26. Grayson
26
GRAYSON
I ’ve negotiated board takeovers, investor buyouts, and one literal yacht standoff in Monaco. But nothing quite prepares you for being blackmailed by a senator in the middle of your own matchmaking mixer. Mallory’s smile is weaponized. I’m fairly certain if I were to touch her champagne glass, it would detonate.
Margot stiffens beside me, but her voice stays cool. “Senator, would you mind giving us a moment to… discuss your proposal?”
“Of course,” Mallory says, ever gracious. “I’ll be near the piano, contemplating a scandal.”
She glides off with the smugness of someone who just checkmated us in four moves. Margot pulls me toward the terrace, just out of earshot. Jazz and laughter swirl around us, but my pulse is a steady throb.
“She wants us to find her a match?” Margot hisses. “Or she’ll leak the pregnancy?”
“She wants both,” I say. “Power and narrative. And a seat at our table.”
“She doesn’t even like people. She once called emotional vulnerability ‘a distraction.’”
“She also passed a federal privacy bill while ghosting her own engagement,” I say. “She’s complicated.”
Margot pinches the bridge of her nose. “What do we do?”
I exhale slowly. “We stall. Tell her we’re vetting her as a client, just like anyone else. Meanwhile, we figure out how to outmaneuver a woman who once made a venture capitalist cry in a Senate hearing.”
Margot’s lips twitch. “He deserved it.”
“She probably thinks I do too.”
She looks at me, and the tension breaks just a little. “We’ll figure it out.”
I reach for her hand. “We always do.”
When we walk back inside, Mallory is seated at the piano bench, not playing, of course, just tapping the keys in a way that sounds vaguely ominous.
“Have we reached consensus?” she asks.
“For now,” I say, “we’re considering your request.”
She smiles. “Smart boys get far. Strategic couples? Even farther.”
This isn’t over. Not even close.
But I already know one thing: if she thinks she can manipulate us with secrets and headlines, she’s underestimated the two most dangerous things we have. Each other.
***
Back in my office the next morning, the city hums through the windows, louder than usual, or maybe that’s just my blood pressure. Margot perches on the edge of the couch, a notepad in one hand and a protein bar she’s not actually eating in the other.
“So,” she says, tapping her pen, “we give her what she wants, on our terms.”
“You mean spin it so she thinks she’s in control.”
“Exactly. We vet her. Publicly. Make her go through the same rigorous screening we’d apply to any client. Interviews, psychological evaluation, background compatibility audit.”
“She’ll hate it.”
“She’ll also be too proud to back down. And if she passes? We control the story. We match her with someone who won’t tolerate her BS and let the chaos play out under our roof instead of the national spotlight.”
I nod slowly. “It’s high-risk.”
Margot’s grin is all teeth. “So was marrying me in Vegas.”
“Point taken.”
I lean back in my chair, the weight of the moment shifting into something almost exhilarating.
“We leak it first,” I say. “Control the timing. Frame it as an exclusive— Senator Mallory entrusts Perfectly Matched with the most powerful pairing in politics . Make her sound visionary, not manipulative.”
“And if she balks?”
“We remind her who has the better algorithm—and who’s pregnant with the future of matchmaking.”
Margot raises her protein bar like a toast. “To weaponized love.”
“To survival,” I reply, clinking my coffee cup against it.
And just like that, we go to war, with a smile.
***
By the time Olivia steps into the office, we’ve already outlined the bones of what we’re calling Operation Ice Queen. She reads our notes, raises one eyebrow so high it nearly hits her hairline, and then sits down without a word.
“Senator Mallory wants to be matched?” she finally asks.
“Wants is generous,” Margot mutters. “She threatened to make our unborn child front-page news unless we deliver her a soulmate.”
Olivia scrolls through the intake form mock-up I’ve drafted. “You realize she’ll try to control every part of the narrative. She’ll want veto power on matches, screening questions, probably even wardrobe notes for first dates.”
“She can want whatever she likes,” I say. “She gets the same onboarding experience as any other elite client. No more, no less.”
Margot taps her notepad. “We’ll start with an interview. On camera. Friendly, transparent. Let the world see that she came to us because she believes in the power of what we’ve built. Not because she’s pulling political strings.”
“Spin it as strategy, not scandal,” Olivia nods.
“And while the public watches,” I add, “we start compiling possible matches. The kind of men who won’t be afraid to challenge her, outwit her, or, God help them, keep up.”
Olivia smirks. “Sounds like we’re recruiting for a high-stakes dating version of Gladiator.”
Margot grins. “Exactly.”
We sit there, the three of us, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling glass and quiet tension. It should feel terrifying. Instead, it feels like control. Because if Mallory wants to play this game, she’ll have to play by our rules.
The first step? A public-facing compatibility consultation. We schedule a live-streamed-Q&A with Mallory to "reveal her vision for modern power couples." Olivia books the network, I draft the talking points, and Margot coordinates the aesthetics, down to the branded mugs and camera angles that make Mallory’s cheekbones pop.
The second step? Internal vetting. We send Mallory our twenty-page intake packet, disguised as a curated onboarding portfolio. Psychometrics, emotional benchmarks, political philosophy rubrics, she sends it back within an hour, annotated. In red pen.
“She corrected our grammar,” Margot mutters. “And she drew arrows linking trust issues to former campaign donors.”
“Efficient,” Olivia deadpans.
The third step is the part no one sees. I work late into the night running compatibility algorithms, narrowing the candidate list to six men with the brains, backbone, and emotional stamina to survive dinner with Mallory. One’s a Navy lawyer turned humanitarian. Another is a French AI ethicist with a scandalous smile and zero tolerance for bullshit.
We watch the profiles together, side by side on the couch. Margot leans her head on my shoulder as we scroll.
“She’s going to eat at least two of them alive,” she says.
“That’s why we lead with the ethicist,” I say. “He’s fluent in both French and red flags.”
She laughs, soft and tired. “I hate that we’re good at this.”
I glance at her. “I love that we are.”
The war is underway. The rules are set. Now all we need… is the match.
***
The first date is discreet. Private table. Weeknight. High-end but unpretentious. The restaurant is tucked behind an unmarked door in Tribeca, a subterranean spot with velvet banquettes, moody lighting, and minimalist jazz bleeding from a vintage speaker system. The walls are exposed brick, the menus leather-bound and handwritten, and the waitstaff move with the precision of diplomats. It’s the kind of place where power meets privacy, and a well-placed compliment could be currency.
The table they’re given is cornered in intimacy: candlelit, semi-screened by trailing ferns and a tall wine rack that doubles as a sound buffer. Every detail has been curated by our team—from the perfect vintage of Chateauneuf-du-Pape to the soft gold tones of the ambient lighting that highlight but never interrogate. Even the air smells expensive, like saffron and negotiation.
Mallory arrives precisely on time in a sharply tailored navy pantsuit and heels that could puncture tires. She nods once at the hostess, twice at the discreet camera crew we’ve hidden behind a nearby floral installation, and takes her seat with the same precision she uses to dissect legislation.
The match? étienne Marcelle. French-born AI ethicist with Oxford degrees and a dry wit. He walks in looking equal parts European cinema lead and morally sound philosophy professor. No tie. Rolled sleeves. The aura of a man who could debate Aristotle while mixing a perfect martini. Their first exchange is tense, formal.
"Senator," he says, bowing slightly. "Or may I call you Claudia?"
"Only if I call you by your student debt balance."
He laughs. “Touché. But you’ll find I paid it off early. Out of spite.”
A smile tugs at her lips, and she catches it before it lands. They order wine. Then argue about data privacy over scallops. Somewhere between dessert and decaf, she leans forward.
“You’re more tolerable than expected.”
“And you’re terrifying in the best possible way.”
The footage we review the next day is clinical—Mallory’s expression unreadable, étienne’s relaxed but deliberate, but there’s a shift. A spark, however reluctant. Margot and I exchange a look.
“She didn’t stab him with a dessert fork,” she says. “That’s practically affectionate.”
“She let him finish a sentence,” I add. “Twice.”
Olivia rewinds a frame and points to where Mallory’s fingers subtly mirror étienne’s hand placement. “Subconscious mimicry. Positive sign.”
We all lean back, barely breathing.
“Well,” I murmur. “Let round two begin.”
***
It doesn’t take long for round one to go public, because someone leaks the footage. It’s not us. It’s not our team. But the next morning, a headline screams across half a dozen news outlets: MATCHMAKING OR MANIPULATION? Senator Claudia Mallory’s Secret Date with a Tech Philosopher Caught on Camera
The clip is grainy but unmistakable. Mallory laughing. étienne pouring wine. Their sparring over scallops edited down to a three-second exchange that makes them look like a flirt-heavy rom-com pilot. Olivia storms into my office with her tablet already open.
“ PulseMatch ,” she says flatly. “They’re behind it. Or someone affiliated. The watermark on the bottom corner is tied to a private beta tool they’ve been testing.”
Margot’s already pulling up our PR dashboard. “It’s trending. We’ve got two hours, max, before the networks start spinning it as scandal.”
“We leak the full version,” I say. “Context, tone, control.”
“And then what?” Margot asks.
“Then we go on offense.”
I look at both of them. The game changed, but we were born in it. Built for it. Now it’s not just about the match. It’s about the message. And no one outmaneuvers Perfectly Matched on its home turf.