Written by a Woman

Prologue

SIGNE: ONE YEAR EARLIER

My name is Signe Lange, and I hate pretending that I like working.

I refused to believe anyone on planet Earth genuinely enjoyed clocking in for a nine-to-five office job. I was convinced that we were all lying through our teeth about how excited we were for the job opportunity during the interview process. In reality, we just wanted to ensure that we had a steady, reliable income.

“What made you want to apply at Sun Steer?” Jacqueline, the head of Sun Steer’s Human Resources department asked with a polite smile.

I need money to buy food and books, by any means necessary .

“I thought this seemed like an enjoyable company to work for—” I was such a liar, “And I like the idea of working with a close-knit team, like the job description mentioned,” another lie, I hated group projects with a deep fiery passion, “So since the commute was reasonable, I thought I’d shoot my shot.”

Jacqueline’s eyebrows rose a little at that turn of phrase, so I tried to recover by pasting a friendly smile on my face. It worked, and Jacqueline’s lips twitched a little at my blatant attempt to sweep “shoot my shot” under the rug.

She tucked one strand of dark loose hair behind her ear, the only strand of hair out of place from the slicked-back bun she wore. She nudged her glasses up her nose with a gentle push of her index finger as she asked me the next question, and I tried not to feel self-conscious that I was being interviewed by a woman as confident and professional-looking as Jacqueline. Her cream-colored pencil skirt lay perfectly without a wrinkle, and her light purple button-up blouse was flattering without being too revealing.

I felt underdressed, even though my cuffed jeans and striped button-up shirt were perfectly appropriate for this job interview.

Perhaps I was just worried that she would figure out that I had no intention of staying at this company long-term. I wasn’t meant to sit at a desk in a formal office environment, doing reports for others. I was meant to sit at a desk in the comfort of my home (or more realistically, my couch) while I wrote about fictional characters falling in love and doin’ it.

Sure, I wasn’t published or anything, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have a ton of unfinished manuscripts saved on my personal laptop. I have been writing since I was in elementary school. It had always been a creative outlet for me. In the past few years, I have finally started taking my own writing seriously, fine-tuning my voice and my story flow. Occasionally, I posted whatever I wrote on online platforms for free, to see what kind of responses I got. Sometimes I got heart emojis, sometimes I got poop emojis. You win some, you lose some.

I wanted to be signed. I wanted to be published. I wanted writing to be my full-time job. Not boring managerial work. I wanted to clock in in my jammies at my desk at home, not in an office that smelled like burnt coffee.

The interview finished smoothly. Since it was my second one, and because the job I was applying for was entry-level, even though the interview process was designed to make the candidate feel otherwise, I was offered the job on the spot. As if a handful of candidates were applying for the position of General Office Manager and we were all in competition with each other.

A few days later, I showed up, dressed in another pair of hole-less jeans and a comfortable but elevated sweater to accommodate the frigid air conditioning I experienced during the interview process. Workplace casual.

“This isn’t your stereotypical office environment, you see,” Jacqueline explained to me as she gave me the office tour, “Things are a little bit more relaxed at Sun Steer.” I smiled and nodded because I quickly saw that she was right. The office space wasn’t colored in grey and neutral colors that reminded me of a hospital. There were warm reds, oranges, and blues painted sporadically on walls. The company’s logo colors. There were napping pods in a far corner, and Jacqueline showed me a sensory-friendly room designed for neurodivergent individuals. The lights in the room were dim, and the walls were a calm cream with a few plants in the corners. There was a hanging swing-like hammock with blankets and pillows and an essential oil diffuser.

Stereotypical office space, this was not.

The fact that there was also a mother’s lounge designed for women who are breastfeeding confirmed Jacqueline’s claim that perhaps this wasn’t going to be as dull and stuffy of an office gig as I originally thought.

We passed an open concept area where Jacqueline introduced the software engineers. There were about a dozen desk clumps, covered with large monitors and colorful keyboards that made the loudest clicking noise I had ever heard. A woman with medium-length black hair and dark eyes lined with eyeshadow, complete with a septum ring, stood from her desk when Jacqueline gestured for her to do so.

The woman was wearing a cut-off t-shirt with a fishnet layer underneath that went all the way to her wrists, a studded black belt completed the outfit with loosely fitted black cargo pants and Doc Martens.

“This is Mary Jiang, one of our senior software engineers,” Jacqueline introduced us as Mary held her hand out to me, and I grabbed it enthusiastically.

I already loved her.

“I’m Signe,” I smiled, Jacqueline had already mispronounced my name a handful of times and I figured it was easier for people to learn how to say my name from the source.

“You’re the new executive assistant,” Mary’s red-painted lips spread in a smile.

“Office Manager,” Jacqueline corrected Mary before turning to me, “Though you will be assisting upper management with minor reports and tasks.”

“Oh.” This was something I was probably told during the interview process but promptly forgot about because I tended to check out as soon as the conversation became boring enough.

“I’ll introduce you to some of the upper management team, I think they are in the office today,” Jacqueline smiled as Mary wiggled her eyebrows at me and returned to her seat.

That solidified it, I wanted to be friends with Mary.

Jacqueline then walked me through a different open-concept area of the office where the sales team sat. It was much noisier because most of the people were on calls. They also seemed way more anxious and uninterested in introducing themselves, except for a small blonde woman who waved at me. She seemed friendly enough.

We passed by a large fancy-looking desk that had one monitor and a desk phone, located at the front of the office. It’s the first thing people saw when they stepped off of the elevators. Jacqueline pointed it out as my desk space as we passed, turning the corner to where a small alcove of offices lined up.

“This is Brandon Moore, the CEO,” Jacqueline introduced me to a tall stocky guy with short, perfectly groomed blonde hair. He was taking a sip from his mug. Upon hearing his name, he lowered his mug and smiled politely at me, diverting his steps away from the office he was heading towards. He held his hand out to me with a strained smile on his face, clearly wanting to get this social interaction over with.

“This is our new office manager,” Jacqueline explained as we shook hands.

“I’m Signe,” I noted how Jacqueline didn’t attempt to say my name again as I cataloged the CEO. Plain t-shirt, slacks, and sneakers that reminded me of a brand that only tech-bros would wear.

Jacqueline said something to him, something I missed entirely but Brandon nodded politely at, before he lifted his hand in farewell and made his way back to his office.

The head of HR smiled at me before glancing at something over my shoulder and nodding, a gesture to tell me that I should turn around and meet whoever was approaching us. So I did.

And there he was.

The man romance writers dreamed of.

He wore a black polo shirt, with the top two buttons undone to show off a white undershirt and some defined clavicle. The sleeves of the polo shirt were snug around his biceps. His chest was wide, and I just barely had to look up at him to meet his dark eyes. I was a taller woman, around five foot eleven. A few inches taller than Jacqueline, and just a couple of inches shorter than this man.

As he shoved both of his hands into the pockets of his light grey slacks, I noticed how snug his pants were around his thighs as well.

Clearly, he wasn’t a man who skipped leg day at the gym.

Right when I started to wonder how snug those pants fit around what I assumed was a tight ass, I caught myself, remembering that I was, in fact, in the workplace. I returned my attention to his handsome face.

Even with those thick-framed glasses he wore, it did nothing to take away from the sharp angles of his cheekbones, the thick black eyelashes, and the perfectly shaped eyebrows that made me suspect that a woman had shown him the importance of eyebrow grooming.

His jaw was framed by a closely cropped beard, thick enough to not have any patches, but short enough to still show off an unfairly defined jaw underneath. His beard was almost black, like the thick hair on his head that was styled perfectly out of his face.

I wanted to run my hands through it and mess it up.

“This is Zaid Ansara,” Jacqueline explained while Zaid held his hand out for me to shake. I admit that I hesitated for a moment before clasping his hand with my own, because, damn , “The CTO of Sun Steer.”

“Welcome aboard,” Oh dear god, his voice . Zaid’s voice was low. He had a voice that I knew would sell millions of audiobooks if he ever dabbled in narration. I could picture it now, hearing him attempt to growl or grumble like the manuscript would instruct him to do. And he’d be fantastic at it.

How did a guy that looked like this work at a tech company?

I wondered if he was some type of model or social media influencer on the side. I made a mental note to look him up online.

“Thank you,” I smiled, barely remembering in time that he spoke to me and that it was now expected of me to reply, “I’m Signe.”

Zaid nodded his head at me once before repeating my name perfectly, “Signe.”

Say it again , the most desperate, unhinged part of my brain begged.

“Signe is going to be…” I didn’t even acknowledge that Jacqueline had finally managed to say my name right. I was in shock. I was dumbfounded. Since when did tech companies allow actual models to work with us, normies? With us peons? Did no one else notice how attractive the CTO of this company was? Was I the only one who knew that he belonged on the cover of romance novels?

In the span of a few seconds, while Jacqueline spoke to Zaid filling him in on my job description (or whatever she deemed more important right now), I pictured Zaid on a white horse with a billowing shirt open and fluttering in the wind, exposing what I assumed was a sculpted and tanned, olive-toned chest. I pictured him doing the boyfriend doorframe lean. I pictured him caging in a woman against a wall with those tree trunks he called arms.

I pictured him shirtless, with his pants indecently low.

I blushed. I actually blushed in his presence because of how dirty my thoughts became, and how insanely attractive I found him.

He’s literally just a guy. More importantly, your coworker and superior , I scolded myself.

He said only three words to me, mostly paying attention to Jacqueline at this point now. He would nod occasionally at whatever she said to him, with his hands still stuffed in the pockets of his slacks in a clear posture of someone anxious but trying hard to act casual.

Zaid was perfect.

The story just came to me in those moments, I couldn’t help it.

“I hate to interrupt,” Zaid lifted a hand to halt Jacqueline’s sentence as he pulled his phone out of his pocket to frown at it, “But I have a lot on my plate. If Signe could get trained to help you and Brandon first, so that I can be left undisturbed for the next few days, that would be ideal.”

Okay, well, sorry for breathing .

I didn’t let his dismissive attitude get to me, everyone was allowed to have busy or stressful days.

Ignoring the hit to my ego from being so quickly dismissed by a solid ten, that night I started plotting. I started mapping out the love interest’s character, his motivations, his drive, and his personality—which was much more friendly and charismatic than the inspiration. How he would react in the presence of a woman he was deeply attracted to and in love with.

I hadn’t visualized a story like this in such a long time, so I ran with it. I didn’t want to waste this burst of inspiration and creativity that I had.

Whether or not anything became of this story, at least I was writing with intention. I was writing and excited to write, and also excited to go back to my office job the next day to see if I could become inspired even more. Were there other stupidly attractive people at my new job? Would this inspire spin-off stories?

A few weeks later, I had a couple of chapters drafted. I went back and edited them until I felt confident that I had something : a story that might be enjoyable to other romance readers. I wouldn’t know until I tried. So, I posted the first chapter on a free-to-read website, mostly known for fanfiction, but original works were posted occasionally as well.

I was shooting my shot again, if you will.

The first couple of days I think I only had one or two readers.

I didn’t think much of it, so I posted the next chapter. Same pattern. Only a handful of comments and shares.

I had hoped, obviously, but I never expected the response I ended up getting months later. The kind comments and feedback I received were the best surprise. It motivated me to keep going, to keep writing. To tweak things here and there, to take this story seriously.

I had something, and I fully intended to see it through.