My heart was in my throat. I brushed my tears away with a stubborn hand and sat up straighter. It was time to tell the truth. If I was going to wreck my career and my personal prospects with Lucas in one fell swoop, I could at least do it bravely. I owed myself that much. “Azure Group is going to liquidate Notable Match once they acquire it and get rid of your technology.” The moment I said the words, I felt lighter. I’d hated lying. I’d especially hated lying to Lucas.

He frowned and shook his head at me. “What are you talking about? That’s not the agreement.”

I knew it wasn’t the agreement. The agreement was that Azure Group was going to grow it. Everything we’d told him so far supported that idea.

My voice was sad. “They change their agreements whenever it suits them. Paper is just paper to them. It’s now in their interest to liquidate it.”

Lucas’ eyes had gone huge and round. “Well if that’s true, then I just won’t sell.” I could almost read his thoughts. He was thinking that there were other private equity investors in the world. He could simply find a better one.

“Yes, you will sell.” I sighed and looked back down at my feet. “Azure Group already has your code. You gave it to them. Back out now and they’ll destroy it anyway.” I took a deep breath before continuing. This was the worst part. “You either let them pay you for the pleasure and enjoy being CEO of a shell for five years or fight them and lose. They’ll send your case over to our legal department and sue you for everything you’re worth. They want Notable Match dead and their pockets are deeper than yours. No matter what you do, Notable Match gets fucked. But you should still sign the deal, because if you don’t, you get destroyed for free.”

“The NDA—” He started, and I cut him off with a rude noise.

. “It won’t save you. They’ve got an army of lawyers. Real ones, not just wannabes like me. You’ll never prove their litigation is retaliatory. Even if you somehow could get proof, they’d bury you in paperwork. Individuals don’t win against multi-billion-dollar corporations. Trust me. I’ve seen plenty of people try and fail.”

Lucas pulled away from me and I could see him running through my logic in his head. I knew it held up. He’d be looking for flaws, loopholes, backdoors, trapdoors, anything that would save Notable Match. There was nothing. Eventually he did come up with a question.

“Why?” He asked me. “Why would they even want to bury Notable Match? Was this the plan the whole time?”

He must have been wondering if I had been planning on fucking him over since I first laid eyes on him. It hurt my heart to think about it. I’d already betrayed him. He’d never forgive me. The least I could do now was tell the truth. It was late, but it was still better than never.

I shook my head at him. “No. It wasn’t the original plan.” I could hear the guilt in my voice. “I swear that it wasn’t the plan the entire time.”

“But why would Azure Group do this?” Lucas asked. It was a very valid question. They had initially been planning to grow it. No business would buy an asset like Notable Match just to destroy it. It made no sense. Unless you considered the bigger picture.

“They acquired a major competitor of yours last week. Datability. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Anyway, in order to cinch the deal, our CEO did something pretty fucked up. The deal was predicated on the agreement not to modify their essential operations for five years. She showed them your technology and promised that your algorithms would never see the light of day to convince them to sell to Azure Group. Now that they have Datability, Azure Group won’t compete against their own tech.”

I swallowed hard. This was a worst case, no-win scenario for Lucas. And that wasn’t even the worst thing. My heart was pounding a mile a minute. I feared I might hyperventilate. It didn’t take Lucas a very long time to figure it out.

“You knew.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I did.” I refused to lie to him anymore. Even though it would probably cost me my entire career, I just couldn’t go through with what I’d been asked to do. It wasn’t worth it to me.

“For how long?”

“About a week.”

Lucas was still staring at me in disbelief. There was no anger, at least not yet. I was sure it was coming though. “Last week—last Sunday—when Kyle came by… he was trying to tell me what Azure Group had planned.” My heart twisted. “He came to warn me, and you stopped him. You kept him from telling me the truth.”

“Yes. That’s right.” I was starting to cry again. “I was afraid.” My heart was beating so loud and so quickly that I wondered if Lucas was able to hear it. “Telling you this could cost me everything, but I know it will cost you even more. It’s ok if you hate me now. I understand.”

Lucas was quiet for a long time. I stared down at the ground and waited for him to start yelling at me. It never came. Finally, when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I looked at him.

He was staring off into the parking lot. His profile was lit by the lights of the bar, and I marveled at how handsome he was. Lucas’s strong jaw was set in a stubborn frown.

“I’ll figure out a way to save Notable Match,” he said eventually. “I have to.”

I nodded. If anyone could, it was him. “I’ll go now,” I told him. “I’m sure you don’t want to see me ever again.”

I rose, but I didn’t make it two steps before Lucas laughed. I turned, completely dumbfounded.

He’s laughing? Has he lost his mind?

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked me.

I blinked. “What? I was going to go home.” My voice was shaky. Adrenaline shot through me. Was he angry? I didn’t believe there was any chance that Lucas would ever harm me, but I had every reason to believe that he was going to yell at me. I didn’t like being yelled at.

“There’s no way I’m letting you go anywhere without me.” He pulled me back toward him and kissed me again. I couldn’t believe this reaction.

“Lucas, you should be angry with me.”

“Were you supposed to tell me all this?”

I shook my head. “Of course not.”

“You could lose your job for telling me, couldn’t you?”

“Yes.” I paused. “If you tell Azure Group, I’ll definitely lose my job.”

“You broke the rules for me.”

I had no comeback. I had broken the rules for him. “It was the right thing to do.”

His grin was almost unbelievable. “You just proved me right,” he said to me.

I blinked at him. “What?”

“You just proved me right that I was smart to bet on you.”

He drew me closer and wrapped his arms around my waist possessively. I almost couldn’t bear to hope, but of course I couldn’t entirely resist. Was there a chance he could forgive me?

“You aren’t angry with me?”

“Do I seem angry with you?”

I shook my head. “No...” I still wasn’t sure I trusted this reaction. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to double down. Hard. I’m going all in.” He kissed me again. I got the feeling that his double entendre was intentional, and it set my heart racing. “I’ll figure out the rest later.”