“It still doesn’t feel right,” I mutter, peering up at the skylight over our new office space. The sunlight is too bright. The chair I’m sitting in is too boxy and modern. Even the air tastes too . . . crisp, or something.

“What are you talking about? This is heaven!” Riley is sprawled on the brand-new sectional couch that takes up half our main room. I have my own office off to one side, and Warren has his own window-less cave—better to see the screens—in the back. We’re on the second floor with three other companies, all sharing a big open-plan kitchen/lounge/game area in the middle of the floor. “If you let yourself, you could actually like it.”

“It’d be a lot easier to like it if we’d had a little warning.” I scowl at my laptop, the beat-up MacBook that looks out of place compared to the shiny new equipment stacked at one end of the office. “I still can’t believe he just assumed he could stick us wherever he wanted.”

Warren spins in his new chair as if testing out the mechanics. “C’mon, this is amazing. You were always saying we would need more staff and equipment. And there are some great people working here to bounce ideas off of.” He’s been hanging out with the Maverick-invested tech bros in between programming sessions.

“And now we’ve got free vending machines!” Riley beams. “All the Kind bars and smoothies you can handle. A complimentary gym membership. My abs aren’t going to know what hit them.”

“Traitors,” I grumble. “We had a good thing going in the old place.”

“Sure we did. But now we can do better.” Riley waves her phone at me. “You need to relax. Jack will be back on Monday, right? You can have it out with him properly then. Until then, stop moping. Let’s make the most of it!”

She’s right. I know that logically, I should be thrilled by this setup. The problem is, I can’t relax. Every time I look around the office, every time I breathe, I remember Jack’s total confusion when I confronted him. He’s so oblivious it didn’t even occur to him that he couldn’t simply take over my company.

Argh.

Sherice knocks on the door. One benefit of the new office space is our very own admin assistant. “McKenna? Nelle Castle from Digital Today is here for the interview.”

I get up, rolling the tension out of my shoulders. Jack arranged this, too, before he left. But I’m not going to let my frustrations get in the way of promoting Perfect Match. I still have a product to sell here.

“Send her in,” I say, trying to fix an upbeat grin on my face.

Nelle Castle strides in with loads of cheerful energy and a casual jeans-and-shirt outfit. “Ms. Delaney! It’s wonderful to meet you. I heard so many good things about you from Jack.”

Did she? Funny, it didn’t look that way from the article she wrote up. “Great to meet you too! It’s amazing to see so much excitement about Perfect Match.”

“It sounds like an exciting project.” She sits in one of the chairs and I sit opposite. Her glance around the room takes in the stack of boxes by the wall we haven’t gotten around to unpacking yet.

“We just moved in,” I say. Against our will, I manage not to add.

“So Mr. Callahan has brought you in house. That must be an exciting development, too.”

Ha. “Yes, very much so,” I say smoothly.

“Have you found that Maverick’s involvement is already helping your company move to the next level?” Nelle asks, wide-eyed and eager.

“Jack has definitely offered a lot of”—How was it he put it?—“guidance since he invested. We’re very happy with the partnership.”

The dictatorship it seems to be turning into, not so much.

Thankfully Nelle’s questions turn to the ins and outs of the app next. I can talk about that forever—and it means I don’t have to pretend not to be pissed off at Jack. I’m actually starting to enjoy the interview a little when she throws me a curve ball.

“So, after all this time you’ve spent perfecting your compatibility algorithms, I have to ask: Are you dating anyone?”

My mouth opens and snaps shut. I should have known this would come up. Am I? I thought I was, but after what’s happened in the last couple days . . . It doesn’t matter anyway. The last thing I need is the entire tech world buzzing about how I’m sleeping with my investor instead of about how awesome Perfect Match is.

“No,” I say. “Not at the moment.”

“Interesting.” Nelle smiles. “Is there any reason you haven’t used the algorithm to find your own ‘perfect match’? I know that’s the first thing I’d do!”

I give a shrug. “Oh, well, you know, I haven’t had much time for dating anyway, with all the energy I’ve been putting into getting the company off the ground. I wanted to make sure it was working as well as possible for everyone before I took advantage of it for myself.”

“Actually, that’s not totally true,” Riley pipes up from the sofa.

I start to shake my head at her, but Nelle has already turned. “What do you mean?”

Riley grins. “When we were doing the first round of beta testing, we ran a few initial profiles, and McKenna made one for that. She got a 100% match with a guy. She just never got around to contacting him.”

Oh no, let’s not get into that. “It was the first real run of the algorithm,” I say quickly. “We hadn’t worked out a lot of the bugs yet. It probably wasn’t that accurate.”

Nelle swivels back to me, her face bright. “It doesn’t sound like you’ve had to make any major changes since that point. Let’s see this guy.”

I want to protest, but Riley is already scooting in beside us with her laptop open. “Here’s the guy,” she says, bringing my old profile—and the matches—up on screen.

I remember him: sandy blonde hair, green eyes that crinkle with his smile. He’s definitely attractive. And his profile is nothing to sneeze at. Masters in Communication, working for a hospital network, loves good food, theater, and—if you can believe it—cheesy rom coms. No deal-breakers, no red flags. He’s perfect.

But he’s not Jack.

“Wow!” Nelle exclaims. “What a cutie. Okay, you have to get this rolling. It’d be the perfect addition to the article. ‘Perfect Match creator meets her match.’ If you don’t end up liking the guy, oh well. No harm in it, right? It’ll be great publicity.”

I hesitate. He’s not Jack. But maybe I could stand to spend some time with a guy who’s not Jack right now, just to remind myself what the rest of the world is like. It’s not as if it’ll be a real date. It’s just for the article.

If Jack were here, he’d probably tell me to do it for the buzz. Hell, he’d probably already be writing to the guy on my behalf—without even telling me.

“All right,” I say, reaching to swipe right. “Why the hell not?”

---

“So . . .” my match dude—aka Peter—says as the carriage horse clops along through Central Park. “Do you bring a cameraman along on all your dates?”

I laugh. “Sorry, I know it’s a little weird. But hey, after today, you’ll be a little bit famous!”

He agreed to having Nelle and her photographer tail us on our ride through the park when we exchanged messages yesterday, but I’m not sure he totally understood what he was getting into. At least Peter is taking it in stride and not running for the hills.

“I think it’s pretty amazing that you came up with the entire app that made this date happen,” he says. “I’ve dabbled in computer programming enough to know what an epic undertaking that must have been.”

“Oh, really?” I don’t think that came up in his profile. “When was that?”

“Back in college,” he replies, “Before I realized that I suck at math.” He chuckles. It’s a nice chuckle. But it doesn’t set me tingling like Jack’s does.

No. I’m not thinking about Jack right now. He called three times while I was getting ready for this date, but I couldn’t stand the thought of talking to him yet. Especially not over the phone, where I can’t see his face.

The carriage glides around a bend. With the light sprinkling of snow we got overnight, the park is wintery and beautiful. “I’ve never actually done this before. The carriage ride thing,” I say.

“Me neither,” Peter says. “I have to say I like it. It feels like going back in time a bit, doesn’t it? Very Austenian. Maybe we’ll run into your rival taking a turn in the park, and you can exchange witty banter with each other.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “You’re a Jane Austen fan?” I ask, surprised.

“Isn’t every person worth knowing?” He winks at me. Also a nice wink. Also not as tingle-inducing as Jack’s. “She really is underrated as the classics go. So much more than just love stories, with all the social commentary woven in.”

“Yes! Thank you. I hate it when people talk as if she was just writing fluffy wish fulfillment.” Austen knew what went into making a happy couple, that’s for sure. She was never afraid to show her heroines taking a wrong turn or two on the way to finding their perfect match.

The camera is snapping again. I resist the urge to hide behind the blanket. Peter smiles at me and reaches to take my hand. I let my fingers curl between his. His palm is warm and dry.

Nice. But still no tingles.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Peter. On paper and in person, he should be the perfect guy for me. So . . . maybe it’s not him. Maybe it’s me.

Me and Jack.

I can’t deny it, no matter how hard I try. The atmosphere is gorgeous, the weather pristine. But my heart isn’t in it, because it’s too busy wishing it was Jack sitting beside me. Not just for the tingly feeling he’d give me. For the wry remarks and the sudden insights he’d pull out of nowhere. For the serious moments when I’d get a glimpse of the underdog he built himself up from. I like everything about him, so much.

My chest aches. No, that’s not quite right. I love him.

Shit. How the hell did that happen, without me even noticing?

That’s why I haven’t been able to relax and let go, isn’t it? I thought we had that connection he talked about, totally on the same wavelength. I thought he understood how important my company is to me. I have no idea what it means that he could sweep it away from me so easily, but it doesn’t seem like anything good. Maybe the guy I fell for isn’t who I thought he was after all?

And if that’s true . . . where do we go from here?