Page 12 of Certified Heartthrob

“A promise impossible to fulfill,” he continued. “We get all of our ideas about love from songs, books, and movies. And on the first few dates, it’s easy to slip into the delusion that life could really be like that. But it’s a lie.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “I’ve said it before, so I’ll say it again. If you hate dating so much...then don’t do it. The truth is...I think you’re waiting...no, more than waiting. You’re putting all of this out there as a challenge. You want someone to prove you wrong.”

As I said it, I had to remind myself that I wasn’t taking the bait. I was not about to get my own heart broken in the process of trying to reform a broken, bitter man. I didn’t care how good he looked in the dim lights of the restaurant, I was not going to be that someone.

6

Mark

“You’ve got it all wrong,” I assured Camille. “I’m much better off if no one tries to prove me wrong. I’m just trying to convert more people to my side of things. If more people accepted the truth, the less pressure we’d all feel to buy into this huge lie.”

“Why don’t you just get it over with and tell me the real meat of the matter here?” She groaned. “Who broke your heart?”

I lowered my glass of wine back down to the table slowly. “What makes you so sure someone did?”

“Okay, then whose heart did you break?” she shot back. “You’re one of the most bitter, jaded people I have ever met. If someone didn’t hurt you, you hurt someone else and you’ve never forgiven yourself. So, you’re trying to convince everyone else that love is a sham so you don’t have to feel bad. You’ve convinced yourself there was an inevitable end no matter what you did.”

“That’s not it.” I shook my head, almost laughing.

“Then, Mr. Silver...I revert back to my first question. Who broke your heart?”

“Who broke yours?” I suggested instead.

Her eyes darkened. “I’m not the one on a crusade to ruin relationships for everyone else. Quite the opposite. I’m encouraging people’s happiness.”

“Oh, yeah. Because breakups are a real breeding ground for happiness.”

“Actually, they are,” she answered with a breezy, almost sarcastic confidence. “You hurt and then you get over it. And you move on to be an even better person than you were before, and you try again. Don’t take it out on everyone else just because you can’t get past step two.”

“If we’re going to make it through this dinner alive, we’re going to need a change of subject.”

“Fine by me. Or at least it would be if my reputation and career weren’t on the line.”

“What do you do for fun?” I asked as quickly as I could.

Her reaction was almost grimmer than when I asked who broke her heart. “Fun?”

I laughed. “Why do you say that word like it’s a disease?”

“Not a disease.” She shrugged, looking uneasy. “Just...foreign.”

“Yikes. That’s depressing.”

“Look. I haven’t exactly had time for fun. My father died right as I was finishing college and my brother was forced to come up with something to earn back everything we lost. Which put the pressure on me to go to business school to make sure whatever he came up with actually worked.”

“So, the dating and romance angle wasn’t your idea?”

She tilted her head. “Does it look like it was my idea?”

Every time I’d seen Camille, her dark hair was pulled into a tight, high ponytail. The long locks that fell behind her were straight and sleek. She usually wore black-rimmed glasses that did little to hide the intensity of her icy eyes. She wore basic make-up—eyeliner, mascara, and a little gloss on her lips. She always dressed in a gray or black blazer and pencil skirt. She didn’t exactly come across like a carefree, wild-and-loose kind of girl. In fact, she looked more like a lawyer than a CEO of a dating app.

“Point taken,” I submitted. “But...I mean…”

“What? Spit it out. I hate it when people stammer around the point.”

“Well, I was going to say you’re obviously hot and probably have guys clamoring all over you. But with a tone like that, I can see why it never works out.”

“I told you before…don’t be so certain I don’t have a private love life. You can sic all the social media investigators on me you want to. It doesn’t mean you’ll find anything.”

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