Page 75 of The Texan's Secrets

He missed Emilia. It had been less than two days since he saw her, and he already missed her. He wanted to spend as much time as he possibly could with her while she still liked him, while she still looked at him with fondness and admiration.

For the first time in his life, he questioned his decision to protect Dylan that night.

“Don’t wait too long,” Misha said.

“I won’t.”

“A couple of dates is one thing.”

“I know, I know. You just said that.” He was exasperated with the situation, not Misha.

If the Surprise Me! match had gone according to plan, Nico would be on his second or third matchup by now. But he couldn’t imagine dating anyone but Emilia.

He gave a chopped laugh. “Guess I didn’t turn out to be much good at collecting data for k!smet.”

Misha looked sympathetic now. “I don’t know about that. This is kind of interesting.”

“The Surprise Me! function isn’t supposed to work this way,” he said.

“What way is that?”

“You know, Emilia talked about the possibility of secret artificial intelligence embedded in a dating app algorithm that did a deep dive on social media and found compatibilities that weren’t apparent on the surface.” He chuckled to himself again. “Imagine that? A funny, fascinating, beautiful woman who also analyzes technology with that level of depth?”

“Does Surprise Me! work that way?” Misha asked.

He shook his head. “I wish I was smart enough to code something that sophisticated. It takes a genius level to even contemplate it with any level of technical complexity.”

“You’re not a genius? I’m disappointed in you, brother.”

“Not that much of a genius.”

“Genius enough.” She nodded toward the computer screens behind him. “Take a look at the k!smet share price.”

He turned to the graph on the right-hand screen. The price had shot up right before the daily stock market close.

“Nice,” he said.

“You’re genius enough for me,” she repeated, rising to give him an affectionate hug around the neck.

“That’s more you than me,” he said, hugging her back. “k!smet is mostly your work, your vision, your execution.”

“But look at how much fun people had with Surprise Me! That’s all you, bro.”

“Fun,” Nico repeated with an edge of sarcasm. At the moment, it didn’t feel like much fun at all.

“Would you rather not have met her?” Misha asked.

Nico shook his head. “I’d rather not be an ex-convict.”

“Too late for that. She’s staying at Maggie’s, by the way.”

He pulled back to look at Misha. “She is?”

“Until the wedding. Because of the flood. The repairs are noisy, and they had to turn off the water and the furnace.”

Guilt and regret hit Nico.

If he wasn’t lying to her, if he wasn’t hiding who he was, he could have invited her here. He’d love to have her stay here with him just as long as she wanted.

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