Page 95 of In Love With Mr. Wrong

He brushes a damp strand of hair from my forehead. “You’re the strongest person I know.”

I close my eyes, breathing him in. “We make each other strong.”

He kisses me again, softer this time. And as I drift toward sleep, my hand resting protectively over the gentle swell of our daughter, a single message buzzes on my phone.

Olivia:The media is calling again. Eleanor’s planning something. Final move?

I don’t move. Not yet. For now, I sleep in his arms. Strong. Loved. Ready for whatever comes next.

51

GRAYSON

The calm doesn’t last. I wake up to sunlight, Margot’s hair fanned out across my chest, her breathing slow and even. The city is unusually quiet beyond the glass, wrapped in soft morning gold. For a few seconds, I let myself believe this is the world we get to live in now, peaceful, private, ours.

Then my phone buzzes on the nightstand.

Olivia:Emergency. She went live early. Check your email NOW.

My heart doesn’t race. It freezes. I slide out of bed without waking Margot, grab my laptop, and sit at the edge of the living room couch. Within seconds, the screen is filled with bold red banners from three major media outlets, accompanied by something even worse:BREAKING: Leaked Client File Exposes Matchmaking Fraud-Alleged internal records from Perfectly Matched reveal politically motivated client pairing.

There’s a blurry screenshot of a confidential profile. A side-by-side of Senator Mallory and Étienne. Notes in the margin:Public chemistry metrics. Politically advantageous. Timing for press drop: post-bill announcement.All of it doctored. All of it fake. But it looks real enough to sink us.

Olivia storms into the penthouse less than an hour later, tablet in one hand, iced coffee in the other, fury radiating off her in waves.

"It was a full data package," she says, slamming the tablet onto the counter. "Embedded metadata. Multiple forged timestamps. Her team leaked it through an influencer-slash-investigative account and framed it like a whistleblower inside our system."

I scroll through the responses already flooding in. News anchors speculating. Comment sections exploding. Clients calling. Investors stalling. Olivia continues:

"They claim the Mallory–Étienne match was a PR stunt. That we manipulated the outcome for political gain. And the file… it’s sleek. It has just enough truth in the margins to sell the lie."

Margot appears from the hallway in leggings and one of my old shirts, hair pulled back, her face still flushed from sleep. She takes one look at the screen and exhales sharply. "She finally did it. She made it personal."

"No," I say, locking eyes with her. "She made it war."

We gather in the executive war room of ourPerfectly Matched’sHQ. Olivia’s team has already pulled preliminary logs. Priya’s coordinating the client outreach plan. Crane arrives last, stepping into the room like he owns it, despite being the newest ally at the table.

He nods to me, then to Margot. "Well. This escalated."

"Understatement of the year," Olivia mutters.

Crane folds his coat over the back of a chair, retrieves a sleek black folder from his briefcase, and sets it in front of me.

"Inside, you’ll find a timeline of Eleanor’s strategic exits fromPulseMatch’sboard, including two dummy companies used to funnel funds into her PR machine. You’ll also find an older document, an NDA she signed while still onPerfectly Matched’soversight committee." He pauses. "That NDA includes a clause barring her from accessing or recreating internal matchmaking data."

I glance up. "Meaning?"

"Meaning she just broke it. In a very public, very prosecutable way."

A breath of silence sweeps the room.

"We can sue her," Margot says slowly, her voice still edged in disbelief.

"No," Olivia corrects. "We can end her."

Crane leans back slightly, steepling his fingers. “We have the data trail, the NDA violation, and a consultant tie-in. That’s a trifecta of exposure. We release it correctly, and Eleanor’s credibility collapses under her own hubris.”

Olivia doesn’t look up from her tablet. “We’ll need to time the release perfectly. Leverage the momentum of the leak before it festers but wait just long enough to collect every client-facing response. I’m mapping the social reaction curve now.”

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