Chapter 3
ALEX
Alex Medson was not the kind of CEO who golfed or enjoyed long lunches while his employees worked.
Ever since he’d started MatchupNow, he’d been involved with every single line of code, every bug fix, and every scrum.
That meant he could easily recognize which of his employees were good at what they did, and which ones were just faking it.
Grace Boden was excellent at what she did.
She had a different way of looking at things, as though she’d learned by experience instead of just memorizing what her professors and textbooks had told her in college, like many of the new hires did.
And she wasn’t just fixated on the code—she possessed the ability to zoom out and think of how the app as a whole should function, then close in on small issues that would have an outsized effect on performance.
Alex noticed all of this in the first week of Grace’s employment.
It wasn’t often that one of his employees stood out this much, and he found himself pulling up her résumé to find out a little more about her.
It turned out that she’d gone to college in her early twenties after working as a waitress for several years after high school.
She’d grown up in San Valentino, but in a smaller neighborhood outside of the city center, Las Adelitas, not on the hill where San Valentino’s wealthiest (including Alex) lived.
He saw something in her past that spoke to him.
After all, Alex hadn’t always been a wealthy CEO, either.
He understood the struggle of coming from a less-than-affluent background in San Valentino.
Perhaps all that was why, when he spotted Grace getting a coffee in the break room on Friday afternoon, he went up to her. He didn’t usually fraternize with his employees much, preferring to keep his focus on the app itself, but this was different somehow. Alex wasn’t entirely sure how.
“Hi, Grace.”
“Oh!” She jumped a little, as though he’d sneaked up on her, and blushed. “Hi.”
“How has your first week been?” he asked.
“You tell me.” Grace smiled. “You’ve been in all the meetings and reviewed all my code.”
Alex chuckled. “Based on what I’ve seen, I’d say things are going well. But I was wondering how you’re settling in with the company culture and your new colleagues.”
“Oh, it’s all been great,” Grace said. “My coworkers are so helpful, and I’ve never worked in an office with such great amenities.”
“I suppose online tech support roles don’t offer as many perks,” Alex said. Grace’s brow furrowed, and he realized he’d revealed that he’d looked into her. Well, it was normal for a CEO to be interested in his employees, wasn’t it?
“You know my employment history?” She didn’t sound upset, just a little confused.
“I know the employment history of all my employees,” Alex lied. “You know I like to be involved in all parts of MatchupNow’s work. For instance, did you know that Lukas Chen from your team used to be a bullfighter?”
Grace’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”
“Unfortunately, I am.”
Grace laughed, and Alex cracked a smile.
“I can imagine him chasing down a bull,” she said, giggling. “All five foot five of him. Tell me about someone else’s employment history.”
“Well, you know your department head, Autumn? She also has her pilot’s license.”
“Now I know you’re joking.”
“Actually, that one’s true.”
Grace laughed again, a bright, happy sound that made Alex smile.
“I’m impressed. I should ask her about it sometime.”
“I bet she’d be happy to talk about it.” Alex hesitated. “You know, I’m working through a difficult bug that the frontend team kicked up to me. Would you mind taking a crack at it?”
“Me?” Grace’s green eyes widened, but then she nodded. “Absolutely. I’d be thrilled to try.”
“Great. Meet me in my office in a couple of hours.”
“See you then.”
Of course, Alex was only asking because he knew how good Grace’s work and problem-solving skills were. Yet some part of him, a part he was trying his best to ignore, found her attractive.
That was his own fault. He didn’t have time to date, yet he worked at a company that was all about dating.
And he spent all his time here, so it wasn’t like he had a chance to meet people.
It was natural that romance was on his mind—not that he’d ever act on it.
Grace was his employee, so it wouldn’t be appropriate.
This was a purely professional arrangement.
Still, he found himself waiting a little impatiently for Grace to come by. He’d finally managed to lose himself in a particularly difficult problem when his assistant, Louisa, appeared in the doorway.
“I have a Grace Boden here to see you,” she said with her usual bright smile.
“Thanks, Louisa. She can come in.”
“Of course, Mr. Medson.” Louisa smiled again, tossed her blond curls over her shoulder, and returned to her seat outside the office.
Grace stepped into the office, her laptop under her arm.
“What can I help with?” she asked, setting her laptop down on the table. She tucked her short brown hair behind her ear, and the light caught faint natural highlights among the strands.
Alex never noticed things like that. He needed to stop noticing these kinds of things and focus on work, which was usually not a problem for him.
“There’s a bug here,” he explained. “The fetch times are usually great, but every once in a while, something goes wrong.”
“Let me see the source code. Please.” Grace pulled up a chair beside him and sat. Alex showed her the lines of code, and she leaned forward, biting her lip.
“Okay,” she said after a moment. “Now, tell me what you’ve tried already.”
Alex talked her through all the steps he’d tried, and Grace nodded along slowly. Then she let out a sigh.
“I want to have a great solution for you, but honestly, I’m just as stumped as you are. Can I have this part of the code on my laptop to work on?”
“Sorry,” Alex said. “All the compiled code has to stay on my laptop alone. It’s the only way to keep it truly safe from competitors.”
“Are you really that worried about people stealing your work?”
Alex nodded.
“Why?”
“Back in college, when I started MatchupNow, my roommate wanted to help me. He wasn’t a great coder, but I think he saw the value in the company right away and wanted in.
I gave him a few tasks to do, and he seemed happy to help out, even in a small way.
The app started to take off, just at our college at first, then it spread.
Then one day, I realized he’d taken the app’s code off the laptop and tried to sell it.
The loss set me way back—and meant that a rival app had all of the hard work I’d done to improve the functions. ”
“I’m sorry.” Grace bit her lip again. “I guess I can see how that would make you untrusting. Keeping all the code on one laptop still seems like a long way to go to keep things secure, though. You must have to do a huge amount of work yourself to keep everything in one place.”
“I do,” Alex agreed. “But it’s worth it. That’s why I can’t give you those lines on your laptop. But I can lend you this one if you want to work on it. You just have to sign it out and back in when you’re done.”
“Easy.” Grace put her name and details in the log and took the laptop. “But now I’m scared I’m going to drop it or something.” She widened her eyes comically.
“Please don’t.” Alex grinned. “That would set us back weeks, if not months.”
“I’ll be careful, I promise.” Grace paused. “On second thought, maybe I should stay close by.”
“You can sit right there, if you’d like,” Alex said, gesturing to the end of his desk. “I have plenty of room.”
“Thanks.” Grace sat, crossed her legs on the chair beneath her, and flashed Alex a quick smile. Then she turned her focus to the computer. She tapped at the keys, stared at the screen for several long minutes, then tapped again.
For a while, Alex found Grace’s presence distracting.
He was aware of each time she reached for the keyboard or adjusted her hair or stifled a yawn.
After a while, though, he got back into the stream of his work, using his desktop computer.
He was so focused that he barely noticed the time slipping by.
“Okay,” Grace said after what felt like a few minutes. “I think I’ve got it. Or at least part of it.”
Alex looked up, surprised, and saw that it had been almost four hours.
“Really?”
“Really. Can I show you?”
“Please.”
Alex made room on the desk for Grace to sit beside him again, which she did. From this close, he noticed that she smelled a little like the ocean. She flashed him a quick smile before turning her attention to the laptop.
“Okay, here’s what I did…” Grace showed him a few lines of code. Alex asked a few questions, then nodded approvingly.
“Let’s test it.”
They ran a few tests. The first few passed with flying colors, but the last threw an error. Grace mimed slumping onto the desk.
“Oh, man. I really thought I had it.”
“You made good progress,” Alex told her. “Great progress, even. Don’t worry about it. You can always pick this up later. After all, it’s…” His eyes widened when he saw the time on his Rolex. “Seven forty-five! You should really go home.”
“No way. I’m in the zone now.” Grace pulled the laptop toward her again. “I’ll just give it a few more minutes.”
“Then I insist you at least let me feed you,” Alex said. “It would look really bad if one of my employees died of starvation.”
“We can’t have that,” Grace agreed. “It would be bad publicity.” She tore her gaze from the screen to flash him another smile. “I could eat.”
“Chinese?” Alex suggested. “I know a place that delivers.”
“Perfect. That’s great hacker food, just like in the movies. We can eat straight out of the to-go boxes to really set the mood.”
Alex chuckled. “Great. Would you like to see the menu?”
“It’s okay.” Grace’s gaze was back on the screen. “Just get me anything vegetarian.”