The Right Swipe (Modern Love, #1)(2)

Coming from L.A., where she was relatively invisible, it was weird to be in an environment where she was recognized. Rhiannon nodded, braced for anything.

“So cool.” The woman stuck her hand out, gold charm bracelets jingling. “I downloaded Crush on my phone last week.”

Rhiannon relaxed and accepted her hand. “Good luck with it.” She meant that. Success stories were a dating app’s lifeblood. Love was an industry fueled by hope. Whether that hope was misplaced or not was a different question.

She could practically hear her head of marketing hissing in her ear. Maybe cool it on the cynicism when you’re talking to a potential paying subscriber.

“Thank you.” The woman’s nose wrinkled. “I’m not too optimistic. San Francisco is the worst city to be a heterosexual woman trying to date, I’m sure of it.”

Rhiannon bit her cheek. It was a running gag at the office, that line. Almost every single felt like they lived in the worst city to date in. In reality, it was . . . everywhere. Everywhere and everything was terrible and on fire and if you did meet someone you clicked with, you could chalk it up to pure timing and luck.

Cool. It.

Rhiannon buried her personal weariness down deep and dug out a perky smile. Data was her friend, and she had a lot of it. “Actually, fun fact, by our internal numbers, San Francisco has a relatively higher ratio of heterosexual men to heterosexual women, so you might be in good shape.”

The subscriber brightened. “Really? That’s hopeful. Well, thanks. So far, I’ve definitely gotten less dick pics on Crush than I do on the other apps.”

“That’s not a bad legacy to have attached to my name, I guess,” Rhiannon murmured, as the woman waved and walked away.

Rhiannon took another big gulp of her wine and surveyed the crowd again. The back of her neck itched, but it shouldn’t. Lakshmi had vetted the guest list before hacking it for Rhiannon. No Swype employees were at this event, let alone its Chief Executive Asshole. Of course, that didn’t mean everyone in this room liked her.

Her gaze lingered on a small woman not far from her, caught by her strange attire—all black and lace, with a weird hat and a veil that hid the upper half of her face, like she was some kind of old-timey widow—but then the band stopped playing. Rhiannon glanced away for a second, and when she looked back, the crowd had shifted, concealing the woman from view.

That nagging feeling of being watched disappeared, and Rhiannon was so grateful for that, she exchanged her empty wineglass for a full one. The applause died down and a tall man with salt-and-pepper hair stepped out onto the stage, took the mic, thanked the band, and smiled a Colgate smile at the audience. “Hello, all. Thank you for coming tonight. My name’s William Daniels, I’m the CEO of Matchmaker.” His smile widened when people clapped.

Rhiannon rocked back on her heels. She’d seen William around before, but his vaguely dismissive attitude had discouraged her from getting to Annabelle via her executive management.

A huge screen descended onto the stage and flashed a light blue, Matchmaker’s big white M glowing.

“Over two decades ago, Matchmaker was created by a pair of sisters out of a small office in San Francisco.” William paced the stage deliberately, a showman in his natural habitat. “Annabelle and Jennifer Kostas had a vision, to take their successful brick-and-mortar matchmaking business to the new frontier of the internet, to help more people find love than ever before. And they did. The small office in San Francisco may have turned into our current, much larger headquarters in Los Angeles, but we remain committed to you. We remain committed to our hundred-point matching system. We remain committed to helping you find the high of love, not the high of swipes.”

It was an indirect dig at Crush and Swype, but Rhiannon didn’t take it personally. She’d heard this spiel a million times, and William couldn’t deliver it with Jennifer’s charm. The kind-faced matronly woman had filmed commercials proclaiming the same a few years ago.

Rhiannon could afford to be magnanimous to the company she hoped to buy.

“We are so proud of our track record, with tens of thousands of successful matches.”

Rhiannon clapped along with everyone else. Crush’s headquarters were also wallpapered with engagement and wedding and birth announcements from the last three years. She treasured all of them. Not because she was a sentimental person, but because they represented dollar bills. Hope, man. Hell of a drug.

William’s face turned grave. “This has been a year of change and reflection and regrouping for us after the death of our beloved founder and my predecessor CEO, Jennifer. I know many of you were hoping to see Annabelle here tonight, but unfortunately, she’s not feeling well, and will not be able to address you.”

Murmurs ran through the crowd. Rhiannon shared their disappointment but she’d half expected this. Two appearances at one conference from a woman who had managed to stay out of the public eye for over twenty years had seemed like a lot.

There’s still the interview tomorrow. You’ll have your chance.

William spread his hands. “However, we’re excited about what we have in the works. I won’t take up your time tonight with talk about that—you’re here to party, after all—but I hope you’ll come to our open house tomorrow to find out more. Tonight, I’d like you to meet a friend of the company. As we say at Matchmaker, ‘You never know who you’ll find.’” William smirked and Rhiannon leaned closer, her competitive side engaged. That was totally the self-indulgent, smug face of a businessman who was about to reveal some new toy to the audience, and if Matchmaker had a toy, Rhiannon wanted it.