Page 29 of In Love With Mr. Wrong

He pulls me into his arms, and for a few seconds, I let myself be held.

"Let me know if you want me in that meeting," he says.

I lean back just enough to meet his gaze. "If I need backup, you’ll be the first call. But this one? I want them to see me. Just me. The woman they tried to bury."

He nods, proud. "Then go get them, Evans."

I kiss him once, brief and certain, and turn toward the door. It’s time to take back everything they tried to ruin. The first thing I do is make sure Alana and her accomplice are dealt with. HR finalizes their immediate termination, legal handles the NDA violations, and security revokes their credentials before the ink dries on their exit paperwork. I don’t look back.

Then, I spend the next two days holed up in the lab with Sophie, pouring over every corrupted line. We rebuild what they try to ruin. Rewrite the predictive modules. Recalibrate the compatibility tier system. Run validation tests and stress simulations until we’re half-blind and dizzy. And finally, the results start coming in clean.

The algorithm is back, and it flawlessly matches me with Grayson. I stare at the latest report, the numbers glaring at me like a dare. Ninety-eight point seven percent compatibility. Emotional resonance index: off the charts. Behavioral overlap: seamless. Predictive longevity: unmatched. Even the conflict resolution probability, which dips after the inheritance debacle, has recovered. Every piece of data screams one thing: he’s the right match.

But love isn’t a formula. And trust isn’t something I can calculate. It’s something I choose, again and again. And with Grayson, I do.

He knows about the pregnancy. He’s known since the night I couldn’t hide it anymore, since the moment I let him hold that truth in his hands alongside me. There’s nothing unspoken between us. No lingering secrets. No dragons in the dark. Only this fragile, growing thing between us, steady and honest and terrifying in its depth. And if Genevieve leaks it, if this explodes into something public before we’re ready, I don’t know if we can survive it.

I’m not scared of being pregnant. I’m not even scared of becoming a mother. I’m scared of the headlines. Of the judgment. Of what people will say when they realize the founder of the most prestigious matchmaking company in the country didn’t plan her own match. That the woman who built her reputation on perfect timing and compatibility let something so profoundly human and messy happen without strategy or script. I know what the public can do to women like me, women who dare to be both successful and vulnerable. One headline, one viral moment, and everything I’ve built could be reduced to gossip and scandal.

I close the report and push away from the desk, my shoulders aching with tension I don’t realize I’m carrying. The apartment is quiet now. Grayson is in the other room, probably answering emails or checking on the board meeting prep, giving me space the way he always seems to know I need it.

I don’t know if I should tell him, about the leak, about what I fear Genevieve might do. About how scared I am, not just of the media, or the fallout, but of what it means to be this vulnerable, this exposed. I helped build Perfectly Matched to help people find something real. And somehow, in the process, I find it too. The question is: do I have the courage to keep it? Because the algorithm may not lie, but it also doesn’t have to face the press, or watch its private life dissected in headlines. It doesn’t have to stand on the front lines when the judgment comes, when the media twists the narrative into something cheap and scandalous. It doesn’t have to live with the weight of being a woman in power who made a choice that doesn’t fit the story the world wants to tell. But I do.

20

GRAYSON

Iwake up to Olivia’s text:Did you see the news? Natalia Crane just threw a digital grenade.

By the time I finish reading the headline, I already know the damage is real:MATCHMAKING QUEEN OR FRAUD? Margot Evans and Grayson King Accused of Ethical Breach and Impulsive Vegas Marriage

My jaw tightens as I scroll through the article. A smear campaign disguised as concern, all framed with the glossy polish of a “neutral investigative piece.” Natalia Crane has always played dirty. She’s a rival matchmaker who tried to poach our highest-profile clients the moment the algorithm was compromised, offering whispered promises and glossy guarantees to anyone nervous enough to consider jumping ship. But this? This is tactical. Precise. Designed to hit where it hurts the most. Margot’s credibility.

I find her in the kitchen, staring into her untouched coffee, the tablet on the counter glowing with the same headline. She doesn’t say a word.

“Margot,” I start, but she doesn’t look up.

“They’re saying I’m unstable,” she says quietly. “That I’ve been compromised. That I married you in secret during a reckless Vegas weekend. That I don’t practice what I preach. That we make impulsive, emotionally compromised decisions and can’t be trusted with the future of matchmaking. That I’m unfit to lead.”

“Because you scared them,” I say, moving beside her. “Because you’re better. BecausePerfectly Matchedis better.”

She gives me a hollow laugh. “It doesn’t matter if it’s true. It’s out there. And now every investor, every client, every future match is going to question if I’m just some cautionary tale wrapped in a power suit.” She looks at me then, and the fight in her eyes is dimmer than I’ve ever seen. “Maybe I should step down. Let the board stabilize. Let them see I’m not the threat.”

“No,” I say. Firm. Final. “You don’t let a vulture define your story.”

She blinks. “Grayson…”

“I’ll handle this.”

When I say it, I mean it. She’s carried this company on her back long enough. She’s fought wars in boardrooms and codebases and bathrooms with pregnancy tests clutched in her hands. She shouldn’t have to fight this alone. So I do what I do best.

But this time, it’s not about the company, not really. It’s about her. About Margot, who’s always been the smartest person in any room, the one who can turn chaos into strategy, algorithms into magic, and yet today, she looks like she’s breaking. And I can’t let that happen.

There’s a part of me that still sees her the way I did when she first walked into my grandfather’s office, unapologetically brilliant, eyes flashing with ambition, shoulders squared against every doubt thrown her way. But now the world’s trying to take that version of her and reduce it to scandal. To shame. Not on my watch.

I will burn this city down before I let them destroy her. Protecting her isn’t about ego. It’s instinct. It’s the only thing I know how to do when everything else feels unstable. So I throw myself into the only battlefield that makes sense to me, damage control, spin, control of the narrative. If I can’t protect her from the storm, I can at least be the one shielding her through it.

I don’t want her to be strong right now. I don’t need her to fight. I want her to rest. To breathe. To know that someone else has her back. So when I say I’ll handle it, I mean it with every cell in my body. And I’m not doing it alone.

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