“Miss Cole! Miss Cole! Wait! You forgot to scan your ID!”

I skid to a stop at the elevators, my heels making a scratching sound on the tiled floor of my building’s lobby. Our security guard, Isaac, is chasing after me, waving his handheld scanning device. I look at my watch and groan, then start digging through my giant bag for the tiny card I need to confirm my identity, despite the fact Isaac knows exactly who I am. Isaac smiles at me sheepishly.

“I’m sorry, Miss Cole. But it’s protocol, especially when it comes to your floor. We can’t have anyone sneaking up there and stealing your secrets right before you find yourself an investor.”

I smile and soften, appreciative that he’s concerned for my company’s well-being, while also simultaneously annoyed with my business partner, Tyler, for telling Isaac about it at all. It’s not that there haven’t been rumbling in the tech industry about what we’re doing at our company, but I definitely don’t want every single person I come across knowing what we’re working on, or that we’re about to potentially sell for billions of dollars…

I give Isaac a squeeze on the arm and a wink. “Thanks for the concern, buddy. We appreciate you keeping an eye on things down here.”

Isaac scans my ID and salutes me, then I use it again to call down the elevator that leads to our floor. It’s not like we’re testing missiles or uncovering the cure for cancer. But what we did do is invent a revolutionary new matching system that will change the way dating apps function. Every single dating site on the market has been knocking down our door to buy our algorithm, and all we’ve been doing is weighing our options and letting the sites work to outbid each other.

The last bid we got was for $1.2 billion, and Tyler literally passed out.

The elevator doors open, and I walk out to the reception area of our company, Antyla Tech, LTD. The woman who runs the switchboard, Dolores, waves at me as she forwards a dozen calls in a row, which is about normal for this time of day now. It’s ten o’clock in the morning, which is late for me to be showing up to work, but last night’s disastrous date left me feeling sluggish this morning. I just didn’t feel like getting out of bed when my alarm went off at the crack of dawn.

You know the old saying, “Those who can’t do, teach?” I am living proof of it. I can’t remember the last time I went out on a date with a man that didn’t end in abject failure, misery, or a solid punch to the ribs. Most guys I meet aren’t interested in the work I do, and they tune out as soon as I start talking about my business. A lot don’t seem to want anything to do with women who are ambitious and clever, which has been another consistent problem. But worst of all, a lot of guys in San Francisco are also in tech, and the vast majority of them refuse to take a woman in their industry seriously. Those are the guys that make me want to give up dating all together and commit myself wholly to the business.

I hurry into my office and can already see my messages have piled up in the couple of hours that I’m behind. I don’t even have time to set my stuff down before Tyler is running in behind me.

“Where have you been? Do you know what time it is?”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I think I’m aware. Thanks, Ty. I needed to sleep in a little. Is that such a crime?”

Tyler sits down on my office couch and grins at me. “This morning? You bet it is. Do you have any idea what you missed?”

“Obviously not,” I answer as I plop down in my desk chair and kick off my heels. I wake up my computer and see that I have seventy emails. Hmm, that is a bit more than usual. “Okay, what did I miss?”

“Oh, nothing major. Just Wired catching wind of our potential sale, reporting on it, and sending another flurry of potential investors in this morning. They’re bidding like crazy again, and now the financial reporters are saying we might be the biggest tech sale in history.”

I shake my head and sit back in my chair. “Don’t get overexcited. You know how this industry is. One minute we’re the talk of the town and the next no one will touch us. So, let’s stay the course. Keep level heads.”

Tyler flops down on the couch and puts his legs up on the wall, like a little kid. Normally I’d yell at him but I’ll let him have his moment.

“You know there is no chance that things could fall apart now. We’ve come too far and worked too hard.”

I throw my stress ball at his head. “Take it back! You’re going to curse us.”

“You’re right. Sorry. The only thing left to do, according to our marketing department, is up our visibility a little. They say we need to do something to get eyes on the company as a whole, something to really show people who we are.” Tyler is hanging upside down, and his voice is drifting toward me in bursts. The man is my best friend and there is no one I’d rather run a company with, but sometimes he drives me crazy.

The truth is, I wouldn’t be here today without Tyler. After that night in college when Daniel and I broke up, my life went a little haywire. I tried dating other guys, and within two months, I ended up with a stalker. Eric followed me back and forth to class, harassed my friends, and tried to sabotage my acceptance to graduate school. It wasn’t until the night he showed up at my dorm with a gun that the police finally took my complaints seriously, and accepted my request for a restraining order. But even that wasn’t enough to stop Eric, and in the end, he jumped the restraining order and attacked me in the parking lot of a grocery store. He’d meant to stab me in the stomach, but had been to afraid to follow through. I’d survived with only some bruises and bad cuts, and Eric had run off. The cops never found him, so I had to move, change my name, as well as all of my plans for the future. That included dropping out of my graduate program.

I was so demoralized from the whole experience, I started drinking, and partying, and blowing pretty much any chance I had at putting all the work I’d done in college to any use.

It was Tyler who made all the difference.

His boyfriend had lived in my dorm, and we’d known each other in passing, but then one night at a club, Tyler saved my drunk ass from going home with someone who had the potential to be just as bad as Eric. Instead, Tyler took me home, finally forced me to sober up, and then helped me re-apply for grad school. We rose up through the ranks at Marwell together, and decided to start our own company as soon as we got out. Given everything I’d gone through, and the fact that Tyler had the ideal relationship, we opted to focus our tech on perfecting dating applications for men and women regardless of their preferences. We formed Antyla Tech, LTD with the intention of making the dating world safe for everyone; it wasn’t about the money, though that’s been a nice fringe benefit.

The only downside is, Tyler has to be the public face of our company. I’m still living under my assumed name, though all I’ve really done is change my last name from DiNova to Cole. But because Eric is still out there somewhere, probably nursing a hell of a grudge, I find I feel safer by keeping a low profile, and letting Tyler do all our publicity. So, the idea of having to step in front of a camera or take press photos puts me on edge. And Tyler sees it right away.

“Anya, honey, I know you’re nervous about putting yourself out there, but I can’t be the only person representing the company. We need to show people that everyone will be taken care of here; it can’t just be a white gay guy.”

I snicker. “Oh, I see. You want me to be the token black woman?”

Tyler throws a pillow at me, which I dodge. “You know that isn’t what I mean. But if we’re going to convince one of the major dating apps that our technology will work for anyone looking for that special someone, it’s better if we are both pushing Antyla.”

I know he’s right, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.

“Ty… what if he sees me on television and comes after me again?”

Tyler gets up from the couch and walks over to my desk. He sits on the edge and takes my hands in his, giving each one a quick kiss. “Anya, no one will get near you. If I have to hire bodyguards for you, I will. Whatever makes you comfortable. But this is just as much your baby as mine, and I will not go out there and take credit for your work. This is our company. We should be doing this together.”

I nod. “You’re right. I know you are. I just need some time to get used to the idea.”

Tyler is about to say something when Dolores knocks on the doorframe, snapping gum and smiling.

“Sorry to interrupt, but Anya, I think the ringer is off your phone. I’ve been buzzing you for twenty minutes.”

I look at my phone and see all of the lines are lit up, and my message button is blinking. “Ah, hell. I’m sorry, Dolores. What’s up?”

“There is someone on line four that has been calling all morning. She is starting to drive me nuts. She said she wouldn’t hang up without talking to you this time, so if you could take it? I’m tired of fighting with her.”

Tyler rolls his eyes. “It’s probably a reporter. I’ll leave you to it. Come find me after so we can start going over some of the bids from new coders.”

I scowl as I pick up the phone and wave him away. “This is Anya,” I answer after clicking into the waiting line. I am greeted by an exhausted sigh.

“Well, thank goodness! I feel like I’ve been chasing you all day, Miss Cole!”

“Most people would take that as a sign that I was too busy to be bothered,” I say, already exasperated by her perkiness. “I have two minutes and then I have to go to a meeting. If you’re a reporter, I probably will just be answering ‘no comment’ to every question, so you very well may have wasted your morning.”

She laughs, a high-pitched squeaky laugh that puts me on edge. “I’m not a reporter! My name is Carrie Meyers, and I have a proposal for you that I think you will have a difficult time turning down.”

“Try me,” I say as I flip through my e-mails.

“Have you ever heard of a show called Wild Love?”