Page 94 of The Billionaire Mismatch

“She…kissed you?” I ask in utter disbelief.

“Yeah,” he says, letting out a breath. I study him hard. Searching for the catfish. Searching for the charm. Searching for anything to tell me that he’s making this up. Because if he is telling thetruth, that means that not only was he not at fault, but Sadie lied to me. And used me to hurt him because her pride was hurt.

“I can’t believe this,” I say, shaking my head. I take in a breath and let it out shakily. Because while he is yanking skeletons out of the closet, I should probably clean mine out too. “Luca…I need to tell you something…” I trail off momentarily, the words feeling thick in my mouth. “The reason I swiped right on your profile, heck, the reason I had the Realr app at all, was because Sadie asked me to…catfish you.”

I bite my lip the moment the words are out and squeeze my eyes shut. I’m expecting anger. Hurt. Yelling even. But the sound that comes from his mouth is nothing like that. In fact, it’s such an unexpected sound that I actually open my eyes again to see if the noise he’s making is real.

Luca is chuckling.

“Why is that funny?” I ask in disbelief.

“Because I know,” he says, and I just blink.

“You know?” I ask. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I knew what you were up to,” he says.

“You did? How?” I gasp.

“It wasn’t that hard to figure out, Olivia. Did you think I wasn’t going to look you up? You have photos on social media with her. What are the odds that Sadie’s best friend would match with me on Realr right after I fired her?”

“If you knew, why didn’t you say anything?” I ask.

“Honestly,” he says, dragging a hand through his hair, a smirk still on his lips. “It was more fun to play along,” he says.

“What?”

“Did you really think you could catfish the CEO of the most successful dating app in history?” he asks.

“I mean…” I shrug, and then I realize this is kind of funny. Ridiculous really. I stop and turn to him. “Wait. So is that why you didn’t sleep with me on those first dates?”

“It is. Because I knew that you were trying to get me to sleep with you so that you could use it against my reputation,” he says. My face flushes so many tones of red that I cover it with my hands.

“Did you really think I didn’t want to sleep with you?” he asks, and I just shrug, hands still on my face. “Resisting you was close to impossible, Olivia.”

With that, I look at him again. “Seriously?” I ask.

“Dead serious,” he says. “That and I guess subconsciously I didn’t want to use you for sex either. I’m interested in you, Olivia. Not catfishing you, but dating you. I hope I’ve made that obvious.”

“I feel the same,” I say. “Wow.”

But then I realize there is something else I need to tell him. Because even if we just cleared the air and both basically admitted that we are smitten with each other, he still doesn’t know about the podcast.

“Luca,” I start to say. “There’s something else.”

“Okay,” he says softly.

“My podcast is called Unmatched. It basically is an attempt to dismantle the digital dating world,” I say.

“An ambitious goal. But go on…”

“We’ve done all kinds of series, from red flags to filters to ghosts. You name it. And our most recent series is about–”

“I know,” he says, and I stop dead.

“You do?” I ask.

“People talk,” he says. “That and I’ve listened to it.”