Page 24 of The Billionaire Mismatch

“Yes. Another date,” she says again.

“He hasn’t called me,” I say. “He hasn’t even texted me.”

“So text him,” she says.

“And if he doesn’t answer?” I ask, and Sadie just stares at me.

“He opened an eight-year-old bottle of wine and didn’t drink it,” she says. “He’ll text you back.”

“I gotta go,” I say, looking at my phone for the third time.

“Text him!” she calls out, and I smile with a sigh.

What even is my life right now?

* * *

“So how was your date?” Kiersten asks as soon as I walk in the door of the studio.

“Doesn’t anyone want to talk about anything else?” I ask, setting my things down and ripping the wrapper off the straw for my iced macchiato with my teeth. “And wait. How did you know about my date?” I ask.

“You’re kidding, right?” Kiersten asks while setting up her station. We are live today, starting the catfish series, and only have a few minutes. “You went on a date with the CEO of Realr. Everyone knows.”

I choke on my coffee, and it dribbles down the front of my dress. “Everyone? Who is everyone?”

“Okay, not everyone,” Henry says. “But that kind of news gets around to your friends. So what happened?”

“We have to go on air,” I say.

“In nine minutes,” Kiersten says. “Talk. Tell us everything.”

I let out a defeated sigh, knowing full well that these two aren’t going to drop it even if we do go live. So I tell them everything I can in the shortest amount of time possible.

“Sadie went out with Luca Laurent, and he was a total jerk to her. Ended the date before anything could happen, but led her to believe that there was something between them. Then, before she could ask him about it, he fired her. So, in a wine-induced moment of rage and loathing for Realr and everyone involved with the company, we came up with the idea to…catfish him…” I trail off towards the end.

“Hold on…” Henry says, shaking his head.

“You…were going to catfish someone?” Kiersten asks the question for him.

“I know, it’s terrible,” I say.

“No, it’s not,” Kiersten says. “It’s great.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?!” I ask.

“Because it’s kind of brilliant,” Henry agrees.

“No,” I shake my head. “No, it was wrong. Catfishing is wrong,” I say.

“Not when you’re catfishing a catfish,” Henry says.

“And a player,” Kiersten says. “And the CEO of Realr. And the guy who hurt your best friend.”

“Right, right,” I nod, covering my face with my hands for a moment. “He just…he seemed so nice last night.”

“Of course he did,” Henry says. “He was gaslighting you. To get what he wanted.”

“How do you know he got what he wanted?” I cut in and both of them give me a look.