Page 2 of The Texan's Secrets

“I don’t care.” Looks didn’t matter to Emilia one way or the other. She wasn’t much on having a social life, preferring to focus on her work, which was mostly on her computer screen.

“You need to get out more,” Paris said with a pout.

“I was working on the balcony just this morning.”

“You know that’s not what I meant. Sign up. Take a flyer on this. You could win an all-expenses-paid date.”

“You sign up.”

“I already am. I’m totally on board for this.”

Emilia was surprised by the optimism in Paris’s voice. “You know the long odds of winning the free date.”

Having been involved in the backend of a dating app, Emilia knew the mathematics on a perfect match.

“Sure, I know the long odds,” Paris said breezily. “But k!smet is paying, and I want to go somewhere nice for a change. It’s not like I’m looking for happily ever after. I’m not wearing rose-colored glasses.”

“You read the rules, right? It has to be a love match to qualify. And they’re using the Surprise Me! function, so you’ll get...you know, something unexpected.”

The k!smet Surprise Me function was famous—make that infamous—for matching together very unlikely couples.

Paris shook her head, her thick auburn hair fanning around her lovely face. “Who cares who it sets me up with? I can fake a love match, at least temporarily.”

Seeing her friend’s excitement, the wheels began turning inside Emilia’s head. She’d hacked into the k!smet app once or twice, just to look around—professionally curious to see how their algorithms were structured. She’d discovered the Surprise Me! function in particular had some very elegant coding.

“That’s actually a great idea,” she said as she formulated a plan. Code was code, and she could help here. With a little judicious hacking, she could make Paris’s dream of a free date come true.

She started for the stairs then, her short-term objective the kitchen and something better to drink.

“For you too.” Paris called out as she followed along. “We could double-date.”

“Not my thing.”

“The app or the date?”

“Both. Neither.” Emilia rounded the corner in the foyer and headed through the dining room. “I’m a homebody.”

“No kidding. But what if I went ahead and signed you up for it anyway?”

“You can’t.” Emilia dumped her cold coffee into the sink.

“I know your membership number.”

Emilia stopped dead. “You can’t possibly know that.” She hadn’t even told Paris she’d applied for a k!smet account. She’d only done it for research purposes. She barely filled out the profile. It was no surprise she hadn’t been asked on any dates.

“You wrote it down on your desk.”

“What were you doing at my desk?”

“Seriously? Hijacking your bandwidth like I always do.”

Emilia shook her head and placed her mug in the dishwasher. She didn’t mind Paris sitting at her desk or saving money by using her bandwidth. She was very cautious about locking up her clients’ information, even if she had slipped up with her own. Not that Paris wasn’t completely trustworthy in either event.

“The IPO launch party’s at the grand ballroom in the Texas Cattleman’s Club,” Paris noted.

“I know.” k!smet was about to offer public shares on the stock market. Creator, Misha Law, had worked hard to get to that stage.

Since Misha was best friends with Emilia’s close friend, Maggie Del Rio. Emilia had met Misha a few times. From what she could tell, the woman deserved all the accolades.

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