Her stomach wilted.

Michelle was even prettier up close, comfortable in her skin, with a friendly smile. And of course, there was River, ripped from the thick pages of a magazine, looking so far out of Jess’s league that she could only laugh at his approach.

He noticed and gave an unsure smile. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing.” She lifted a hand and let it fall in defeat. “Of course, you just—look so nice.”

He stopped in front of her and dropped his gaze from her head to her feet and back again. His voice was a sandpaper scrape. “So do you.”

“Liar.”

He quirked a smile. “Nope.”

It’s all an act, she thought. Even Dracula was notoriously charming.

Then, so quickly she wondered how long he’d been working himself up to it, he bent down and kissed her cheek. Jess was so shocked by this turn of events, he may as well have reached a single finger out and touched her forehead, ET-style. Michelle was probably watching this and writing the headline in her head: Wow, They Are Totally Fake Dating.

Subhead: And They Are Terrible at It.

“Hi,” Jess said, because her brain didn’t remember other words.

River smiled this unfamiliar, private smile and parroted cutely back at her, “Hi.”

Subtitle revision: And She Is Terrible at It.

Michelle reminded them that she was standing there, too. “You two are cute.”

Jess had to literally bite her tongue to not reply, No we aren’t.

River seemed to have also expected her to come back with something contrary and offered a proud flicker of his eyebrow before turning back to Michelle. “Michelle, this is Jess. Jess, Michelle.”

The two women shook hands, and Michelle gestured to an outcropping of rocks near the water. “Should we get started?” As they walked, she pointed to the man with all the cameras. “Jess, this is Blake. He’ll be getting some photos. For now, we’ll just chat while he sets up.” She tilted her head to Blake but kept her eyes on Jess. “If you see him snapping some pictures, he’s just getting candids. I promise we’ll make you look great. Just try to relax as much as possible, be natural.”

Jess took a deep breath and exhaled as completely as she could, clocking that in the process her shoulders dropped from up near her ears back to normal shoulder position.

Comfortably, as though he spent most of his day in front of a film crew rather than at investor meetings, River sat on a rock just below waist height and opened his arm, gesturing for Jess to sit down beside him.

Jess took three steps closer and sat down in a stumble, legs awkwardly pinched together to avoid leaning into his long, solid body. With ease, he shifted her closer to a flatter surface, and now she was in a more comfortable position but they were sitting pressed together like people who were effortlessly intimate.

Which they were not.

“Jess,” Michelle said, and then added, “I hope it’s okay to call you Jess. It’s how River referred to you … ?”

“Jess is great.”

“Great,” she repeated. “I’ve interviewed River before for a piece on the company, so I have some good background there, but this is my first time talking to him as a client. Before we get to him, I’m interested in hearing about how you came into all this. What made you take the test in the first place?”

“Honestly,” Jess said, “I was dragged into it by a friend. She and I—and River—are regulars at this coffee shop, and one of the baristas mentioned River was starting some kind of dating site. Which”—she pointed to him—“I mean, be honest, he looks more like a hot medieval history professor, right?”

Michelle laughed, nodding. “He totally does.” She wrote something down.

“But he invited us to come out to the offices,” Jess said, and looked up at River to find him smiling at her fondly. It was rattling and threw her off her easy, unselfconscious rhythm. “So, we did.”

“And what was it like for you, meeting Jess?” she asked River.

“We hadn’t officially met until that day,” he said, and reached up to run his hand through his hair like a gorgeous stereotype. “I’d noticed her,” he said, looking at her again and letting his gaze move thoroughly over her features. “I’ve seen her there for a couple years now, but had no idea what her name was.”

“Did you want to know?”

He looked at Michelle with a small smirk. “Of course I did. Look at her.” He gestured to Jess.

“Above average?” Jess snarked, unable to help herself.

He gave her a playful but cautious smile. “Far above average. Only an idiot would suggest otherwise.”

Michelle watched this exchange with interest. “I’m sensing there’s a backstory there, but I’ll move on. Jess, can you tell me a little about yourself?”

While Jess gave a skeletal rundown of her life—her undergraduate work at UCLA, her first job at Google, and her later work as a freelancer—River’s attention on the side of her face was like the press of a hot iron. She could feel him smiling, nodding at these various bites of information. She could even hear the tiny hums of affirmation he offered every now and then. Like a proud boyfriend. He was good at this.

“And what did you think when you got the DNADuo score of ninety-eight?” Michelle asked.

At least she could answer plainly here. “I didn’t believe it.”

River laughed. “I didn’t, either.”

“I can imagine,” Michelle said.

“Think about it,” he said. Jess swallowed about a cubic liter of air when River threaded the fingers of his left hand with her right. He was very good at this. “I’ve seen hundreds of thousands of these scores over the past decade. I’d never seen a ninety-eight. What are the odds it would be me?”

“I’d say they were very slim.”

“Slim to none. In fact,” River told her, “Jess could probably calculate those odds.”

“I could, for sure,” she said, grinning. “That score is, as we mathematicians like to say, ‘deeply fucking unexpected.’”

They both laughed, and River squeezed her hand in a tiny Good job gesture. At least, she assumed that’s what he meant. It could easily have been more like Don’t say the F-word in front of the reporter.