Page 73 of Perfect (mis)Match

“Vincent, what’s going on?” Piper asked as she jogged to keep up with me.

I waited until I shut the door behind us before I began. I couldn’t think straight, but I knew one thing: This was going to get ugly.

“What?” Piper reached out to grasp my arm. “Tell me what happened.”

I was so angry that the concern on her face barely registered. “Prepare for a Jerry Reed shitstorm. Maya just cornered me and tried to kiss me, and then basically forced me to admit that we were faking a relationship when we started dating. Jerry saw the whole thing. He might’verecordedit, I couldn’t tell.”

“What?” Piper whispered. Her face went pale.

“Maya put on a whole contrived show of how I broke her heart, and now this scandal is going to be the focus of the Summit narrative, notEvermore. I’m going to look like a fool!”

I fumed as I considered all the ways Jerry could spin the story.

“I don’t know what to say,” Piper whispered.

“Yeah, that makes two of us.” I raked my hands through my hair and sighed. “All that work…”

“Yes, but once the campaign goes live, people will focus on that,” Piper said in a hollow voice. “It’s gorgeous.”

I snorted at her. “Yeah, I’m sure you think so. I noticed you and Rodrigo couldn’t keep your hands off each other. That’s not going to help fix the narrative either. Hopefully no one got footage of you two together.”

Piper backed away from me, and her face went from pale to absolutely white. “Vincent…” her voice was a pained whisper. “Do you really think I was flirting with Rodrigo? He was telling me that he just found out hisgirlfriendispregnant. We were celebrating the good news, that’s all!”

I froze. Girlfriend? I had no idea.

“Well, that’s not the issue here,” I pushed on. “It’s the way the media will spin it. Maya’s already framed herself as the victim here—we’ve lost control of the narrative.”

“But that’s not my fault,” she said softly.

“Did I say it was?” I roared back at her.

Piper shrank back against the wall like I’d struck her, which made me have to vent my frustration by pacing around the room.

The air in the room got heavy as we both tried to process how everything had just gone to hell.

“I think I’m done,” Piper said in a shaky voice.

“What do you mean?” I demanded. “The night’s not over yet. We probably have a few more photo ops withNew York Magazine.As if I want to keep fake smiling.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Piper whispered, taking a step away from me, her face crumbling. “I’m done withus.”

“Excuse me?” I asked her as my heart lurched. I’d expected we’d talk about the “us” part of the equation at a later date, when we’d had time to cool down and assess the damage. Not here. Not now.

“You and me,” she replied, gesturing between us. “It’s over.”

I was about to respond when my phone rang.

“Fuck, it’s Amanda.”

The fact that the Summit social media guru was calling me in the middle of the party wasnotgood news.

“Yeah, you should definitely take that,” Piper said with a little more venom in her voice. “I’ll leave you to it, since business is the only thing that matters to you.”

I stared at her as her expression shifted from sadness to anger. My phone seemed to get louder and louder as it rang, until it sounded like a fire alarm.

Which it sort of was.

I needed to do damage control on the Jerry scenario. The company came first for me—it had to. I had employees all around the world who counted on me to get this right, to make sure the business stayed strong and their paychecks kept coming. But Piper was looking at me like she’d been counting on me too…and like I’d let her down. Everything was spiraling out of control, and the only way I knew how to handle it was to focus on the things I could fix. And that wasn’t—had never been—my love life.

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