Chapter 9 #2
“Definitely. It’s my job.”
“I thought your job was to keep an open mind.”
“Open to all the things most people don’t want to believe about their fellow humans.”
“Jeez, you’re inspiring.”
“Thanks,” he said with a big grin.
“Well”—I flipped through a few of Tanner’s pictures, glad to see a couple where he looked a bit less young—“you can keep your rude assumptions to yourself, or you can take them elsewhere.”
“Fair enough.” Grant didn’t move.
According to his profile, Tanner was looking for someone thoughtful, driven, and a bit unexpected.
Those three things applied to me, right?
He was a self-described investigative writer, which explained the press pass on one of his profile pictures.
I smiled sweetly at Grant. “Threatened?”
“I’m shaking,” he said dryly.
Jeff was last, and Grant managed to keep quiet while we browsed his profile. He was VP of Product at a tech company not far from Matchify, and his picture leaned into the businessman identity.
He was clean-cut, with neat, dark-brown hair, a slick suit, and a professionally neutral expression. Honestly, I’d have thought my compatibility percentage would’ve been highest with him. But that was after a quick glance through his profile. I couldn’t really dig in with Grant watching.
If I took these profiles to the other founders, Katie and Brooke would be neck-deep in them in two minutes.
“You ready to go on some dates?” Grant asked, all energy. “Who should we reach out to first?”
“The compatibility score is below 80%, so I”—I emphasized the word—“will wait for them to reach out. That’s generally the most efficient route.”
“It’s not a sales funnel; it’s human connection.”
I sat back in my chair with folded arms. “Are you here to observe or to run the show?”
His responding smile was an acknowledgement that he took my point. “I’m not trying to run things, but it’d be great not to sit here wasting time when you could just as easily reach out. Unless you’re scared to make the first move.”
I was. If anything would set me up to seem intense, it was being the one to initiate—and doing it immediately after being matched? That reeked of desperation.
I hated that I thought that. This wasn’t 1950, for heaven’s sake, and I was used to going after what I wanted—at least in the business sphere. But this was a really weird mixture of business and…pleasure? Maybe pain. Time would tell.
“I’m not scared,” I lied shamelessly, moving the cursor to the button that said Send Jeff a message. I hesitated. Jeff seemed like my best option. It would be a shame to scare him off by being overeager. Maybe I should message Leo or Tanner first.
“If he can’t handle you messaging first,” Grant said, “he’s a waste of your time.”
I might as well have been a sheet protector for how easily he saw through me.
“Besides,” he continued, “Jeff says he wants someone comfortable with ambition. Let’s test him on that.”
Let’s. There was no let’s about it. Grant had no skin in this game. It was pure entertainment for him.
But he was probably right. If Jeff didn’t like a woman who took initiative, it would be better to know that now.
I clicked decisively and typed a quick message, trying to pretend Grant wasn’t watching every keystroke.
Hey, Jeff! Good to meet you virtually. Looks like we work a few blocks away from each other. Let me know if you’d like to grab a coffee sometime.
I had just pressed enter when I got a new message. It was from Leo.
“He must be taking a break from bicep curls.”
I shot Grant a look. “Jealous?”
“Just curious when he’ll fit in a date between lifting sessions and meal prepping.”
Leo and I went back and forth a bit and ended up agreeing to meet in a week and a half. Contrary to Grant’s snarky quips, Leo wasn’t at the gym; he was on a business trip in Virginia.
“All right,” I said after closing out the chat. “Showtime’s over. I’ve got real work to do.”
“Not so fast,” Grant said, stopping my attempt to push his chair away by holding onto mine. “Today marks the beginning of our question-for-a-question game.”
I’d anticipated this, but a small part of me had hoped it would come at the end of the day. I hadn’t decided what question to ask him yet, but I was more nervous about what he would ask me.
Nervous and curious. What did Grant Wilder want to know about me?
“Fine,” I said, crossing my arms and facing him. “You first.”
He mirrored my body language, but on him it looked less like a challenge and more like settling in for an interesting chat. But those eyes...they raked over me like a full-body scanner. They were looking for chinks in my armor, though, not weapons or contraband.
I suspected if they watched me long enough, I’d start spilling my deepest secrets just to end the scrutiny.
“Maybe we should implement a time limit,” I said as the seconds dragged and my nerves startled to wriggle under his constant gaze. “Or we can skip today.”
The edge of his mouth tugged up. “Not a chance. I have about a hundred questions for you, and I only get a handful. I’ll be taking advantage of every last one.”
My pulse skipped. “Not if it takes you half an hour to decide every—”
“What incorrect assumption do people make about you?”
I blinked, mouth still open from my unfinished threat.
I didn’t know what question I’d been expecting, but that wasn’t it. I figured he’d ask me about my childhood trauma or something else gritty and invasive.
As I considered how to respond, Grant watched me like most of my answer wouldn’t be coming out of my mouth.
We’d agreed to be truthful, but just how forthcoming did I have to be? There were a dozen different answers I could give to that question, ranging from your red hair isn’t real to you never laugh.
He’d know if I held back, though—he was too perceptive not to—and if I held back, he’d hold back. I was too greedy to know more about Grant to be okay with that.
I waited for him to tease me about implementing a time limit for responses, but he just watched me with the expression I was beginning to feel familiar with: the ghost of a smile under keen, attentive eyes, almost like he knew something I didn’t and was waiting to see if I caught on.
My pulse hummed. It shouldn’t be this hard to answer a simple question. The longer I waited, though, the harder it got—and the more interested he’d be in my answer.
I had to say something.
“That I don’t feel anything.”
His brows pulled together. Like he thought I was lying.
“What?” I said. “It’s true.”
“I’m not doubting the truth of it. I just figured it was an assumption you’d cultivated on purpose.”
It was my turn to frown. “Purposely cultivated the assumption that I’m a robot?”
He seemed mildly amused. “Who called you a robot?”
I pressed my lips together. “You’ve already used your question for the day.”
The way he looked at me made me feel like that answer had given away plenty. He could probably see Chase’s name reflected on the lenses of my glasses.
“Look,” he said, “I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman in tech, but I can’t imagine it’s easy. And you’re not just a woman in tech. You’re a young, beautiful, female CEO in tech.” He shrugged. “Appearing unemotional has to be a basic survival mechanism.”
Beautiful. Of all the words he’d used to describe me, my brain snagged on that one. Did he really think I was beautiful?
Get a grip, Vivian.
He wasn’t wrong about the other stuff, though, and it was strangely validating to hear him acknowledge it. I walked a tightrope, trying to avoid losing my balance and falling into the ice queen side on the one hand and the overemotional pushover side on the other.
“Thanks,” I said, “but it happens to be an assumption from well before I was a CEO.”
Why was I saying this? I’d done my duty; I’d answered my question.
He shrugged a shoulder. “Still waters run deep. Only people who insist on playing in the shallows don’t know that.”
He said it so nonchalantly, but it hit me even harder than beautiful had.
Was that why he was so curious about me? Because he thought I was deep?
It sounded like a compliment, but maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe he wanted to know what freakish things I was hiding in those depths, like that hideous, toothy anglerfish I’d once seen on a documentary.
The kind that drags its bait through the dark abyss, somehow surviving in the unfathomable bowels of the ocean.
I exhaled sharply. “Your turn.”
“My turn,” he agreed, not looking the least bit nervous.
I thought through the list of potential questions I’d come up with. I felt the same way as he did—hesitant to “waste” one and eager to know more about his depths.
“Have you ever been too afraid to write the truth?” I asked.
A little twitch in his expression made me think my question had caught him off guard, but maybe I’d imagined it.
His lips turned down at the edges as he considered it. “No.”
I cocked a brow. “You mean not once in your career have you glossed over something or omitted it out of fear?”
“The truth is the one thing I’m not afraid of.”
“Sometimes the truth hurts.” I thought of the last text I’d sent to Chase, asking him to tell me the truth about why he’d broken up with me. He’d been so vague and wishy-washy when he’d broken things off in person.
He told me the truth in that pithy text response, though, and I’d been hurting ever since. I’d wondered more times than I could count if I should’ve just left things as they’d been.
But it wasn’t in my nature. That same intensity that had driven him away is what made me ask for something concrete from him. I wanted information that would help me prevent future mistakes in dating.
Instead, the data I’d received had kept me away from dating altogether.
“Not as much as a lie hurts,” Grant said. “Not in the long run.”
Was he right? It wasn’t like I was advocating against the truth. I loved the truth in numbers. I lived for it. But numbers told the truth in patterns.
Words were personal.
“I should get back to work,” I said.
He uncrossed his arms and slid over to his typewriter. “Me too.”
True to his word, Grant didn’t bother me for the next two hours. He clacked away on The Truth Machine, which bothered me less than I’d anticipated.
More annoying was the way my mind and eyes wandered to him while I worked, wondering what he was writing, trying to decide what I’d ask him next—and anticipate what he’d ask me.