Chapter 20
DANE
Isipped my coffee, staring out the window of my high-rise apartment. The city was blanketed in white. From my view, it all looked pretty and pristine. But I knew it was an illusion.
Just like last night.
But last night was all very real. And it had been perfect. And then I immediately panicked and fled like a coward.
I kissed my assistant. That was every corporate nightmare. You don’t shit where you eat. But I didn’t kiss my assistant. I kissed Ina.
That’s what she’d become somewhere along the way.
Not my employee. Not just the woman helping me with a marketing campaign.
She was Ina, the person who made me laugh without trying and saw me for the man I was and not the billionaire CEO.
The Ina that believed in magic and gave the most thoughtful gifts and made me want to be better than I was.
I crossed every line I’d ever drawn for myself and the company.
And God help me, I’d do it again.
My phone buzzed on the kitchen counter. I was ignoring it. Usually, the damn thing would be attached to my hand, but I needed a minute to get my head straight. But part of me was hoping it might be a text from her.
I knew that was ridiculous because she had zero reason to text me. I saw it was an email notification to my private email. I quickly checked and saw it was from Heidi.
I almost ignored it, but since she was sending it to my personal email, I figured I better see what was going on.
Dane,
I owe you an apology. You were right about the extended commercial concept. I got carried away with the metrics and lost sight of what’s actually important. We’re sticking with the original plan. One commercial, airing on Valentine’s Day, with the strategic photo releases we’ve already been doing.
I’ve talked to Lucas and we’re both in agreement. There will be no more schemes or pushing boundaries. What we have is working. The numbers are incredible and we don’t need to risk it by making anyone uncomfortable.
Thank you for keeping me in check. It’s why you’re the CEO and I’m just the person who occasionally gets too excited about campaign opportunities.
Heidi
I didn’t bother replying. It wasn’t the kind of email that required a response. She screwed up and she knew it. I went along with a lot of their wild ideas, but I would never use anyone.
At least that was one crisis averted. Ina’s privacy would be protected.
After the campaign was over, we’d both pretend we hadn’t spent the last few weeks falling for each other while pretending to date.
Perfect. Just perfect.
I needed to do something. Needed to move, to occupy my mind with something other than the wild spiral I was stuck in over a simple kiss.
Okay, simple was not a word I would use to describe that moment between us. It had been explosive. And so good. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to demand she show me her bedroom. I wasn’t being presumptuous to think she would have let me in.
I know she would have. I had a feeling if I called her right now, she would be happy to meet up.
But that would be a dick move. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. That felt too much like something some jerk in college would do.
But I had to do something.
Shopping. I’d go shopping for Lucas’s next Cupid’s exchange gift. That would be productive and distracting.
I grabbed my coat and headed to HomeGoods.
Lucas had been dropping not-so-subtle hints about wanting a particular smart toaster that apparently could be controlled via an app on your phone because we lived in a world where even kitchen appliances needed Wi-Fi.
I couldn’t really judge, though, considering an app had made me a fortune.
I was in the small appliances section, staring at an array of toasters that all looked identical to me when my phone rang.
Keith.
I was still not thrilled with him. I’d been trying to decide how to broach the subject of his harassment of Ina. I didn’t want to come off as an overprotective boyfriend, but I needed to do something to get the asshole to back off. He was trying my patience.
“What’s up?” I answered.
“Just checking in,” he said. Keith sounded far too cheerful. I could hear music in the background. And voices. Female voices.
“Where are you?”
“Miami. Decided I needed a break from the snow. Got a last-minute flight yesterday afternoon.” He laughed at something someone said in the background.
“Miami? For the weekend?”
“The week.”
“The week?” I repeated.
“Didn’t I put it in the shared calendar?”
“No, you didn’t.” I felt a headache building.
“What’s up? Did you need something?”
I needed his ass in the office during our busiest time of the year.
“Did you get Ina’s next gift for the exchange?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Who?”
I closed my eyes and counted to five. “Ina. Your Secret Cupid assignment. The person you’re supposed to be buying gifts for.”
“Oh, Ava. Nah, I told my assistant to handle it. She knows my budget.” He was already distracted, talking to someone else. “Listen, I gotta go. Drinks are here. Catch you next week!”
He hung up before I could respond. Why the fuck had he even called me?
I stood in the middle of HomeGoods, holding a smart toaster I was definitely going to buy for Lucas, and did my absolute best not to throw my phone across the store.
Keith was in Miami fucking off as usual. He’d delegated it to his assistant—again—without giving her any guidance. And he couldn’t even remember Ina’s name.
I paid for the toaster and left.
There was no way I was going to let Ina get some stupid stapler or other ridiculous gift.
I found myself driving to a sporting goods store on the edge of SoHo. The place had been there for decades. One of the few that had not been gobbled up by some big box franchise.
I found the ice-skating section and started looking at skates. Ina’s skates had been well-worn, clearly loved, but they were also clearly old. She deserved better.
I spent twenty minutes talking to a sales associate who actually knew the difference between figure skates and hockey skates. He helped me find a pair that would be appropriate for someone with Ina’s skill level.
I was checking out bags to carry the skates in when I overheard a couple the next aisle over.
“I’m just saying, if Sarah and Mike give away our origin story at the wedding, I’m going to die of embarrassment,” the woman was saying.
“It’s a cute story! You met on Cupid’s Arrow. There’s nothing embarrassing about that. Everyone is doing the online dating thing these days. No one has time to hang out in produce sections or bars looking for their forever person.”
“It’s embarrassing that we were both too chicken to actually meet in person for three months. We just kept messaging back and forth like pen pals.”
A happy ending. The kind of thing my company loved to promote.
It got me thinking about Cupid’s Arrow and the couples who met through our platform. I had built an entire company around something I was convinced didn’t exist.
I paid for the skates and then headed to the office. If anyone needed an idea about how or why I was single, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out. I didn’t go out. I didn’t socialize. I spent every single day at the office, working my butt off.
The building was mostly empty except for security and a few overachievers from various departments. I took the elevator up to my floor and let myself into my office. The silence was almost eerie without the usual bustle of activity.
I sat at my desk, opened my laptop, and pulled up the Cupid’s Arrow site. I had never made a profile. Never filled out the questionnaire. Never submitted myself to the algorithm I helped design.
Because I didn’t believe it would work for me. I was certain I was somehow exempt from the very thing I sold to others. But what if it would work for me? What if there truly was a person out there meant just for me?
I created a profile.
I bypassed the salary requirements—one of the benefits of owning the company—and started filling out the prompts. It took a little time but I finished the profile and hit submit.
The screen changed to the standard confirmation message. Thank you for joining Cupid’s Arrow! Our matchmakers are hard at work finding your perfect match. You should expect results within one business week.
I stared at the screen, then closed my laptop.
What the hell was I doing?
Making a Cupid’s Arrow profile wasn’t going to solve anything. I already knew who I wanted. She was probably at home right now. She was probably regretting the kiss and wondering what the hell she’d gotten herself into by agreeing to this fake dating scheme.
I should leave. Go home. Spend the rest of my Saturday doing literally anything other than sitting in my empty office spiraling about my feelings for my assistant.
I heard footsteps in the hallway. I looked up and saw Ina slide into her desk chair with her back to me as usual.
She was here. At the office. On a Saturday.
We were just a little too alike.
“Morning,” I said.
She screamed and jumped about a foot in the air, spinning in her chair to face me with one hand pressed to her chest.
“Holy shit, Dane! You scared me!” She was breathing hard, her eyes wide. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I’m catching up. I missed two days being sick and I’m so far behind.”
I nodded. I should have expected that.
She looked at me and suddenly it all got very weird. There was a giant elephant in the room. I had to address it. I couldn’t just pretend it didn’t happen.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you last night,” I said, the words coming out before I could stop them.
Her face fell. “I know. We shouldn’t have—”
“I don’t regret it at all.”
She froze, her mouth still half-open on whatever she’d been about to say.
I stood up from my desk and walked toward her. She stood as well.
I reached for her hand and slowly pulled her into my office.
“I don’t regret it,” I repeated. “Do you?”
She shook her head and then I was kissing her again.
Her hands came up to grip my shirt, pulling me closer. My hands dropped to her waist and pulled her against me. She reached behind her and shut the door.
I pushed her against it and slammed the lock shut.
I kissed her like a man starved. Like she was oxygen and I’d been drowning. Her mouth opened under mine and I took full advantage, deepening the kiss until we were both breathless.
My hands slid up from her waist, one moving to cup the back of her neck while the other pressed against the door beside her head. I needed to anchor myself somewhere because everything felt like it was spinning out of control.
A soft moan vibrated through her and it nearly undid me.
I pulled back just enough to look at her. Her lips were swollen, her cheeks flushed, and those dark green eyes were looking at me with an expression that I knew mirrored my own.
If we were about to mistake, we would make it together.