executive had patiently explained to her that no one took a woman who cried in the business world seriously. So Rhiannon had eradicated tears from her lexicon. Now she didn’t even cry when she was alone.
Her nose twitched, and she beat back the prickle at the base of her throat, horrified at how close she was to leaking. Right here? Where anyone could see her? Not a fucking chance.
Theirs was a tale as old as, well, as old as a right swipe meaning you liked someone. They’d swiped, matched, met, fucked.
Leaving out the part where he snuck under your defenses and then ghosted you, I see.
She never thought she’d see him again, let alone here. Working for the company she wanted to buy? Fate, you bitch.
Inappropriate laughter tickled her throat, but she beat that back too. Her nails cut harder into her skin. She’d leave marks on herself, but that was fine. Anything to stay expressionless. Strong.
A man had stolen her ambition from her once before. She’d be damned if she forgot the vow she’d made to herself four years ago. Never take your eyes off what really matters. Never again.
Rhi relaxed her hands, one finger at a time. She could leave now. The person she’d come to see wasn’t here, so she could absolutely leave now.
Instead, she drifted closer to the stage, driven by the same impulse that might drive someone rubbernecking at a car wreck.
Never forget how terrible a person can be.
Samson finished shaking William’s hand and smiled out at the audience. Despite her vow, Rhiannon’s hardened heart squeezed. That smile had been devastating in a dark bar, sweet and tinged with sadness. Here, brilliant and charming and assisted by a lighting team? It was irresistible.
To other women. Not to her.
“Thanks, everyone, and thank you, William.”
That voice. That deep, husky voice that had whispered all sorts of nonsense in her ear.
“I’m so honored to be a member of the Matchmaker family. People laugh when I say this, but it’s hard for me to meet women.”
Oh, this motherfucker. Rhi cracked her neck. Maybe you shouldn’t ghost the women you’ve met then.
“But I’m thirty-six and I’m ready, past ready, to put some time and energy into my love life. So I decided to make the big leap.” William handed him a tablet. Samson glanced behind him as the screen melted away to a Matchmaker profile, while the women in the audience hooted in delight. The main photo was a picture of Samson, casually leaning against a car.
“Now, I don’t know much about dating sites.”
Liar.
Samson swiped on the screen of the tablet. “But I was told I needed a photo of me with a baby, with a caption that says, ‘Not my baby.’” The photo dissolved into one of him holding an adorable Asian baby. He smiled when people in the audience laughed and awwed. “That’s my goddaughter, Miley. She’s a cutie. Also, stereotypically conventional masculinity and a sense of adventure is important, right? So here I am posing on a safari.” He swiped to a photo of him holding a stuffed tiger and lion. “These are also my goddaughter’s. She’s the real MVP, letting me borrow them.”
This asshole, showing affection for an infant. Her ovaries were sighing, and she didn’t even know if she wanted children.
He clicked to a photo of a younger Samson in a helmet and his green-and-black football uniform, face hard and intense. “I haven’t played pro in almost a decade, but my friend said a work photo is appropriate.”
That night they’d lain in bed together, he hadn’t told her he was a former pro-football player. She could have found out but she’d consciously refused and unmatched him, releasing him to the wilds of dating other women.
There was a lot you didn’t tell him too. Starting with your real name.
A good call, she’d told herself, the night he’d stood her up.
While he scrolled through the rest of his too-sexy pics and the rest of the audience hummed their appreciation, Rhiannon seethed. When Rhi had swiped right on him on Crush, he’d only had one photo, and it had been vague, his face in profile, his thick bare chest revealed, the line of hair on his muscular belly his main attraction.
She hadn’t minded the photo, and since she owned the app—and the data people willingly forked over in their quest for love—she didn’t fear for her safety in the same way other women might. Her own single pic was of her in a bikini, face also turned away.