snot.”
“But unicorn,” he insisted.
“I have never, not once, thought about the taste of unicorn… anything.”
“Well, think about it now. Yes, good?”
What she thought was that working for Oliver Caprinelli would be a lot better if he didn’t think out loud.
If he just sat there looking cute, things would be great.
“Why are we talking about unicorns?” she asked. “If you’re adding something new to Warriors, you can do better. Unicorns are overdone.”
The chances that this was about Warriors of Easton, the video game that Oliver and his four best friends had turned into the biggest-selling online game of the decade, was very good. It was nearly all Oliver thought about.
Ever.
Even when she wore her sexiest dresses. And the body oil that all of the other guys said smelled like spicy candy and that made them walk extra close by her desk every time they passed just so they could get a whiff. And when she worked late just so it could be only her and Ollie in the office after dark.
“It’s not for Warriors,” Ollie said. He still sounded distracted.
Honestly, he sounded distracted 90 percent of the time he talked about anything.
The man was a genius and his thoughts were always going in a million directions. It was one of the things that fascinated her most about him.
And that made her think about picking up the dragon on his desk and stuffing it in his mouth. Trying to get Oliver’s attention was hard enough. Keeping it was nearly impossible.
“What’s it for, then?” she asked, pausing in front of his desk with the water pitcher.
She was able to study him as she waited for his answer. He was leaning back in his big leather chair, one ankle propped on his opposite knee. He was wearing dark gray slacks that went with the dark gray jacket he had tossed over the armchair that faced his desk. She wasn’t sure where his tie was. She found his ties stuffed in drawers, suit jacket pockets, seat cushions, and file drawers—wherever he happened to be when it started bugging him, and he yanked it off.
His white linen button-down shirt was unbuttoned at the top, revealing tan skin and a hint of dark hair. The hair on top of his head was sticking up a bit in the back where he had a cowlick, and she made a note to schedule a haircut for him as she resisted the urge to brush that hair down. He also hadn’t shaved this morning. He never grew a full beard or even let it get too scruffy, but once in a while there would be a day or two of growth. It made him look older and more intense. When he shaved, he looked easily five years younger than his twenty-eight years.
He was looking at the dragon on his desk, but Piper knew he wasn’t seeing Spark. The plush dragon was one of the toys from the Warriors of Easton merchandise line. Spark was the one dragon in the game that couldn’t breathe fire no matter how hard he tried.
Piper didn’t know anything more about Spark than that. She didn’t play the game and her awareness of it was limited to the things she’d handled as Oliver’s personal assistant. That consisted mostly of keeping his appearances organized, answering emails, and dealing with the paperwork he had to do as one of the company’s owners.
He had never cared about the business side of things much. He was the creative director. Still was, even though he and his four best friends who had owned Warriors under the umbrella of their company Fluke Inc. had sold Warriors to a larger gaming company last year.
Oliver continued to write story lines and develop characters for the game world.
But it was obvious that since they’d sold Warriors Oliver had been a little lost. His job hadn’t changed a lot, but his friends were not involved with Warriors on the same level they had been and Piper suspected Ollie missed that intensely.
Warriors had always been a passion project for the five friends. It had taken off unexpectedly and they’d become accidental millionaires from it. But at its most basic level, it had always been something they did together and just had a good time with.
“Oliver?” she asked. “What’s the unicorn spit about if it’s not Warriors?”
He looked up at her and she could have sworn for a second that he’d forgotten she was there.
Even after working for the man for five years, that was still a little insulting. Especially when she was wearing one of her favorite pin-up dresses. It was bright pink, hugged her hips and breasts, and gave a little peek of cleavage without being inappropriate. She wore a wide black belt with it, black pumps with a big pink bow, black fishnets, and a black hair scarf.
She looked great. Sexy even.
And she would bet that if she had him close his eyes and asked him what color her dress was, he wouldn’t know.
“Trying to come up with names for the sodas,” he said.
She froze. Then straightened and narrowed her eyes. “What sodas?”
But she knew.
He frowned as if confused by her question. “The new sodas we’re going to launch when I buy the soda company in Wisconsin.”
“But you haven’t bought it yet?” she asked. She’d thought he was over that idea. After she had told him it was a bad idea.
“We’re meeting at the end of the week,” he said. “It’s basically done.”
“I thought we talked about how this was a bad move,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “I thought we agreed that you’re bored now that Hot Cakes is doing well, and the other guys have all been spending more time with their girls, but that buying another new company is not the right move.”
Honestly, Oliver had only gone along with the purchase of Hot Cakes because one of his best friends, Aiden, had been determined to buy it and wanted all the guys in on it. And because Ollie loved Hot Cakes’ Fudgie Fritters.
He actually liked most of the cakes. Sometimes, he was essentially a fourteen-year-old boy in a twenty-eight-year-old man’s body. He loved video games and snack cakes. And he loved hanging out with his friends.