Page 89 of The Billionaire Mismatch

“What about you?” he asks. “Do you feel like you’re looking in the rearview?”

I think about that before smiling again. “No. I don’t. My parents are still together. Even though Daren and I have been out of the house for years. He’s a narcissist, and she’s a doormat.”

“And yet you believe in love,” he states.

“Not just love,” I say, fully aware of the sparkle in my eyes. “Romance.”

Luca is still smirking. “And how does that add up?”

“What? Believing in romance despite the fact that witnessing my parents dysfunctional relationship literally made me question everything I believe?” I ask.

“Pretty much,” he nods.

“I guess that’s the thing,” I say, staring out at the sky again. It’s kind of funny. Although I have talked about my job before, it really has never been like this before. I’ve never even thought about it like this. “I’m kind of stubborn. Maybe it’s because I’m Irish. Maybe it’s a retaliation against him. Maybe it’s all those psych classes I took in college. But the more I saw love die, the more I wanted to believe in the real thing.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t like the Notebook or something?” he teases, and I swat at him, making him laugh. It’s a gritty, deep sound that I need to hear again and again.

“Okay, I admit I read all of his books. And yes. Knowing a man wrote them did shape a lot of my views on what love should look like,” I say.

“I knew it,” Luca grins as he takes a sip of his wine.

“But in my defense, why not? If love and romance and happily ever after are the one thing that people chase with every fiber of their being, why not believe that it can exist?”

“It does exist,” he says. “It’s just–”

“Don’t say it,” I stop him.

“Don’t say what?” he asks.

“Whatever scientific, logical thing you were going to say,” I tell him, bottoming the rest of my wine and setting the glass on the table. “Because there is nothing you could say that would change the fact that I believe in fate. I believe in soulmates. I believe in auras, chemistry, love at first sight, twin flames, and happily ever afters. In a world where instant gratification and technology literally put the whole world at our fingertips, I believe the real, genuine thing is more likely to walk through our door when the universe wills it. You know why?” I ask.

“Why?” he asks, with the same amount of passion in his voice, just at a more Luca-esque caliber.

“Because when it’s supposed to happen, it will. For both people, it will.”

“But not through a dating app,” he says, and I shake my head.

“Not through an app,” I echo, reaching for the bottle.

“That’s a shame,” he says. “Considering we met on an app.”

I stop, my hand on the neck of the bottle.

But Luca just smiles. “Unless…the app isn’t the reason we met.”

“What do you mean?” I ask after pouring myself another glass.

“I mean, I have a feeling that you and I would have ended up exactly where we are even if the app wasn’t involved,” he says, and I search his eyes.

My heart is pounding against my rib cage. Does he know? Does he know that Sadie asked me to fuck with him? Does he know about the podcast? I’m inwardly panicking. But Luca’s smile tells me that’s not where he is going with this.

“So how would we have made it to where we are now then?” I ask. “If our algorithms hadn’t matched, and I hadn’t swiped right?”

“Hard to say,” he tells me, his eyes warm on mine. “Maybe fate.”

I swallow hard. “You don’t believe in fate,” I remind him.

“I think I might be starting to…” he says, and my heart slingshots to the moon.