Playing with Power - Book 3: New Adult Office Romance by Adele Huxley

about it with Faith was fun.
    “What did you think of the Brazilian?” Faith asked with a smirk. “Crazy what we do for men, isn’t it?”
    “Holy hell, you weren’t kidding. When she had me get on my knees—”
    “Lauren, sorry to interrupt, but I really need you for a minute,” said Amit, his head poking around the corner of the kitchen. He looked just embarrassed enough to have heard some of the conversation.
    “Yeah, of course!” She waved to Faith and followed Amit back to his desk where Rochelle looked pretty panic-stricken. “What’s going on?”
    As Amit explained the issue, Lauren quickly grasped why he was so concerned. One of their biggest clients, Rendezvous, was demanding changes to their software. Not only were the alterations extremely complicated, they wanted them finished immediately before they launched a new marketing campaign later that week.
    “Figures,” Lauren said shaking her head. She turned to Rochelle and continued, “If you haven’t realized it by now, when it comes to programming, the things that sound easy take forever to finish and the complicated stuff you dread? That’ll take you a quarter of the time you thought it would.”
    Rochelle nodded and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’m starting to see that.”
    “So basically, I can spend a couple hours and write up a script that’ll do all this—” Amit started but Lauren was already ahead of him.
    “Or spend a couple hours and do everything manually, yeah...crap. Between the two of you it’ll probably take just as long, huh?”
    As Lauren weighed the pros and cons of each solution, Faith called out to her from the other side of the office. “Lauren! I think your phone is ringing. I thought you said it was dead?”
    Oh shit, it’s my other phone! “Umm, yeah, it must’ve still had a little juice left,” Lauren said as she sprinted to her desk. Snatching up the phone and notebook beneath, Lauren made a show of checking the screen. “Aw crap guys, can you give me a minute? I just have to return this call real quick.” Quickly stepping out of the office and avoiding any odd looks, Lauren went out to the street.
    The missed call was from Dennis at MyBFC. Pacing up and down the sidewalk, Lauren impatiently waited for him to pick up. When he did, his voice was breathless and strained.
    “Lauren, there you are! Damnit! I’m sorry to call you in the middle of the day but it’s an emergency. Can you get down here ASAP? I really need you.”
    “What’s going on? Maybe I can help from here?”
    Dennis groaned, sounding more flustered than she’d ever heard him. He was usually the calm one in the office, so she was starting to worry. “Lauren, seriously. I really think you’re gonna want to get down here. Please hurry.”
    Pure panic coursing through her veins, Lauren fled back into the office to take care of the first problem. Grabbing her purse and rushing back to Amit and Rochelle, they looked at her like she was crazy.
    “Okay, Rochelle. I’m trusting you to help Amit with this. This data is highly confidential and sensitive, okay? I wouldn’t normally ask this of an intern but an emergency just came up and—”
    “Don’t worry! I can handle it,” Rochelle smiled at her sweetly. “We’ll get it done in no time, won’t we?” She touched Amit’s arm with a sly smile.
    Lauren was a little stunned by the open flirtation but shook it off. “Alright, I’m going. I won’t be too long but call me if you need any help.”
    She repeated the same thing to Faith who sympathized, “You’re having a hell of a day, aren’t you?”
    In the cab on the way to the MyBFC office, Lauren texted Landon with no reply. She called him but it went straight to voicemail. She phoned Dennis but he didn’t pick up. A feeling of dread building up in the pit of her stomach, the short trip to the office took an eternity. What could’ve happened? Why isn’t anyone telling me anything? Did Parker find out? She briefly considered