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“ALGORITHMS OF THE HEART by Belson and Morgenstern sparks with sex and silicon! Inspired by years in the technology sector, Belson’s voice comes to the fore in this new sizzler from romance’s dynamic duo.”
“A spicy yet surprisingly sweet take on attraction in the workplace. When it comes to this gruff programmer’s girlboss CFO, the Devil does care! Five stars.”
“Monique and Gilligan are an unlikely pair with chemistry that’ll overclock your pulse! Un-put-downable!”
“Monique and fucking Gilligan!” The office door slammed open, Dinesh charging through waving a paperback, the spine already creased. “He didn’t even try to pretend it isn’t you guys!”
A fact Monica realized the moment she opened the padded envelope to find her own copy of Algorithms of the Heart by Gavin Belson and Rod Morgenstern. On the cover, rendered in loving, oil-painted detail, was a brown-haired, strong-nosed heroine in a skirt suit clasped in the arms of a bearded, plaid-clad hero. The logo on the wall behind them was the same green and white PP as the one on the employee badges they both wore.
“Panpipes!” Dinesh crowed. “They called the company Panpipes. Oh, fuck, it’s too good.” He bent at the waist, shaking with laughter as he leaned on her desk.
“You’re amused now. Wait until you get to Rafiq, a second-rate coder with a deep and abiding inferiority complex.” The voice rumbled at Monica’s back, but neither she nor Dinesh were fooled by the flat affect. Gilfoyle was livid. It rolled off him in waves that raised the hairs at the nape of her neck.
Dinesh wiped mirth-dampened eyes. “Oh, I got there, and, sure, it’s, let’s call it an unflattering portrayal, but there are not multiple references to Rafiq’s ‘throbbing manhood.’ That’s all Gilfoyle. I mean Gilligan.”
Monica landed her palm against Gilfoyle’s chest, over the After School Satan Club printed on his t-shirt, to stop his charge toward Dinesh. His brown eyes, big behind his glasses, tracked to her. The rage in them subsided slightly as she rubbed her thumb over the devil horns sticking up from the letter A.
“Ten years after Hooli and Pied Piper go under,” Gilfoyle snarled, “and he’s still fucking with us.”
“I know,” Monica said. “He’s out of tech and still somehow the most colossal asshole in the Valley. But”—with her free hand, she tugged a rectangle of paper from where it was sticking up in the middle of the book—“he’s giving us ten percent of the royalties.”
“We don’t need his money,” Gilfoyle said icily.
It was true. Newell Road Strategic Technologies was one of the largest and most profitable cybersecurity firms in the Bay Area.
“So you don’t want fifty grand tax free?” She tapped the amount on the check and watched Gilfoyle’s nostrils flare. Softly, she said, “You don’t have to read it.”
“But you really should! You can make a drinking game out all the stuff they got wrong. Or maybe all the stuff they got right.”
She tossed the middle finger at Dinesh, who, chuckling, took it as his cue to leave.
Still scowling, Gilfoyle studied the check. “We should use it to sue him.”
“Or,” said Monica, “we can go to an island for a month on his dime, until it’s off the bestseller list.” She skimmed her fingertips up from his chest to the edge of his beard, trimmed off his neck and shot through with strands of silver. “Are you that embarrassed about how it happened?”
He curled his hand around hers, a black band on the third finger. “No. But I want to know how he found out so much.”
Monica’s eyebrows rose. “You did read it.”
A devilish upturn of his mouth. “It’s a good story. Worth the ten bucks. Or fifty thousand.” Plucking the check from her hand, he let it flutter back to the desk.
Pay to the order of Bertram and Monica Gilfoyle.