Love is just another conspiracy.

Former-tech-founder-turned-philanthropist Tessa is in hiding. Not like her flat-earther dad, who lives in his truck off the grid. She has friends and causes and almost a life. But no one, not even her besties, knows her past. While she yearns for redemption, her secrets keep her safe.

It must be karma when she’s hired to rescue a troubled biomedical research company and finds that its founder and chief scientist, Oliver, is the one man who looks at her like he knows all her secrets. 

Or maybe he just knows her. Also terrifying. 

He’s ten years younger, seriously nerdy, and allergic to taking risks that don’t involve the roll of a twenty-sided die. 

If only she didn’t find that so hot.

So when Oliver proposes a deal – he’ll take a risk at work if she’ll take one with him – she agrees, knowing her heart is safe. Until she finds that chemistry isn’t isolated to the lab…or the supply closet…or the only hotel room left at a conference.

Fall for this steamy, standalone enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy featuring a swoony, protective hero, a heroine with secrets – and cats – and only-one-bed shenanigans. 

Tropes

• Age gap (she’s older!)
• Enemies to lovers
• Workplace romance
• Secret past
• Only one bed 
• Bang it out of our systems
• He falls first

Chapter 1 look inside

Icosagon

Icosagon: A twenty-sided polygon. Icosagons can be used to represent the twenty amino acids in modeling protein sequences.

OLIVER

“Guys, I think we’ve achieved pinnacle nerd here.”

My buddy Andrew froze with the twenty-sided die cupped in his hand. He leaned back in his chair at their dining room table and gazed up at his fiancée, who rested her manicured hands on his shoulders. “What do you mean?”

“Um…” Carly looped a lock of Andrew’s hair around her finger, one of the shaggy bits that poked out from underneath the brim of his purple wizard’s hat. “I mean, I love our game nights. But this one is a little…extreme?”

“What?” I picked up the plastic kraken figure and twirled it, its long tentacles whipping the scent of garlic into my nostrils. Andrew had over-seasoned his baked ziti again, and the air was pungent with it. I could feel it seeping into my pores. (Days later, I’d still be able to smell it in my sweat.) “I called in a favor to get this advance copy of Forge of Destiny. It’s the next huge tabletop RPG…um…roleplaying game,” I added, since Carly didn’t know a sorcerer from a paladin. “You won’t be able to find it anywhere at Christmas.”

The corners of her mouth twitched. “I’m honored. But maybe I should sit this one out. Leave space for the serious gamers.” I’ll admit it: the hat and the board game looked out of place in their sleek, leather-and-glass dining room, and Carly was a good sport to host this meetup for Andrew’s friends, who were all a decade younger than her and the opposite of the cool celebrities she usually hung out with. 

Andrew’s lip stuck out like she’d killed his favorite character. “It’ll be more fun if you play.”

“It’s true,” I said, “it’s better with more players, even if they’re noobs.” Andrew scowled at me, so I flashed his fiancée a smile and tapped one of the jingle bells on my jester’s hat. “I thought you’d like the fashion aspect of this one, Carly.”

She raised her eyebrows. “That’s what you consider fashion?” 

My friend snatched off his wizard hat and tossed it onto their dining table. “You like Texas hold’em. I’ll get another card table from the garage.”

I couldn’t lose methodical Andrew to poker. He was the best RPG strategist I knew. Almost as good as Simon used to be. “You still have to finish your character.”

“I don’t know…” He traced one of the stars embroidered on the silky purple fabric of the hat, his gaze on his fiancée. He was a total simp for her.

Not that there was anything wrong with that. 

I wanted good things for my friend. But game night used to be our thing, with whiskey and pizza and no one judging us for being nerds. Now, there was wine—though none for me—and charcuterie and homemade pasta, not to mention the barely-disguised mockery.

And kissing. 

I looked away as Carly pressed her lips to Andrew’s. She murmured, “It’s all good. I’ll go check on Chanel. She might need some quiet after meeting all these new people.”

“Need me to take her outside?” he asked.

I centered the kraken on its spot on the board. I would not roll my eyes about Andrew’s purse dog. So what if he sometimes seemed to care more about the dog than me? Chanel made Carly happy, and that made Andrew happy. I needed to get over myself, hard as it was with the shit going down at work. I needed my friend.

“No, we’re fine. You boys play your game.” Carly’s hand lingered on his shoulder before she glided away.

I grabbed the deck of cards and shuffled them aggressively. “Who else is in?”

I looked up to see which of our friends would sit down to play, but a swoop of russet hair in the foyer caught my attention. My throat went dry, and I grabbed the edge of the table to keep my fingers from trembling.

“You didn’t tell me she was coming.” I meant to say it softly, but my vocal cords seized up, and it came out as a too-loud wheeze. 

And, shit, she heard me. Those eerie light-green eyes of hers locked onto mine. Her soft-looking lips tightened, then she turned her back to me as she accepted a hug from Carly.

“I didn’t know,” Andrew muttered. “Carly’s been trying to get Tessa to come to game night for months. She’s basically a hermit.”

If I’d known she’d be there, I might have stayed home. My crush had already made me embarrass myself, and it was highly likely I’d make it even worse as the night went on.

Like he could read the thought on my face, he said, “Can you try to get along? I know you two are like cats and dogs, but—”

I scraped my chair back and accidentally bumped the table as I shot to my feet. The plastic figurines shuddered, and the kraken skidded off the edge of the board. My hat rang out like sleigh bells. I yanked it off and tossed it on my chair. “I’m going to get a drink. Want one?”

He glanced at my almost-full seltzer. “I’ll come. Tessa, what can I get you?”

“Whiskey?” She turned her gaze on Andrew, and I wanted to leap in front of him and capture it all for myself.

“Neat?” he asked.

“Please.” Her husky voice teased like a caress along my spine.

My glasses were fogging up. I ripped my gaze off her tight black turtleneck hugging the curves of her breasts and strode into the kitchen. As I flung open the refrigerator door, the beer bottles in the door rattled. I stuck my whole face inside, pretending to read the labels as I let the frigid air chill my hot cheeks.

“Look, I’m sorry.” Andrew’s voice came from behind me. “I thought she’d flake on us again. Can’t you…”

I slammed the refrigerator shut. I didn’t want a beer. I never wanted anything to dull my wits, not anymore, and especially not with her around. “Can’t I what?”

“Be nice?” His smile was bright with hope. “For my sake. You’re my best friend, and she’s one of Carly’s gang. They do everything together, and it’d be amazing if I wasn’t the only guy tagging along.” But we’d tried that before.

Last month, at Andrew and Carly’s engagement party, the second I’d seen Tessa, I’d approached her, determined to impress her with my sparkling wit and sophisticated conversation and get her to finally notice me. But when I was close enough to count every freckle, my brain blue-screened. I couldn’t think of a single word to say to the brilliant, gorgeous, worldly woman. She’d looked down her nose at me like I was a gangly teenager and not someone who was only ten or so years younger than her, then turned and walked away. 

I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. “I don’t think so. I’m dealing with a lot of bullshit at work.” Which was true, even if it wasn’t the real reason I couldn’t be Andrew’s extraneous wheel.

“Hey.” His forehead furrowed in concern. “What’s wrong?”

I leaned against the stainless-steel refrigerator. “The CEO’s breathing down my neck about the numbers because the board’s breathing down her neck. Apparently, we haven’t released a new product since January, so ten months, and revenues have been dropping ever since.” I waited. Andrew was a former banker and the smartest guy I knew with financial stuff. He had to have an answer for me.

“Makes sense.”

“That’s it? ‘Makes sense’? Don’t you have a strategy for me?”

“Yeah.” He smirked. “Release a new fucking product. How close are you guys?”

“I don’t know. Not close.” The tasks piled up in my imagination like a stack of Jenga blocks. 

Assay design. 

Simulations. 

Validation. 

If one of those went wrong, the whole tower would topple, and we’d have to start over. We’d set a daunting challenge: a noninvasive biomarker test for ovarian cancer. It had never been done, but I knew with enough time and resources, our team could do it.

I’d watched someone I loved waste away with it, and the last thing I wanted was to rush a product to market that would give people false fear—or hope. It had to be accurate. Ninety percent would be good. But one hundred percent was my target.

Our CEO, Dr. Perrell, was far more interested in profit than accuracy. “I don’t know if I can do this without him.” Simon used to know how to talk to her.

Andrew palmed my shoulder. “Of course you can. He had faith in you.”

“Did he?” I looked down at the toes of my sneakers. “He shielded me from so much I didn’t even know about.” Our competitors’ schedules. Pressure from the board. And visits to my lab from Dr. Perrell.

“He did it so you could do the work. You need someone to run interference like he did.”

Kraken tentacles squeezed my heart. No one could replace Simon. I wasn’t sure I wanted someone to sit in his office and do all the things he loved to do and pretend to be him.

“An insufficiently validated test will do more harm than good. The board doesn’t understand the risks they’re asking me to take. We’d lose everything Simon and I worked so hard to build.”

“Tell them that,” my friend said. “Besides, you’ve still got enough voting power to control the company’s destiny.”

I forced a smile. I did, as long as I could sway a couple board members to my side. But was it the right thing to do? 

Simon used to challenge me when I was moving too slowly. It was how we’d built the company from a tiny corner of our bioengineering lab in college to an entire building in Silicon Valley with thousands of square feet of dedicated laboratory space. I could never have done it on my own. 

As much as I hated the idea of replacing Simon, I wasn’t sure I could continue alone, either.

“Speaking of destiny,” I said, “should we get back to the game?”

“Yeah, in a sec.” Andrew hunted through the bottles on the kitchen island until he found the Jameson. He poured two fingers into a glass, then held up the bottle to me. I shook my head. To give myself something to hold onto, I grabbed another bottle of seltzer from the ice bucket on the counter. Then, taking a deep breath, I followed Andrew back into the dining room.

Tessa sat at the table. Her long, red hair stuck out of the bottom of a warrior’s helmet as she perused the player’s guide. My heart stopped when she turned her gaze up to mine. 

“Let’s play,” she said.

#

Victory was mine. I fingered the stack of gold-colored plastic coins that represented my treasury and smiled. Through steady progress and strategy, I’d worked myself up from a lowly bard to a king. 

“It’s over, Tessa,” Andrew said. He was the only other player left. The rest had been bankrupted or defeated in battle, so they’d slunk away to join other games. “Give up now, and we can try to win back our dignity at poker.” 

“You’re only bitter because you flamed out three turns ago,” she said, surveying the board. Her stack of coins was much smaller than mine, plus she’d taken a hit in health points thanks to Tyler’s sneaky raid before she’d defeated him.

“How was I to know I’d draw the zombie attack card?” Andrew whined. “Zombies don’t belong in a game with wizards and bards.”

“Zombies belong in a game like this. They’re a lot like Tolkien’s Uruk-hai—” I began.

“Saruman created the Uruk-hai,” Tessa said at the same time. When she glared at me, her eyes narrowed to jade-colored slits. “The game is called Forge of Destiny. The zombies come from the sorcerer’s forge,” she finished.

Andrew’s gaze darted between us. “Creepy.”

I didn’t think he meant the zombies.

“Come on, Tessa,” he said. “Put us out of our misery. Roll so you can finish your turn and end the game.”

“I’ll take a chance on a card,” she said.

“What?” I yelped. “Those cards have been nothing but bad luck for everyone. You don’t need to go easy on me. I’ve got this game in the bag.”

She tilted her head. “Do you?”

She pulled a card, scanned it, then showed it to us. It had an illustration of a warrior standing on a pile of skulls. “‘A rout,’” she read. “‘Warriors’—which I am—‘with at least five pieces of gold’—which I have.” She tossed all but one of her plastic coins onto the board. “‘Can take the stronghold of an opponent and all treasure within.’”

I stared at Andrew, whose mouth gaped open just like mine.

“Thank you, Oliver,” Tessa said. “I’ll take that pile of coins off your hands.”

My mind spun. “How did you… How could you…”

Tessa’s long, freckled fingers stretched across the board and raked every hard-won coin from my side of the board to hers. Then she plucked my prize, a card that depicted a long blade with a jeweled hilt, from its spot in my keep. “With Worldforger, I hereby destroy the rest of your strongholds.” She folded her arms, her eyes glittering like Worldforger’s gems. “I win.” 

“How the fuck did you know that card was up next?” Andrew said.

“Simple probability.” She shrugged. “Surely you took statistics in college?”

“But—” I snatched the next card off the deck. “How did you know it wouldn’t be ‘Utter ruin: Give 90% of your treasury to the opponent to your right’?” I showed her the illustration of a king with a sword pressed to his throat.

“I didn’t. But as Victor Hugo once said, ‘Oser. Le progrès est à ce prix.’”

In her husky voice, French sounded like sex. I cleared my throat. I hated—hated—to ask, but I couldn’t resist. “What’s that mean?”

“‘Daring is the price of progress.’ Loser gets me a slice of chocolate cake.”

“I’ll get it.” Andrew stood.

“No,” I said, “I’m the loser. I’ll get it.” I heaved myself from my chair. My ass felt flattened from the hours we’d sat playing. So did my spirit. I’d been this close to showing Tessa I was a worthy opponent and getting her to think of me as more than Andrew’s too-young, dorky friend. And then a chance pull of a card shot me right back down. She’d never think of me as anything more.

“No,” she said. “Andrew will get it. You’re likely to spit on it.” 

My friend howled with laughter. “One hundred percent.”

“I’m leaving anyway,” I grumbled. “See you next weekend.”

“Okay,” he said, “be safe.”

I grunted and started tossing game pieces back in the box. 

Tessa gathered the cards and slid them back into their carton. “It’s a good game,” she said. She lifted the helmet from her head and shook out her hair like a model in a shampoo ad. It glinted with a dozen shades of red, from rose gold to auburn. A few strands of silver glinted above her left temple.

I shook off the urge to touch the moonlight in her hair. “I don’t know. I don’t like the balance of strategy to chance.”

“You don’t?” she asked. “You started a business. Building a tabletop empire is a lot like that.”

“Our business was successful because of a solid strategy. We left nothing to chance.”

She lifted her chin. “I guess it doesn’t feel as risky when you’ve got family money to fall back on.”

And we were back to all the reasons I wasn’t good enough for her. I’d never thought my family’s money would be a liability, but Tessa Wright seemed to have strong opinions about men who’d started out halfway up the ladder, men who hadn’t built their fortunes from nothing. So, as usual, I went on the offensive. 

“What would you know about not having an emergency fund?” I asked. I could tell by her clothes and the car she drove that she had money too.

She took a deep breath like she’d let me have it but then she clamped her mouth shut. “Nothing, I guess.”

“Thought so.” I drew myself up. “Goodnight, Tessa.” I shoved the lid on the box, tucked the game under my arm, and with a wave at Carly, sailed out her front door. I may have lost the game, but I’d won the more important battle against my ridiculous feelings.

Thank You!

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All my love,

Michelle