Enemies make the best lovers when an angry ballerina and a brash billionaire face off in New York Times bestselling author Anne Marsh’s latest hot-as-hades DARE novel!

If billionaire Max O’Reilly doesn’t take my video off his hookup app, I’ll destroy more than his high-end laptop. But this computer genius is no geek. He’s all tanned skin and hard muscle and knowing looks. And my man picker must be broken beyond repair, because I can’t help responding to his cocky grin.

Max has figured out my secret: I love to be watched. But I never imagined my hateful ex would upload a video of me pirouetting in nothing but my ballet slippers. Now my job as a social media influencer is on the line. Because who’s going to hire an unwitting porn star to promote their products?

The Silicon Valley CEO wants to make it up to me, and I do need a respectable-looking fake boyfriend to save my reputation. But when a game of beachside truth or dare turns X-rated, the heat between us could fry any electronic device. And when the king of kink wants more than a hookup, I know I should exit stage right before I’m the one who gets burned.

Harlequin DARE publishes sexy romances featuring powerful alpha heroes and bold, fearless heroines exploring their deepest fantasies.

Four new Harlequin DARE titles are available each month, wherever ebooks are sold!

ANNE MARSH writes sexy contemporary and paranormal romances because the world can always enjoy one more alpha male. She started writing romance after getting laid off from her job as a technical writer—and quickly decided happily-ever-afters trumped software manuals. She lives in North Carolina with her two kids and five cats.

Hookup

Anne Marsh

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09937-0

HOOKUP

© 2020 Anne Marsh

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE
Maple#goddessofwar #eraser #accidentalpornstar

I MAKE MY grand entrance, bursting through the doors of Kinkster in San Francisco’s gritty, dirty, fabulously alive Mission District. Kinkster is a hookup app for people who preferred nonvanilla sex, but you wouldn’t guess it from the office space. It’s all bland start-up chic, a wide-open, minimalist stage of tables and laptops ringed by a jeans-and-T-shirt-wearing chorus staring at me with varying degrees of shock. Yes, look at me.

Righteous anger surges up in me again, temporarily swallowing the too-familiar sense of shame. I wish I weren’t here, that Madd Dixon was every bit as perfect as he had seesmed. Hot and poetically sweet, he wrote me an honest-to-God card after our first night together, swearing I’d reformed his bad-boy self. Charming, rugged, downright dirty in bed? Yes, yes, and oh you betcha please. We’d been an instant couple from our first date, sharing sleepovers and late-night laptop sessions as we built our respective online businesses. While I built my influencer kingdom, he’d sourced a paper goods supply business, delivering monthly subscription boxes of pretty notebooks, pens, and sticky pads to thousands of home offices across the country. We’d planned to adopt a rescue puppy and last weekend I’d cheered from the sidelines as he played rugby with a brutal, ferocious masculinity that melted my panties right off and made me think, He could be the one. Right now, however, I’d settle for taking his head off—the big one or the small one.

God, he’s a liar.

Madd Dixon also turned out to be a cheater and a bastard, his decision to post our personal video on Kinkster being the cherry on the shit sundae he’d served me. For your eyes only, I’d texted when I’d sent the video I’d made of myself with my phone. Ours, he’d agreed with a winky face and a kiss—and I’d stupidly believed him. Now a gazillion Kinkster subscribers have watched me pirouetting in nothing but my birthday suit and ballet slippers. My inadvertent show-and-tell has already garnered me five hundred hookup requests.

A blue jeans–wearing engineer pads toward me, eyes widening as he takes me in. Sure, he might recognize me from my successful five-year career with the San Francisco Ballet—but I’ll bet he remembers me naked and dancing in that stupid video. Him and everyone else in San Francisco.

He’s willing to play nice, though, asking, “Can I help you?”

No, no you can’t, I want to scream. My picker is irredeemably broken given my recent man choices. My pre-Madd pick was equally a disaster, and the guy before that...let’s not go there. My feet settle automatically into first position, no longer poised to leap.

“Yes,” I lie. What I really need is a brain transplant or a lobotomy. Some kind of drastic intervention. “Someone’s posted a video of me on Kinkster without my permission. I want it taken down.”

“There’s a take-down form on our website for reporting copyright violations.” He volunteers this information cautiously and I bet he wishes he hadn’t stood up because, hello? Helpful, nice people get handed a shit sandwich from the snack cart of life.

“I don’t want to fill out a form.” I inhale deeply, centering myself because otherwise I’ll do something even more stupid than dating Madd. “I want this fixed. Gone. Deleted.”

Lola, my best friend and wing woman, tried to warn me about Madd. Over the years, I’ve razzed her about her broken man picker, but it turns out that I’m the one who needs “Remember: Guys Are Assholes” tattooed on my forehead because over and over I pick the assholiest asshole of the bunch. And my stupidity matters more now than ever because one of my post-ballet career moves is my Instagram brand. Being an Instagram influencer has much in common with a circus seal juggling a bright red ball on its nose. If I serve up the cute, perky and well-balanced version of me and create super popular online content, I’ll not only be able to promote my own athleisure line, but I’ll score paying gigs promoting other products. The downside? I’m always on; the curtain never falls on my performance because I share my personal life with a gazillion insta-friends.

“Take me to your leader.” I stab a finger toward Hot Nerd, who nods nervously, spins on his (bare) heel and marches toward a glass-walled office on the far side of the building.

“Max?” He tosses the name over his shoulder for confirmation, although clearly he’s already decided that Max Whoever-He-Is gets the pleasure of dealing with me.

“Is he responsible for Kinkster?”

Welcoming-Committee-Nerd nods vigorously and the mental soundtrack in my head picks up steam. Today’s theme song is “Ride of the Valkyries.” What kind of guy codes an app specifically for kinky hookups? And what does it say about me that I’ve spent hours scrolling through it? When Hot Nerd pauses in front of an office door, I barrel through it before nerves can get the best of me. No script? No worries. I’ll improvise.

Sunlight floods the office, silhouetting a big, rangy guy sprawled behind yet another laptop. They must pass those things out like candy. The iron-and-wood shelves bolted to the exposed brick walls house an impressive collection of Star Wars figurines outnumbered only by stacks of books. I register dark hair just long enough to run my fingers through and suntanned skin. Head Nerd clearly gets out of the office. A lot. Long lashes sweep up as I storm toward him. God, he has the most gorgeous eyes I’ve ever seen. I might accidentally fall into them for just a second before I recover and continue my self-righteous advance.

He certainly doesn’t look like a geeky code genius. He wears faded blue jeans, work boots and a battered UC Santa Cruz T-shirt, with nary a pocket protector or a button-up shirt in sight. When he crosses powerful forearms over his chest, I catch a glimpse of ink. Worse, his eyes crinkle up as he shoots me a cautious smile. Stupid, hot bastard.

I look at his handsome, arrogant, knowing face and I throw my phone at him as hard as I can. It’s a dramatic gesture—and a futile one. I should have thrown the coffee I held in my other hand. My phone bounces off his shoulder, hits the trendy concrete floor of this stupid, stupid loft space and makes an audible cracking sound. It’s not his fault that Madd is a first-class asshole, but the “Ride of the Valkyries” soundtrack blasting in my head thankfully drowns out logic, because I need to blame someone for my own stupidity. He’ll do.

He shoves effortlessly to his feet, making himself an even larger target. “Max O’Reilly.”

“Asshole,” I counter.

He lifts one broad shoulder. “Guilty as charged. Or were you introducing yourself?”

A hint of a smile still plays about his gorgeous mouth. Stubble roughens his jaw. He hasn’t shaved and I suspect he simply can’t be bothered. His gaze drifts down my body and I wait for the moment of recognition. Sure, I’m fully clothed now but naked ballet makes an impression, as the number of hookup requests I’ve received attest.

“We haven’t met.” He sounds certain, although now he frowns. “But you look familiar.”

He shifts those killer hazel eyes to my phone as he bends to pick it up. Thanks to the unlocked screen, he gets an eyeful of me dancing, a graceful Swan Lake-esque solo that’s all pirouettes and graceful leg extensions. If only I’d bothered with a tutu. A leotard. Something. Since I’m wearing only my favorite pink ballet slippers in the video, however, there are many less-than-PG moments. When Asshole Ex and I broke up because I wanted an exclusive relationship whereas he desired a harem, he’d had the last laugh. He’d created a whole fake fucking profile on Kinkster for me (you really couldn’t call it dating). He’d then shared our video and my favorite dirty fantasy with the entire world. I love being watched and I thought I enjoyed the risk of being caught, but this is next-level risk. This is the difference between getting busted by the mall cop making out with your boyfriend and waking up naked in bed with an entire SWAT team surrounding you, guns drawn.

Max studies the cracked screen for a moment before turning it off and setting my phone on his desk. Hazel eyes sweep over me. “You dance really well.”

So not the point. “Take it down.”

Give him credit. He keeps his eyes on my face. “Why?”

And just like that he plunges into negative territory for those of us keeping score—and yes, he’s earned a penalty.

“Are you insane?” I extend my arm, lean over his desk and pour my coffee on his keyboard. The queen of impulsivity—that’s me. “Why would I choose to share my private video with the world?”

That devastating hint of a smile returns. “Why would you take it down when you look gorgeous?”

Sadly, I’m still reeling enough from Madd’s betrayal that Needy Me laps up the compliment. Bitter Me gets right on his ass, however. “That was a private video.”

“And that was an expensive laptop.” He sounds calm. He doesn’t leap to clean up the coffee carnage. “Your video has 2,348,992 views and it’s trending.”

Maybe I should club him with his hardware? “Take. It. Down.”

“So you’re Maple.” He gets this little puzzled crinkle between his eyes as if I’m a math problem and he’ll have me worked out in a minute.

“Like the tree.” I wave my hand impatiently. I’ve heard all the jokes before.

“That’s not it.” He thinks some more, taking his goddamned time when my entire life is slowly imploding before my (and a million other) eyes, then he smiles. A full-on, sun-wattage-worthy grin. I want to kill him. “You’re Lola’s friend. I know Lola.”

Okay. So if he knows Lola, he’s likely one of those dot-com wealthy boys that hang around her new billionaire boyfriend. They’re like frogs or mosquitos spawning and where you find one, there’s bound to be a whole bunch. It also certainly explains why he’s not outraged at my violation of his hardware—not only does he have loads of money, but he’s probably also in possession of some new, shiny insta-backup system and hasn’t lost so much as a second of work. I think I could hate him. After I kill him.

“Look,” I say. “I’ve had a shitty, shitty day. It kicked off with discovering that I was dancing a naked solo on your Kinkster app because Asshole Ex decided to branch out into the revenge porn business. Then it escalated because it’s not just me being embarrassed that you and a million billion other guys have seen more of me than my gynecologist. This threatens my job, okay? Companies won’t hire an influencer to pimp their products if she’s cavorting naked on the internet, because they figure she’s too busy pimping her personal assets to be bothered with theirs. And since I happen to like electricity and eating and all those other useful things that a girl has to pay for, I need to keep those contracts rolling in—which means you need to take the video down.”

Max studies me some more. Thinking maybe, but it’s hard to tell. “Work here. For me.”

WTF? I have a job. Plus, he’s seen me naked.

“Pass.”

Apparently, he misinterprets pass as a different four-letter word, one that rhymes with duck, because he counteroffers. “A new job to replace the old one, thirteen hundred stock options, and a date. With me,” he adds, lest I think he’s being overambitious and asking me to take on the entire engineering team.

“Who let you out of the cave?” I step into him.

My new Neanderthal acquaintance stands firm, but I’ve already figured out that Max O’Reilly lacks the boundaries most people possess. And because he won’t back up and I won’t back down, we end up thigh to thigh, our bodies brushing as if we were dancing. I’m far too aware of the heat of his body, the controlled strength concealed beneath his clothes. He isn’t a professional dancer—I’d know him if he was—but he does far more than code all day.

“Why did you make the video?” God. That voice, low and smooth, perfect for phone sex, and parts of me demand that all of me pay attention, especially since when he lowers his head, his mouth ends up so very close to mine. His lips demand kissing. Nibbling.

Maybe even outright biting.

Except he’s seen me naked.

He’s watched my video.

This is totally, absolutely crazy, even for me. There’s no way on God’s green earth that I’d work for him or go out with him. Plus, I have the whole broken man picker thing to work on. It’s the shame talking, I decide. I’m embarrassed that I fell for Madd’s lines, and now I want to prove to myself that other guys like me just fine.

“It was a surprise for my boyfriend.” Max O’Reilly works in an office that has windows rather than walls, and I’m certain we have an avid audience. I can feel my cheeks flush, my body heating up because I have a dirty little secret of my own. Hi, my name is Maple and I love being watched. “He wasn’t supposed to share it.”

“How did you know he wouldn’t?” Max looks genuinely curious.

“Because we were in a relationship? Because I trusted him?”

Max shifts, and for a moment I think he’s giving up. But then he leans into me. “I don’t have relationships.”

Of course he doesn’t.

“I have hookups,” he continues. “For sex.”

I give his announcement a moment of silence because wow. This man either has no filter or he’s entirely too honest—which he proves with his next words.

“It’s more satisfying, yeah?”

It certainly explains why he’s used his coding skills to develop a hookup app rather than, say, curing cancer through genome sequencing. I intend to explain the joys of a committed relationship (again, liar), but something entirely different comes out of my mouth. “Did you jerk off to my dancing?”

“Yes.” His lips quirk, as if he’s maybe trying to rein himself in but can’t quite manage it.

“Fix it.” I stab my finger into his big beautiful chest. Obviously, I’m not on the dating market at the moment, but he is muscled. You, sir, are definitely more than just an engineer.

He looks down at me, that slow smile curling his mouth. “How?”

“How should I know?” I throw my hands up in the air. Yes, I’m being dramatic. No, I don’t care. “Take it down. Make sure there are no copies anywhere and then forget you ever saw me.”

I turn and storm out of his office, ready to bring down the curtain on this particular performance. No one stops me as I march past the tables of software engineers and through the front door. No one knows that I’m silently replaying what happened in that office, the way our bodies brushed, the way Max O’Reilly knew. He knew what I liked. He recognized the heat that curled through my body at the thought of him watching me dance. Maybe he even knew about the freedom in exposure, in dancing wide open and free. Or maybe he’s just a dirty pervert—a pervert who still has my phone in his possession.

CHAPTER TWO
Max

DON’T SUE ME but my eyes are glued to Maple Washington’s dramatically exiting and truly spectacular ass. I keep it discreet, but I’m a huge, huge fan of the yoga pants. She came, she spoke, she gave me a boner despite my legitimate, good faith efforts to listen to her. In under three minutes, I’m six thousand dollars poorer (the laptop) and my balls are Smurf-blue (the boner). What the fuck just happened? And how do I fix it? I pull out my phone and start a new list of Things I Learned Today:

Item: Ms. Washington’s parents shouldn’t have been allowed to name a child because adding anything to a birth certificate from the Acer genus is wrong.

Item: Bad breakup + revenge porn = most popular video ever

I can’t remember a more successful share on my app and I have an excellent memory for numbers. Leaving the video live is tempting. Naked, dancing Maple is amazing and she’s making me cash—but since the word yes has yet to come out of her mouth, it’s a no-go. I believe a hundred percent that consent is nonnegotiable—plus, she’d just come right back here. And while my dick definitely votes for a repeat visit, my brain suggests that angry hate sex will never, ever top Maple’s to-do list. She’s more likely to kick me in my Smurf-colored balls.

Still, she hasn’t lawyered up to hit me with a lawsuit—she’s just demanded I fix her problem, and even if her timeline and expectations are unreasonable (the internet is forever, ladies and gentlemen, until or unless a gigantic EMP wipes out the world’s electronics), she hasn’t bullshit me, either. Unhappiness is inevitably and directly proportional to monetary demands, so I would have expected Maple’s demands to include a mountain of cash. Instead, she’s all righteous indignation. I half expect her to take a flying leap over desks or an engineer as she barges out of Kinkster. Energy crackles almost visibly off her, along with something else, some charisma or star power, a secret charm I’ve never mastered and that has me—and everyone else at Kinkster—staring after her as our front door bangs shut.

She barely skimmed my shoulder, putting her at five feet four inches tall in shoes. The blond hair piled on top of her head added three more inches. The yoga pants, a cropped shirt and a long-sleeved drapey thing (San Francisco is notoriously damp and chilly) completely covered up what was on display in the video—and before you insist that people don’t walk around naked and gyrating, remember that this is San Francisco. We host annual parades devoted to sex and naked people. I allow myself a minute to imagine Maple leading a parade down Market Street. Fantasizing is inadvisable, but since she won’t work for me and she’s flounced out of my life, imagination it is.

I have her phone, so it isn’t even as if I can call her. Which would have been inadvisable idea number two. She’s gone, making her dislike clear—ergo, I don’t get to fuck her. Ever. I add that to a new list, the list of Things that Suck—Get Over It. Having had her within touching distance, I know the real Maple has brown eyes. And even though she wore flats rather than pink ballet slippers, she moved through my office as if she were dancing. Just thinking about her feet makes me swallow. She has small tits and the lean build of a dancer, a sexy, flexible package that drives every remaining thought from my head.

I need to let it go.

Let her go.

Instead, I watch her dance one last time on my phone, staring at the screen where she spins effortlessly in beautiful loops and spirals, her right leg extending and flashing me as she whips through a series of beautiful, obscene kicks. I’m both turned on and resentful that I can’t stop watching her.

When my lead engineer sticks his head in my door, I trigger the script to remove her video from our servers, shove my phone back into my pocket and silently hand him my coffee-soaked laptop. I keep spares on the shelf in my office. Stockpiling avoids downtime. Returning to the code I was working on when Maple busted in seems anticlimactic, however, so instead I amuse myself by looking up my guest. I stay respectful, though, and stick to Google and stuff found online. I do no digging into her personal life, but I still add the following to my Things I Know about Maple list:

1. Maple danced five years for the San Francisco Ballet. They have awesome photos of her dressed as a swan princess (white feathers everywhere) and a hot corsair’s date.

2. A year ago, Maple left the ballet and became an influencer in the athleisure space. This means she works out in fancy clothes eighty hours a week and lives on either ramen noodles or air unless she has a new supply of free energy bars from a partner. In which case, she lives on those. In all cases, she takes pictures. An insane number of pictures.

3. Her Instagram is vibrant, colorful and loud—and full of pictures of Maple in the aforementioned athleisure wear, with food, and in places like the beach, the gym and the airport.

4. She loves puppies.

5. And kittens.

6. People pay her to do photoshoots and spend time in yoga pants. She smiles often, she’s a bit of a goofball, and I’d bet she sells a lot of clothing. I’d buy whatever she’s selling.

7. She’s always on the move—running, dancing, twirling, twitching. It’s entirely possible we could run together and she’d keep up with me. Or beat my ass. She’d certainly look better doing it.

8. There’s a photo of her in a big, poufy fuchsia skirt with a white T-shirt supporting Alzheimer’s research. She’s doing more twirling, along with smiling and standing up for what she believes in, and it’s hard not to smile back because she’s just that passionate.

9. Number seven promptly makes me imagine what Maple would be like in bed.

10. I need to stop this.

It’s child’s play to trace the account that originally uploaded the video. I hack into the owner’s laptop and discover that Madd Dixon didn’t bother to cover his trail or delete the original video. Given his demonstrated lack of ethics, I don’t limit myself to publicly available data, instead going for a deep dive into his cyber life. Just call me Miss Marple. Or maybe Poirot. Mustaches and suits are a better look for me than cardigans and pearls.

When a paper cup and straw materialize in front of my face, I reach for them automatically. The cup retreats. My first thought is that Maple has come back. It’s illogical because she hates me. Still, when I look up and realize it’s just Jack, I’m disappointed if not surprised. We have a standing Thursday taco truck date and I’ve worked through my alert.

“You stood me up.” Jack waggles the cup just out of reach. “And yet here I am, putting out.”

“You’re easy.” I take the cup and hit Save. “And I was busy.”

“Eat.” A paper bag thumps down next to my laptop and I smell cilantro and cumin.

“Thanks, Mom.”

Jack says something else, but I’m no longer listening. I’m planning the next step in my Madd campaign.

“What’re we doing?” He leans against my desk, tearing into his first taco. Jack’s a big guy and he requires a constant fuel supply. He’s also much more observant than most people give him credit for.

“Getting even.”

His brows lift in amusement. “Turned white knight?”

“You don’t have a Kinkster account.” Which means he’s likely the only adult male in San Francisco who hasn’t seen Maple’s video. And while I’m unexpectedly glad he’s a Maple virgin, it also makes asking his advice harder.

“I’m married, remember?” Jack wads up the tinfoil from his taco and lobs it into my trash can in a perfect two-point shot.

I attended his wedding, so I definitely remember. There are, however, married people using my app—and not all of them are hooking up with each other. I note, not for the first time, that Jack doesn’t sound one hundred percent happy. Maybe 70 percent. Sixty even. It could be a bad day, week or year in the venture capital world he rules, but I suspect money’s not the problem.

I look up and engage in some wishful thinking. My people skills are minimal, whereas Jack is a great guy. Everybody loves him, and not just because he’s a big muscled guy and outstanding eye candy. I’ve heard him labeled teddy bear, lumberjack and Thor. Whatever. He’s one of the few people I care about, and so for him I make an effort. We’ve been friends since freshman year at Santa Cruz when we shared a dorm room and terrorized the computer science department. When we graduated, we went in different directions. He married on the beach and founded a venture capital company. I coded dating apps and had hookups. We also each made a billion dollars along the way but, to be fair, we’re still fundamentally the same people we were back in our college days. We know when the other is full of shit or having a bad week or just needs to get out on the ocean and surf. I’m sure a surfboard is enough to fix Jack this time.

Jack steals a second taco from the bag. Right. He’s waiting for an answer.

“I was at your wedding.” I snatch the bag back and assess. Ten tacos plus the two currently residing in Jack’s bottomless stomach make six each since California is a community property state and dividing shit in half is legally mandated. I pull four foil-wrapped tacos from the bag and pass them to Jack. “Don’t worry, I’ll bear witness that you’re married.”

Jack is suddenly very interested in his taco.

Item: Jack isn’t a hundred percent good.

He points his half-eaten taco at my laptop and even I recognize a brilliant diversionary tactic. “What are you really working on?”

“Revenge. True story.”

Naturally, Jack slides my laptop around to see for himself. The picture of Maple is downloaded from a cached version of the San Francisco Ballet website. In it, she balances on the toes of one foot, her other leg extending into space behind her. Her arms are flung wide as if to hug her audience, and despite the solemn look on her beautiful face, her eyes smile at us. Sparkly white fabric fills the frame around her and there’s something on her head that looks as if a tiara and a peacock mated and produced feathery diamanté babies. I prefer the naked dancing.

Jack returns his attention to his taco. “Who is she?”

“Lola’s friend. She paid me a visit this morning.”

“And you decided to get to know her better?” Jack raises a brow. It’s one of his innate talents and it drives me crazy that I’ve never mastered the move myself.

“She was upset. Her boyfriend posted a video of her on Kinkster. It was our number one video.”

Jack sighs and knuckles his eyes with his hand. “Kinkster doesn’t post cute puppy videos, so I’m assuming there’s a connection between her upset and the boyfriend’s video.”

I’m never a complete ass, not on purpose. “It’s down.”

“But how many people saw it first?”

“It has 2,348,992 hits. It turns out that Maple is a very talented naked dancer and she’s totally uninhibited.”

Jack groans. He’s always been Mr. Rules, while Dev and I are a little more flexible. Dev was the third guy in our freshman suite at UC Santa Cruz, the first of us to earn a billion dollars, and the member of our friendship triumvirate most likely to use his coding skills for evil. His is a wicked taste for revenge. Steal his ecommerce software and you’ll wake up one morning to discover that you’re unexpectedly selling dildos or other hard-to-explain items. I admire the effort he puts into keep our world fair.

Jack clears his throat. Right. He believes we’re having a conversation in which we take turns talking. Honestly, it’s more like a one-way sermon—as his next words prove.

“Which is 2,348,991 people more than Maple intended.”

Is it?

I’m not so sure about that.

I feel my mouth curve up in a smile as I repossess my laptop.

“I can’t make people unsee her,” I say when the silence stretches on too long. Duh. Even I don’t possess superpowers. “But I can get even with Madd.”

“What kind of a name is Madd?” he mutters. I don’t say anything because the answer is obvious. Stupid, pretentious, owned by a man with a small dick and no brains—take your pick. According to Madd’s website, he was born in Orange County, California, but I’d bet five bucks his mother didn’t put that name on his birth certificate.

Jack’s eyes shift up and to the left. Now he’s thinking, too, which means Madd is totally screwed. Jack’s brain is scary good when it comes to revenge and diabolical plots. “Public access records?”

“Mostly? This is why it’s important to beef up government security. Since I’m using my powers for good, however, you can save the lecture.”

To be fair, there will undoubtedly be a next time and the next time might not be motivated by a belief in justice and fairness. I’m a big fan of rule breaking for any reason, plus I’m nosy.

“And the public good is somehow best served by stalking Maple’s boyfriend?”

“Ex-boyfriend.” Five fun facts about Madd?

1. The password on his voice mail was 123. I add fourteen decimal places and record a new message announcing his move to Siberia to seek a natural cure for his STD.

2. He’s either unaware that his phone automatically saves the photos he takes to the cloud or he’s the ultimate narcissist because his cloud storage includes 129 dick pics. I make picture 116 his avatar on all his social media accounts.

3. Madd isn’t into charitable giving. I help him out by rerouting the contents of his checking account to an erectile dysfunction research group and a save the gorillas campaign. Personal growth is important and this way he’s covered literally and metaphorically.

4. Madd’s inbox is a busy, busy place after I run a handy little script that signs his email up for every known newsletter on the planet without an unsubscribe link. He currently has 19214 welcome emails.

5. He uses the same insecure password on his dating profile, his bank account, his rideshare apps and multiple online shopping sites. Naturally, I change them and his security questions to a twenty-seven-character password complete with arcane punctuation in random spots.

6. His real name is Raymond. I haven’t decided what to do with that yet. I’ll save that dessert for later.

Jack shakes his head when I close the lid of my laptop three minutes later. Mischief managed. “I hope you have a good lawyer.”

This is a rhetorical question since we have the same firm on retainer. You get what you pay for and we pay a lot. I flip him the bird. “I won’t get caught.”

“This isn’t college,” he says, and I hear the warning there.

“I know.” I do, too. Sometimes I miss those days. Not the broke-and-starving part, but the freedom to do whatever we could get away with. Having a company of people who depend on me for their paycheck and health insurance took some getting used to, but so far I haven’t let them down and Kinkster makes good money. Still, I’m standing on the steps in the pool of life while Jack and Dev splash around in the deep end. While the number of married couples in the United States with kids is currently at an all-time low, it’s still not unlikely that Jack and his wife procreate in the none-too-distant future and then things will change even more.

I finished inhaling my first taco. “How’s Mrs. Jack?”

Jack shoves the remainder of his taco into his mouth and chews methodically. I count to freaking forty before he swallows. I’m never quite sure when people are legitimately acting weird—maybe he’s on one of those diet quests where you chew twenty times and commune deeply with your meal so that you enjoy more, consume less and magically shed weight. It’s equally possible, though, that he’s avoiding answering my question.

“You killed her and buried the body,” I deadpan, going for my second taco.

He frowns. “She’s traveling for work.”

Huh.

Mrs. Jack travels a great deal. I’d share that comment or make a joke, but Jack’s face takes on a closed-off look I process while I consume tacos three and four. He doesn’t want to talk about Molly, I decide. Usually Jack’s an open-book guy, happy to share and either tell you all about the awesomeness that is his life or bitch about the work-related stuff. Sometimes, though, he gets in a mood and slams the book shut. I’ve had my fingers pinched more than once, so I back off. I’ll ask Dev and then we’ll figure out how to fix whatever is wrong with Jack.

“Maui?”

“No.”

“Mexico?” Molly’s work takes her mostly to tropical destinations. She’s visited Mexico, the Bahamas and Thailand in the last year. I had no idea that being a pharmaceutical sales rep was so much fun, but Jack claims she’s really, really good at it and that these trips are often company-sponsored rewards for being a superstar employee. While Jack tries to remember where his wife is this particular week, I briefly debate with myself whether or not my fellow Kinksters would be more or less productive after a week in Mexico.

Honestly, we’d probably single-handedly destroy trade relations between Mexico and the US. At the very least, some of us would end up on a first-name basis with the consulate and since I like keeping my vacation options open and my engineering team intact, I finish off my fifth taco and reluctantly scratch “group tropical vacation” off the mental prize list I keep. When I was a kid with a reluctant acquaintance with toothpaste, my dentist used to motivate me with postcleaning visits to a cardboard treasure chest he kept underneath the receptionist’s desk. I’m the dentist now in this scenario and my employees are fishing for prizes. The most popular is cash, although Prada bags and Harleys come in second and third.

“Iceland,” Jack announces.

What?

Right.

Mrs. Jack.

“They sell drugs in Iceland?”

Jack takes a sip of his drink. “Molly went to Iceland.”

Iceland has never struck me as a hotbed of industry, but I’m pretty sure that’s where the northern lights are and it sounds really cool. And then I have a moment of sheer genius.

“Why don’t you join her for the weekend?” My fingers are already flipping the laptop open, pulling up my favorite travel site, and plugging in dates and airport codes. Wow. If you get bored having hookup sex, you can stare out the window at glaciers and lava fields. Or go fishing! Or have sex in geothermal pools! (Actually, I’m not sure of the effect of what is essentially superheated bathwater on the male penis, but kissing has to be possible.)

Jack frowns. “She’s working.”

24/7?

I open my mouth and close it. Don’t go there.

Plus, Jack’s already off onto another topic.

“Are you planning on hooking up with Maple?”

Quickly finishing my last taco, I protest, “I’m not interested in her.”

Jack just snorts. “Sure you aren’t. She’s a girl and you haven’t hooked up with her yet. That makes her your type.”

I shrug. “Clearly, she’s attracted to asshole idiots and I only qualify on one count, not both.”

Jack laughs, which was my plan.

The thing is, Maple and I might have something pretty important in common.

I love to watch.

And she clearly lives to perform.

I’m not Mr. Relationship—hello, I wrote a hookup app. Can I be any clearer? Hookups are short, expectations are agreed upon in advance, and everyone goes home with the fabulous parting gift of an orgasm. Plus, when I open my mouth I run everyone off. I’m blunt, I love numbers and I’m the nerdiest billionaire ever. Yes, I own a Jedi lightsaber and I’d have levitated out of bed and through my day if I could. I have two PhDs, I type at light speed but my handwriting is shit, and I remember everything in numbers: miles, seconds, URLs or IP addresses. The ladies not on Kinkster frown on numbers unless they’re the number of zeroes in my bank account. Maple is obviously creative (very, very creative, particularly at 1:12 in her video), so there’s no way we could ever work. Plus, she’s more than a little crazy—and (let’s be honest) I’m an engineer at heart. A dirty, filthy rich billionaire engineer, but she’s way too unpredictable for me. Code does exactly what you tell it to do, with no surprises, no messy emotions and no drama.

Fifteen minutes later, Jack abandons my office for his and I go back to stalking Maple online. Ten minutes more and then I’ll stop. I promise. From their respective Facebook timelines, I learn that Maple and Madd had been seeing each other for eleven months. In dog years, that’s fourteen years. In human years, that means hundreds of cute couple photos. There are so many that I skip counting them because I’m burning through my minutes and I already know that Madd is a total dick.

I’m not sure I’ve done enough, to be honest. A quick check in Kinkster’s databases reveals Maple currently has an impressive 937 hookup requests. I send her 937 lavender roses as an apology because purple is the color of royalty (I google it) and she’s a fucking queen.

Deleting her video from our online storage takes even less time. A few keystrokes and Kinkster no longer has its very own dancing ballerina. Removing her performance from our backups requires a few additional steps and documentation, but five minutes after I start, I’ve erased all traces of her. No breakup was ever quicker or more thorough.

Goodbye, Maple.

CHAPTER THREE
Maple#cheatnight #notsohealthy #betterthansex

“HE SENT YOU the flowers?”

The he is one Max O’Reilly, hot, sexy, frustrating-as-hell, impossible-to-read billionaire bachelor. Yes, there’s an entire app devoted to dating financially successful San Franciscans. Yes, I looked him up. Yes, despite his weird dating-and-job extra value combo meal proposition, he’s as commitment averse as any of the guys I’ve dated before and the only relationships he seems to have embraced have been brief connections between his penis and a handy vagina. He’s like public transit in San Francisco, rushing from stop to stop and predictably overcrowded, while I’ve always been more of a Trans-Siberian Railway girl, in it for the long haul and the memories.

Lola stares at me, nail polish brush hovering over my bare feet in her lap as she waits for my answer. Or possibly she’s just dizzy from the overpowering scent of roses in full bloom. I’ve been walking around in a rose-scented cloud since they arrived three days ago. I hum a few bars from The Blue Danube waltz. Strauss wrote it to cheer up the Austrian nation after they got their butts kicked in the Seven Weeks’ War and went broke, so it seems like a good post-Madd-breakup theme song. Plus, it’s catchy and the ultimate earworm.

I’m hosting our monthly girls’ night in my San Francisco studio. Despite the limited space (made even more limited by the addition of 937 roses in full bloom), I love my tiny, closet-sized living quarters. Said quarters are at the very tippy-top of a house fronting a square that’s alternately foggy, hot or just outright grimy, and inhabited by trees, pigeons and the occasional homeless guy. Everything in San Francisco is short on space and so the house is tall and gangly like a twiggy, sun-starved plant reaching for the occasional spot of sunshine when it breaks through the inevitable clouds and fog. The outside is all decorative bric-a-brac and a real-life turret with a wind vane sitting on its red-tile top. I had a choice of living in the turret or the unit next door, which has a balcony. If I’d been a billionaire, I’d have gone for both and knocked down the wall between them, but instead I chose the balcony. I do a morning barre routine there, fingers curled around the balustrade while San Francisco trundles sleepily below me as I plié.

Lola alternates pink with white polka dots and pink stripes on white, which means my toenails are as cheerfully pretty as the rest of my feet are not. Years of dancing en pointe have changed the shape and look of my toes, and even though they’re no longer blistered and bloody from hours of daily dancing, they’ll never look the same again. Doesn’t matter. I love them. They’re a reminder that I really can do anything if I try hard enough and long enough.

“He sent 937 roses when he returned my phone.” At least I’m almost certain they’re from Max. The handwriting on the florist’s card was really bad, to the point where if you’d told me the note was in Cyrillic, I’d have believed you. The one person I know, however, who did not send those flowers is my ex-boyfriend. Madd never sent me roses. In retrospect, I’m lucky he didn’t gift me with an STD. Part of me wants to laugh or find a way to rub my ex’s face in my flowers (starting with the thorny bits), but the rest of me is still a sad, angry llama that appreciates expensive flowers. And the quick phone repair job. I definitely wasn’t offended by that.

“Wow.” Lola caps the polish. “That’s random.”

“It’s very precise,” I counter. “I think he sent one rose for each hookup request I had on Kinkster.”

Frankly, that number is obscene. Literally. I need no more dick pics in my life, so flowers and a free phone repair are a welcome change even if the only “message” was Max’s name scrawled on the florist’s card in black Sharpie, bold and impatient. The picture I snapped of my new floral accoutrements already has a thousand likes on Instagram.

Lola just grins. “That sounds like Max actually.”

I try to sound cool, as if hot, smart guys send me the contents of a florist’s shop all the time. “He sends flowers wantonly and indiscriminately?”

Lola considers this for a nanosecond. “Max is not a flower guy.”

“His mother? Dead coworkers? Nada?”

“You’d have to ask him, but flowers are for the well mannered. Max is blunt.” She makes a face. “Wrecking-ball blunt. He tends to put people off. It’s the precision flower-sending that makes perfect sense. He wouldn’t send a dozen roses, but 937? Absolutely. That number means something to him and he loves numbers. He’s equally likely to send you 937 truffles or 937 thong panties or 937 of whatever else pops into his dirty mind.”

“Tell me more.” The smile stretching my own face is as big and goofy as, say, a bouquet of a thousand purple roses. I only want to know more because he’s seen me naked, I tell myself. And never mind that by that standard I should be holding mass meet and greets across the foggy, fine city of San Francisco. “Is he seeing anyone?”

Lola snorts. “Not for more than an hour at a time.”

I don’t have relationships.

I have hookups. For sex.

Doesn’t he realize that relationships are special? Any two people can hook up, but it takes effort to maintain that connection. It’s the difference between a salad of edible flowers and growing a garden from seed. It’s what makes Madd’s betrayal so much harder to stomach, because not only had I almost decided that he was my forever man, but I’d invested a considerable amount of time in us.

“He’s a billionaire,” Lola says. “That makes it harder, if you know what I mean.”

Now it’s my turn to snort. “Because not having any money makes everything so much easier? Pardon me if I’m not feeling sympathetic.”

“People date him for the experience or because they want stuff from him.” She turns my foot, admiring her handiwork.

I’m not stupid. I’d connected a few dots even before flouncing out of his office on Monday and then promptly checking him out on the Billionaire Bachelors app he created, an app that’s apparently the best way to meet the love (or lay) of your life. Think about that for a moment. He’s the CEO of a company that hooks people up for kinky sex and DIY porn. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that’s a money-making idea, but billionaire conjures up images of hot, cut guys (or old, fat guys) in expensive suits. But maybe that’s like assuming all dancers run around in tutus 24/7?

“That explains how he could afford all the roses.” I can’t remember the last time I dated someone who was financially solvent enough to purchase a dozen roses, let alone almost a thousand apology flowers. Not that Max and I are dating. Or hooking up. Or even remotely interested in each other. Although I do appreciate the fact that he did what he promised to do and took my dirty dancing video down. Madd had definitely set the bar low in the promise-keeping department.

“Do you want me to cut Madd’s balls off? Or send Dev to perform the amputation?” Lola grins, clearly enjoying her mental revenge fantasy.

Frankly, it appeals.

“That would be a career-limiting move,” I say finally. “I think I’m going to have to take the high road here and avoid a recreational stay in San Quentin. I’m holding out for the round-the-world tour.”

“Madd’s a dick.” Lola waves the nail brush for emphasis. “I never liked him. Next time, you should listen to me.”

“Duly noted. Walking away from a long-term relationship sucks. Madd and I were a couple and I invested time in us. I thought I knew him.”

Does that sound plaintive? Yes, it does. I make a note to kick myself in the butt.

Lola’s already shaking her head. “How many times have you gone out with a guy just for fun?”

“We had fun,” I protest.

“You go from zero to sixty,” Lola says. “You move him in and then it’s all future plans and serious talks because everything has to be a milestone and a step forward and special.”

“Lola.”

She leans her head against my shoulder. “You need to slow down, Maple. You don’t think about what’s happening right now because you’re so busy planning for a future that never arrives.”

“The future never arrives because I pick shitty men,” I say.

“You don’t know them, Maple. You just fantasize them into being right. I think you need to take a break.”

“From life? From sex? Or just the entire male gender?”

Lola sits up and slaps my shoulder. “Just have fun the next time you go out with someone. Use him for sex. Don’t go plunging into another long-term relationship five minutes after meeting someone.”

I make a face, willing someone to knock on the door or a telemarketer to call. Now would even be a good time for the upstairs neighbor to do the galumphing walkabout she usually saves for 3 a.m. “No more relationships. Just fun. And business. I’m still trying to get offered that contract from the Live Your Best Life people.”

I’m not ashamed to beg. Please, please, please pick me to be the face of your yearlong campaign because there is nothing I’d love more than to spend twelve months touring the world on your dime and shooting fabulous, yoga-and-dance-related content. Can you imagine what that would be like? Jet-setting from one tropical island to the next? They just fired the influencer who was the social media face of their campaign for drunken scooter driving in Thailand, so they need to find someone fast.

My phone pings, alerting me that dinner has arrived. Saved! I lever myself off the bed and walk to the door on my heels because it would be a shame to spoil Lola’s handiwork. I haven’t had pretty toenails in years—it’s one of the downsides to being a dancer. Nightly ice baths, gauze, blisters—none of those scream “pedicure.” Even now that I’m no longer dancing professionally, my feet are still tough and I love them.

When the intercom buzzes, I let in the delivery guy and carefully walk over to the door on my heels to retrieve our dinner.

Lola frowns at me. No, at my feet. “How do you do that?”

I look down automatically, but those are the same feet she was painting seconds ago, albeit slightly dustier. I need to up my housekeeping game. “Do what?”

“Walk so gracefully,” she says. “It’s not fair.”

“Years of practice.” I dig into the bag and pass her a set of wood chopsticks. While anybody can dance, ballet requires a commitment. In relationship terms, it’s a monogamous, twenty-five-year marriage rather than a fun hookup. And while I think I like my new life, it feels strange not to be spending sixty-plus hours a week dancing. “How are things with Dev?”

She grins. “He’s amazing.”

“Out of bed, too, I hope?” I arrange my food on the table and snap a picture then ten more because the lighting’s not quite right. #cheatnight #notsohealthy #betterthansex. Which, I discover when I dig into the first carton, isn’t an exaggeration at all. Mmm. Chow mein with those bright red chunks of pork.

Lola launches into a Dev story, something about a romantic weekend up in Napa. I think there were supposed to be wineries and maybe a romantic picnic surrounded by grapevines, but Lola’s story meanders from a really cool-sounding lunch in a restaurant that even I’ve heard of to a roadside pit stop (kissing) to finding a stream surrounded by wildflowers (where far more than kissing happened).

Her face glows when she talks about Dev. She met him by crash-landing in his lap at a networking event, and then followed the introduction up by hiring him as her new summer intern. Of course, it turned out he’d really come to her office to find out why she was illegally using his software (a completely innocent mistake on her part) and then they’d had hate-sex before agreeing to mutually use each other for orgasms. Or so Lola tells it.

Because there’s that glow that says their relationship is far more than crazy hot sex in some pretty kinky places. They’re happy together rather than angry and I think they may be working their way toward that long-term monogamous thing sooner rather than later. Like picking-out-a-puppy-together territory or possibly even a permanent move to the Kingdom of Happily-Ever-After. I’ve heard they have engagement rings and killer ceremonies there. Lola’s Dev stories are pretty freaking amazing, but I hope he realizes just how lucky he is. Lola may not have a billion dollars, but she’s worth the world to me and I’ll kill him if he can’t see that.

The Kinkster app on my phone pings and I can’t stop myself from giving the screen a quick glance. “Max owes me a rose—I have another hookup request.”

And eww. This guy also sent a picture and my eyeballs are burning. There are things you can’t unsee, no matter how small the phone screen.

Lola grabs a carton of kung pao shrimp and digs in. “I thought you deleted that app.”

I shrug. “Just keeping track of my fans.”

At first, I kept the app on my phone to make sure Madd hadn’t uploaded anything else. Then, I kept it just because. Just because I’m curious. Just because the kink other people get up to is amazing. Just because it reminds me of Max and then I can’t focus, imagining the way his mouth curled into a grin and his legs brushed mine. Maybe just because part of me wonders if he really deleted all the copies of that video—or if he’s still watching me.

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