Seven Soulmates: Reverse Harem Romance
Kelli Callahan
Published by Kelli Callahan Books, 2018.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
SEVEN SOULMATES: REVERSE HAREM ROMANCE
First edition. May 30, 2018.
Copyright © 2018 Kelli Callahan.
Written by Kelli Callahan.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1: Violet
Chapter 2: Ethan Prince
Chapter 3: Violet
Chapter 4: Ethan Prince
Chapter 5: Violet
Chapter 6: Ethan Prince
Chapter 7: Boyd
Chapter 8: Violet
Chapter 9: Miguel
Chapter 10: Violet
Chapter 11: Gary
Chapter 12: Violet
Chapter 13: Kurt
Chapter 14: Violet
Chapter 15: Alex
Chapter 16: Violet
Chapter 17: Ethan Prince
Chapter 18: Violet
Epilogue: Violet
Chapter 1: Violet
“The code just won’t work.” I sat back in my chair and stared at the screen. “We can’t take a few random facts and turn them into miracles.”
“I don’t accept failure. You know that.” My boss, a very imposing man named Mr. Prince, breathed down my neck—literally.
“I need help. An app like this should have a team of people working on it.” I shifted forward so I didn’t feel his breath.
“This is a secret project. Secret projects usually start with one person who puts together the prototype. After that, we start the marketing campaign and bring in a team to take it into production.” He reached over my shoulder and tapped the screen. “Making it work is your job—and you know what is at stake if you don’t.”
The app I was working on had consumed most of the summer after my sophomore year of college. It was my penance for spending a few late nights on my computer trying to become an amateur hacker. I took a wrong turn one night and ended up breaching Mr. Prince’s server, which brought the FBI to my front door. I thought I was headed to prison instead of back to college when the summer was over, but Mr. Prince was rather impressed I had managed to do it. He said he had a place for someone like me at PrinceSoft. Little did I know that meant I was going to be nothing more than an indentured servant until I had a working prototype of his latest secret project.
“I’m tired. I think I’ve gotta call it a day.” I started to stand, but Mr. Prince put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me back into my chair.
“Drink a Red Bull.” His tone was stern. “You can catch up on sleep this weekend.”
“Yes sir.” I nodded and reached for one of the energy drinks sitting next to me.
PrinceSoft specialized in creating dating apps. Mr. Prince’s first app hit the market shortly after Tinder made headlines and he was determined to find an app that could put them out of business. The one I was working on definitely different than anything else on the market. It wasn’t going to be an app for hooking up or getting off. It was supposed to actually connect people with their soulmates. The problem was that it just didn’t work the way he envisioned. I was trying to turn an algorithm into true love, which I thought was rather ridiculous to begin with, and every test run had been an absolute failure.
“Okay, Mr. Darcy.” I loaded one of our test profiles. “Let’s see if you match up with Elizabeth.”
We had a few test profiles loaded based on famous fictional love stories. I wasn’t even able to get those right. I had managed to hook Mr. Darcy up with Cinderella, but she wasn’t the lonely young girl Jane Austen meant for him to end up with. Elizabeth’s fate was even more comical. Every time I ran her profile, she got matched with a woman, and it was never the same woman. If fantasy relied on my algorithm, Mr. Darcy would have been touring the English countryside with a glass slipper and Elizabeth would have been getting risky with a pair of evil stepsisters. I chugged the Red Bull and groaned when the algorithm failed again.
“This is hopeless...” I looked back at Mr. Prince.
“Keep working. I have all the faith in the world that you’ll get it right.” Mr. Prince started walking towards the door and as soon as it closed, I heard an audible click.
Indentured servant might have been a gentler term for prisoner. I had signed a contract to stay locked in the makeshift apartment at PrinceSoft until the project was done—no matter how long it took. I thought I would have a working prototype and a clean record in a couple of weeks when I agreed to the terms of the deal, but it wasn’t as simple as I hoped. The algorithm should have worked, but it just didn’t. The only thing it was going to accomplish was leaving people wondering what kind of cruel mistress fate had become—it certainly made me feel that way every time I ran another test.
“Even the Red Bull isn’t working tonight.” I leaned back against my chair and groaned again.
I forced my eyes open and made more adjustments as the hours whisked by. I was so dead on my feet that I could barely stand up to go to the bathroom after the last Red Bull ran through my system. As much as I wanted to keep working, and as angry as I knew Mr. Prince would be, I just couldn’t keep going any longer. I walked into my bedroom and crashed against the mattress, feeling my eyes close. The bed was comfortable at least, not that I would have really noticed at that point. The energy drink struggled against my exhaustion, but in the end, exhaustion won.
“VIOLET, WHAT THE HELL? It doesn’t look like you’ve done any work since I left!” Mr. Prince’s angry voice roused me from my slumber.
“I’m useless without sleep.” I sat up in my bed and rubbed my eyes. “I promise I’ll get back to work in a couple of hours.”
“I promised my investors we would announce a revolutionary new app before the end of the year. If you can’t deliver a working prototype by then, it will cost me a lot of money.” He pointed at the desk. “Get back to work—now.”
“Yes sir.” I nodded and crawled out of bed, stumbling towards the computer with way less sleep than I needed.
“I’m going to leave you alone for a couple of days because I have to meet some investors in Phoenix. If you don’t have something for me that looks promising when I return, we’re going to have a different discussion about motivation.” He buttoned his suit and walked towards the door.
What does that mean?
I felt like I had all the motivation I needed. A threat wasn’t going to create an impossibility out of thin air. My freedom was already on the line. My case was still active with the FBI and while Mr. Prince had declined to press charges after I hacked his system, he could change that with one phone call. I delayed it by agreeing to his deal, but the reality of failure had been clear since the first day. If I had more people working with me, I was certain the app would come to fruition a lot faster. I coded a couple of apps in high school, mostly just to try and make money, but they weren’t as complicated as the one Mr. Prince had me working on.
Come on, Mr. Darcy. You want Elizabeth, not that trollop Cinderella.
It didn’t match him with Cinderella after a few modifications, but it still didn’t match him with Elizabeth. Instead, the app suggested his true soulmate was the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. I had a brief chuckle at the prospect, and then started changing the algorithm again. Two days of tireless efforts and lots of Red Bull resulted in the same awful result. I felt defeated when I heard my door unlock. I didn’t even realize it was Friday already, but a quick move of my mouse to highlight the date at the bottom of m
y computer confirmed it was. I stared at the screen and shook my head as the door opened.
“Hello, Violet.” Mr. Prince smiled when he walked into my apartment. “Tell me you have some good news.”
“I wish I did...” I sighed and turned towards him. “I don’t even have progress to report. I’m just treading water here.”
“That’s disappointing.” He exhaled sharply. “I guess that means we’re going to have to find a new way to motivate you since the threat of going to prison isn’t enough.”
“It is enough!” I lashed out before I realized how harsh my tone was. “If I could make this work, I would. What you’re asking for is impossible.”
“You do the impossible. You hacked my system. My system hasn’t been breached since it went live. Do you know how many hackers bounce off of it every day? You found a flaw that the best security team in the world didn’t find.” His tone was still calm, even though I was fuming.
“I’ll keep working.” I shook my head angrily. “I’ll try a few more things.”
“So, let’s talk about your motivation.” He pulled a chair from the dining room over and took a seat near my computer. “We’re on a tight deadline here, and I don’t think you’re applying yourself properly.”
“I am, Mr. Prince. I’m doing the best I can.” I let my head slump against my shoulders.
“I think it’s time I started treating you like a real employee with weekly performance evaluations and consequences when you don’t meet my expectations.” He tilted his head slightly. “I think that will help you take this a little more seriously.”
“I’m pretty sure if I was a real employee, I would have quit by now.” I sighed and shook my head. “The only reason I’m still here is because I’m praying for a miracle that keeps me out of prison.”
“Yes, but I don’t want to feel like I’m sacrificing my company so you can delay what you seem to have accepted as inevitable.” He leveled his gaze at me and his intense stare caught me off guard. “The consequence for your failure so far is going to be a trip across my knee.”
“A what?” My eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“A spanking.” He nodded and exhaled sharply. “A consequence that will be repeated each week that passes without a working prototype.”
“You’re serious?” I blinked and shook my head. “No, that’s not going to happen.”
“So, you would rather terminate this agreement and let me call my friends at the FBI?” He tilted his head and shrugged. “Your call.”
“Okay, you made your point.” I held up my hands in front of me. “You have successfully motivated me. I’ll keep working.”
“You’ve had a long time to work and you have nothing to show for it. At this point, I would be better off handing off what you’ve done to someone else and letting them try to salvage it. They may not have your brilliant mind, but at least I won’t look like a fool when I try to pass off a normal dating app as my revolutionary new idea.” He sighed angrily. “I need to see that you’re still dedicated to this project and willing to do anything to ensure it succeeds—just like you were when you were begging me not to send you to prison.”
It was true. I had been extremely motivated the first few weeks while I was building the framework of the app. I had no doubt that it would succeed back then. It wasn’t until I started running the algorithm that I realized it wasn’t quite as magical as I hoped. Nothing was working right. Mr. Prince’s patience had run its course and it wasn’t going to be as simple as I thought to maintain my freedom. I had never been spanked before. The thought of it was rather frightening. I closed my eyes and imagined myself behind bars, staring at a long prison sentence and a felony record. Even if I was a first time offender, I had done a lot of damage and it claiming it was an accident wasn’t going to erase what I had done.
“Okay.” I opened my eyes and nodded as I tried to swallow a lump in my throat. “If this is the only way.”
“It is.” He nodded and patted his knee. “It’s not like you don’t deserve a good, hard spanking anyway for all of the things you’ve done.”
Chapter 2: Ethan Prince
Earlier that week
“Come on, Ethan. You’re supposed to be naked by now.” The woman on my bed crawled to the edge and pressed her lips to my neck. “You promised this wouldn’t be like my last birthday.”
“I know.” I stared at my laptop screen and tapped a couple of keys. “I’ll be done in a moment.”
“You said that last year—a lot.” She grumbled and pulled her lips away before crashing back onto the mattress.
Regina had been my ex-girlfriend for several years and we had been broken up longer than we had even been together to begin with. We had long since moved past an actual relationship and agreed there was no way we would ever be able to make it work. I was too busy with work and she wanted someone that was totally dedicated to her. She decided that she would keep frequenting my bed until she found the right person. That made things a lot less complicated for me. I liked it that way. I wasn’t interested in settling down with anyone and Regina accepted that. Still, I had promised that I would do something special for her birthday, and I was failing miserably like I normally did when we were still a couple.
“Okay, I’m done.” I closed my laptop and turned towards her. “I think it’s time for someone to get their birthday spanking.”
“Thank god.” She rolled over and wiggled her ass at me. “I thought I was going to have to spank myself.”
“Not a chance.” I smiled and gave her a firm smack.
A playful spanking was always fun. Watching her ass bounce as I delivered twenty-five smacks got me hard as a rock. Regina and I had experimented with a D/s lifestyle when we were together as a couple and one of the things that got in the way of us actually being able to make the relationship work was her inability to truly submit. I had a naturally dominant personality and viewed the world differently than a lot of men did. Discipline, for me, was just a part of everyday life. When failure came at me, I met it head on and dealt out the proper consequences. Sometimes that meant an employee didn’t get to keep cashing their paycheck. Second chances were rare. I had a scorched earth policy when it came to failure.
THREE MONTHS AGO
“You’re all fired.” I looked around the room at my security team. “A college student hacked your fucking system? You’re supposed to be the absolute best!”
“Mr. Prince, this wasn’t some ordinary college student.” The head of the security team, a pudgy older man named Robert, stood up. “She’s brilliant. I mean, I’ve never seen anyone that could literally write code around a security system like that.”
“He’s right.” One of the other members stood up. “That should have been impossible. This system changes when people try to access it. It’s designed to be impenetrable.”
“Well she certainly penetrated it, didn’t she?” I glared around the room angrily. “I told all of you what would happen if anyone ever breached this system. Do you realize how much money this is going to cost? I have to let every single customer know their data could have been compromised.”
“I know.” Robert nodded quickly. “We did our absolute best. This won’t happen again, I swear.”
“You’re right.” I shrugged and nodded. “Because you’re all fired. I don’t want to hear excuses. Pack your shit and get the fuck out.”
Time to find another team that is the best money can buy, because this one obviously wasn’t.
I sat in my office a couple of hours later with my personal contact at the FBI, Agent Danvers, sitting across from me. The arrest had been made and the young woman named Violet Anderson was in custody. She seemed like a normal girl on paper. She was an adult, which meant she would definitely do hard time. She had done enough damage for them to easily get a felony conviction once the case went to trial. I thumbed through the paperwork until I got to a few pictures of her that had been scraped from social media.
“Damn, she’s pre
tty hot.” I chuckled and dropped the file on my desk. “I guess the women in prison will love her.”
“Yeah, the federal penitentiary will chew that beautiful young body up. Did you see the pictures of her in a swimsuit? That makes me wish I was still a guard. None of the women in prison looked like this.” He flipped a couple of pictures until the one he referenced was visible.
“What the fuck is a girl like this doing sitting in front of a computer all night?” I shook my head and held the picture up. “I’ve hired some fairly attractive women right out of college, but fucking hell—she’s gorgeous.”
“Keep the pictures if you want.” Agent Danvers shrugged. “I’ll talk with the District Attorney tomorrow and see if we can offer her a deal.”
“Don’t do that quite yet.” I dropped the picture and tapped my fingers on the desk. “I want to meet her.”
“You’re going to offer a job, aren’t you?” Agent Danvers narrowed his eyes and smiled. “She’s impressed you.”
“I didn’t have to see her picture to be impressed, but I might have a way for her to make things right that don’t involved prison.” I nodded and extended my hand. “It’s a pleasure as always, Agent Danvers.”
Agent Danvers would be getting a sizable donation in his off-shore bank account in a few days. The FBI had every right to ignore my request and charge her anyway. I was fairly certain that if they started digging into her other activities online, they would find that PrinceSoft wasn’t the first company she had hacked. I could tell she didn’t have malicious intent. Even after she breached the security system, she didn’t try to steal any data. Someone that was trying to get into the system for a reason wouldn’t have wasted such a huge opportunity. I needed someone like that working for me. I had a project that required absolute secrecy and as much as I trusted some of the app developers on my staff, I wasn’t quite ready to share my latest gold mine with them until I had a prototype.
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