Blind Date with the Billionaire

I had exactly one goal for this blind date: make the guy run for the hills. I looked him dead in the eye and lied through my teeth. I can't have kids.

Tristan blinked, genuine surprise flashing across his face. Wow, what a coincidence. I'm sterile.

I ripped off my trench coat. Underneath, I rocked a neon-colored, skin-tight bodysuit plastered with a massive, exaggerated print of Nicolas Cage's face.

He just cocked an eyebrow. Sliding his foot out from under the table, he proudly displayed a blindingly neon-pink Croc, completely bedazzled in rhinestones.

I stared at the hideous shoe, then back up into his dangerously amused dark eyes. Well, damn. I finally met my match.

Chapter 1

Spring arrived. Everything was coming back to life. And my mom was back on her favorite bullshit: aggressively demanding I get married.

My current hobby? Going through the motions on these endless blind dates.

My mom was great, but her need to keep up with the Joneses was a sickness. Ever since her besties at the country club started posting pictures of their grandkids on Facebook, she hadn't said a word out loud, but behind my back, shed already thrown serious cash at a top-tier VIP membership for an elite matchmaking club.

Now, the very first text I woke up to every single day was asking if I had found a boyfriend yet.

When I was a kid, I wanted a dog.

My mom: "Absolutely not."

Now, she wanted a grandchild.

Me: "Absolutely not."

I was only twenty-five. But with the way she was scheduling ten dates a week for me, you'd think my biological clock wasn't just tickingit was a timed explosive. She had a vicious temper, and I was stubborn as a mule.

I showed up to every single date, and I came home empty-handed every single time.

It wasn't that my standards were impossibly high. It was just that these modern matchmakers had zero filter. If the price was right, they could sell ice to an Eskimo. Every word out of their mouths bordered on a federal felony.

Take the last guy. The matchmaker claimed, "He's a CEO. He has tens of thousands of workers under him."

Turns out, he was a beekeeper.

The guy before that? She hyped him up, saying, "He whips up absolute culinary masterpieces."

Turns out, the guy only had one arm.

And the one before that? She promised, "He's six feet tall and super athletic."

Turns out, the guy looked like a walking Big Mac.

When I confronted her, she had the nerve to say, "Okay, sure, he's barely five-foot-three standing still, but if he jumps, he's easily six feet!"

I stared at her. "You shouldn't be a matchmaker. You should be on Wall Street selling vaporware crypto."

It got worse. She pitched one guy as "honest and a man of few words."

Turns out, he was in a literal coma. That wasn't "a man of few words," that was clinically unresponsive.

But the absolute worst one? She set me up with a convicted serial killer.

And she promised me with a straight face: "He's rehabilitated! He doesn't kill anymore. Look, he didn't even try to murder me on the ride over here."

I didn't even have words for that one.

In conclusion: matchmakers were pathological liars.

But my mom refused to give up. She kept throwing me straight into the meat grinder. I hadn't even stepped out the front door when my phone lit up with a FaceTime call from her. She was grinning like she knew a secret.

"Cleo, make sure you dress nice today. This one is a premium catch!"

"Right." I gave her the fakest, tightest smile I could muster.

Think about it. Even the matchmakers couldn't find a single lie to hype this new guy up. That meant he had to be a catastrophic, bottom-of-the-barrel disaster.

My mom caught my expression, and her brows pinched together. "Hold the phone back. Let me see what you're wearing."

Given that I had previously showed up to a date dressed in my grandma's orthopedic shoes and a moth-eaten cardigan just to scare a guy off, she wasn't taking any chances.

I stepped back. A classic khaki trench coat paired with beige kitten heels.

My mom nodded in approval.

As the call disconnected, a dark, knowing smile crept onto my face. She had her little schemes, but I had my countermeasures. Showing up didn't mean I was going to play nice. I was a professional at making men run away.

I pulled my coat tighter and buttoned it all the way up, carefully concealing the blinding neon fabric of the bodysuit I was wearing underneath.

We were meeting at a local coffee shop. I picked it strictly because I had home-field advantage; I'd endured at least seven dates here already. I always ordered straight espresso. That way, when I stared across the table at whatever loser they set me up with, the bitterness of the coffee would distract me from the bitterness of my own pathetic life.

I walked in exactly five minutes early. My phone buzzed. A text from the guy saying he was already here.

I scanned the room. Based on my extensive empirical data, a guy the matchmaker couldn't even lie about was guaranteed to be the ugliestor at least the second ugliestdude in the building.

I took a quick inventory. Two guys with aggressive male pattern baldness. Yikes.

And then there was a guy with a genuinely incredible back profile. He was wearing a sharp black suit, his posture rigid and commanding.

I was just about to pick which of the two balding guys was my tragic destiny when my screen lit up again.

Match No. 10: "I'm at table one. Wearing black."

Table one?

I flicked my eyes toward that corner. Right at that exact second, the guy with the incredible back profile slowly turned his head.

Chapter 2

His features were absurdly flawless, his skin a cold, pale porcelain. Our eyes locked. Like he was confirming a target, one dark eyebrow ticked upward.

Holy shit.

He was gorgeous?

I needed to touch grass or dunk my head in ice water to calm down. I walked over in silence and slid into the booth.

"Cleo." I held out my hand.

He reached out with long, perfectly proportioned fingers and gave my hand a light squeeze. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing the sharp, pronounced veins running down his forearms. "Tristan."

The sudden, burning heat of his skin sent a sharp tremor straight down my spine. I panicked, snatched my espresso, and downed it like a shot. The bitter acid scorched my throat and blasted my scalp, instantly vaporizing any romantic delusions I had forming.

Time to make him run for the hills. The best defense was a psycho offense.

I went on the attack, raking my eyes over him like I was appraising a cheap used car. "What's your educational background? I don't do uneducated losers."

The last guy showed up in a three-piece suit and bragged he almost graduated from an Ivy League. I figured a state college degree was fine. The next second, he admitted there was a 'minor hiccup' and he actually dropped out of high school. Really opened my eyes to the audacity of men.

Tristan let out a heavy sigh. Maybe I was hallucinating, but he forced a tragically apologetic tone.

"Ah. Barely managed my Ph.D." He casually slid a leather-bound diploma folder across the table.

I grabbed it, highly suspicious. My eyes zeroed in on the embossed letters: Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPh.D. in Artificial Intelligence. I quietly snapped the folder shut.

Damn. I hit a brick wall.

I pivoted hard. "How much real estate do you own? I come from a massive family. We're all moving in together after the wedding."

That was toxic enough, right? If my mom heard me, shed smack me into next week.

I was an only child. What massive family?

"Oh, I thrive in a crowded house," he shot back effortlessly. "I own way too many properties anyway. It's impossible to live in all of them."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a custom, ridiculously expensive leather cardholder. He slapped down a thick stack of smart keycards for top-tier luxury penthouses and a pile of private estate deeds.

It gave me the jarring, chaotic energy of a British royal pole dancing in a Texas dive bar.

Well played, you absolute menace.

I cleared my throat. "I strictly date guys over six feet. The last guy claimed he was six feet, and I ended up towering over him."

Lying by an inch? Fine. I get it.

But claiming you're six feet when you can't even clear my five-foot-nine frame? George Washington would rise from the grave just to rewrite the entire imperial measurement system.

The corner of his mouth curved up. Amusement danced in his narrow, predatory eyes. He sat slumped back in his chair, totally relaxed, exuding this clean, unfiltered confidence. "I don't know about that guy," he drawled, "but the man sitting in front of you is a solid six-foot-two."

Wait. What was wrong with the matchmaker? Did she suffer a head injury and start telling the truth? She called him a premium catch, and he actually was.

There wasn't a single flaw to pick apart. I had to go nuclear. Mutual assured destruction.

I grinded my teeth, slapped on a dead-serious face, and fired my final shot. "Full disclosure. I can't have kids." That was lethal, right?

Instead of running, genuine surprise flashed across his face. His tone stayed lazy, a smirk playing on his lips. "Wow, what a coincidence. I'm sterile."

I had met my match.

There was no other way. Time for the ultimate weapon. I squeezed my eyes shut, grabbed the lapels of my trench coat, and ripped it off. I exposed the blinding neon bodysuit underneath, completely plastered with a massive, exaggerated print of Nicolas Cage's face.

Gasps echoed through the entire coffee shop.

I kept a totally straight face, projecting my voice like a stage actor. "They laugh at my madness, I laugh at their ignorance! God, I love my Nicolas Cage onesie!"

I stared at him, practically vibrating with anticipation. That was a giant, walking red flag, right?

His expression twitched, turning bizarre for a split second before settling into a terrifyingly handsome, polite smile. In total silence, he slid his foot out from under the table. A blindingly neon-pink Croc, completely bedazzled in rhinestones, caught the cafe lighting. He looked me dead in the eye and stated, loud and clear, "And I love my rhinestone Crocs."

My sanity snapped. I was faking it, but he looked genuinely unhinged. No one was this committed to a bit.

"Bro, seriously?" I pointed at his shoe. "Would it kill you to just take the L and walk away?"

He seemed to absolutely thrive on watching me lose my mind. A low, dark laugh rumbled from the back of his throat. He leaned in and dropped one word, completely dripping with sass. "No."

I clenched my fists. I was just about to grab my purse and sprint for the exit when my phone blew up.

I didn't even have it on speaker, but my mom's voice blasted through the receiver, loud and clear.

"Cleo! How are things going with Tristan? This boy is an absolute catch! He's lightyears out of your league, so you better not mess this up!"

Chapter 3

"When you were little, you completely weaponized your early growth spurt to bully him. You played the Beast and forced him to play Princess Belle."

The longer she talked, the more twisted my stomach got. My expression plummeted. The way my mom was talking she knew him? "Mom, wasn't he introduced by the matchmaker?"

My mom snorted with sheer disgust. "Absolutely not. The guys she picks make me nauseous just looking at them. I honestly pity you for sitting through so many.

"Tristan is Vivians son. You know, from next door when you were kids? He just moved back from overseas."

Ten years of dusty memories slammed into reverse.

The blurry silhouette in my head snapped into sharp focus, overlapping with the man sitting across from me. I ended the call and jerked my head up, pure shock written all over my face. I crashed straight into a pair of dark, deeply amused eyes.

He held a wicked smile, the corner of his mouth curving into a slow, deliberate smirk. He leaned in and dropped his voice until it vibrated right across the table. "Hey there, Beast."

Hearing that ancient, mortifying callback made my vision legitimately go black. I wasn't even joking. If I wasn't staring right at him, I never would have believed it.

Ten years had mutated him into an entirely different species.

From the day I met him at three years old until he moved away when we were fifteen, he had always looked like he was one sneeze away from the ICU. He was born premature, so he was short, scrawny, and looked like a stiff breeze would snap him in half. Combine that with his objectively pretty face and pale skin, and he basically looked like a tragic, fragile porcelain doll.

The first time I ever laid eyes on him, it was dead of winter. Vivian's family had just moved in next door, giving us our first real neighbors.

My mom dragged me over with a welcome basket. Even from down the driveway, I spotted this gorgeous woman holding hands with a tiny, delicate toddler. He was bundled up in a thick, fluffy winter coat, looking straight out of a Renaissance painting.

I immediately blurted out, "What a pretty little girl."

The "little girl" gave a full-body flinch, staring at me in absolute betrayal.

The gorgeous neighbor choked back a laugh. She told me Tristan was the exact same age as meactually, he was two days older.

My eyes went wide. His version of three years old and my version were existing in entirely different dimensions.

I was built like a baby linebacker. He was built like a teacup poodle.

"Are babies super expensive?" I asked, holding up my pinky finger to measure him. "Is that why you could only afford such a tiny one?"

Once, when I pissed my mom off, she told me she fished me right out of the dumpster by the clearance aisle at Walmart.

My mom didn't even have the reflex speed to slap her hand over my mouth. She just stood there, mortified, grinding out an awkward laugh.

Before Vivian could say anything, the "little girl" ripped his hand away from his mom's. He tilted his chin up, glaring at me.

"Idiot. You got lied to. We obviously came from the dumpster."

Me: "???"

Vivian: ""

My Mom: ""

The two women locked eyes, turned around, and buried their faces in their hands.

I had rock-solid confidence in myself. I was a genius; there was zero chance my own mother could trick me.

Obviously, this poor, frail girl was the one being lied to. I decided to be the bigger person.

I reached out and aggressively patted him on the head to comfort him. "It's okay! You're really little, so it's totally normal for adults to trick you!"

I don't know what specific word shattered his fragile ego. The next second, his lips pressed into a tight, trembling line. His eyes flushed red, and huge, heavy tears welled up on his stupidly long eyelashes. I totally panicked.

Then I remembered how my dad always smoothed things over when my mom got mad. I marched right up to him and planted a giant, wet kiss directly on his cheek.

He blinked in complete shock. Then his face crumpled, and he started wailing at the top of his lungs. "Mom! She assaulted me!"

Vivian scooped him up, physically biting her lip to keep from laughing out loud while she rubbed his back.

I shot a guilty, terrified glance at my mom. She took a massive, shuddering breath, a muscle ticking aggressively in her jaw.

I immediately clamped both hands over my own butt. I was dead meat. I was absolutely getting my ass beat the second we crossed our property line.

She didn't beat me.

Instead, she hit me where it really hurt: she only let me eat one bowl of dinner.

That was way worse than physical violence! How the hell was one bowl supposed to fill me up? I was a three-bowl minimum kind of kid! I must have been a genetic mutation.

I was a full head taller than every other kid in my age bracket. When my parents dragged me to the pediatrician, the doctor just shrugged and said I was an early bloomer. I was perfectly healthyaside from the fact that I ate like a lumberjack.

Chapter 4

My mom sighed, her tone heavy with concern. "Cleo, sweetie, you have to listen to me. We need to cut back on your portions. You're growing at a terrifying rate. If I tell anyone you're only three, they'd call me a liar. You look like you're five."

I pouted, clutching my stomach. "But I'm starving!"

"But if you keep eating like this, none of the other kids are going to want to play with you."

She had a point. The other toddlers treated me like a giant and completely iced me out of the sandbox.

But that was fine! We had a tiny new neighbor girl now, and I was going to play with her. "Mom, is the little girl so tiny because she doesn't eat enough?"

My mom hesitated. I guess being premature meant he didn't absorb enough nutrients? "You you could say that."

Okay. Message received.

Remembering how Id made the fragile little girl cry earlier today, I snuck into my bedroom, scooped my best friend Truffle into my arms, and marched straight next door.

My family ran a ranch. Truffle was a piglet born to our prize sow, Mabel, and he had almost died at birth. I had rescued him, bottle-feeding him formula every single day. Now, at almost a month old, he was pale, chubby, and built like a tankjust like me.

I banged on the front door. Gregory opened it. I told him I was here to play with the little girl.

He just stared at me blankly for a second. Then it clicked, and he slapped his thigh, bursting into uncontrollable laughter. "Hahahaha! Tristan, get out here and play with your big sister! Hahaha! This is what happens when you refuse to eat your dinner! Hahaha!"

The "little girl" was still holding a grudge. The second he saw me, the waterworks started all over again. He leaked like a broken faucet.

Sigh.

I reached out with my chubby little hand and forcefully wiped the tears off his face. "I'm sorry, little girl! Stop crying. Look, I'm giving you my absolute best friend!"

Truffle let out a loud snort from my arms. That instantly grabbed his attention, shutting the tears off like a switch.

I unzipped my winter coat, dragged Truffle out, and shoved him directly into his hands. What I forgot was that Truffle was literally half his size. He stumbled, took two chaotic steps backward, lost his balance, and planted his butt hard on the floor.

""

His mouth wobbled like a pathetic little duckling, and I could tell another wail was coming. I lunged forward and slapped my hand over his mouth. I quickly introduced my best friend. "This is Truffle."

He sniffled, reaching out to gently poke Truffle's curly tail. "Is this a pet for me?"

I nodded, then shook my head violently. "My mom says if you eat a lot, you grow fast! Wait until he grows up, he can be made into Texas BBQ, smoked bacon, and pulled pork! Little girl, you can eat a ton of him later. He's gonna be so delicious!" I couldn't stop myself from aggressively slurping my own drool.

He just stared at me. "" He grabbed Truffle by the tail and silently hid the piglet behind his back.

Seeing that he had accepted Truffle, I tilted my head. "Do you forgive me now?"

He gave a tiny nod.

"So are we best friends now?"

He stiffened his neck and turned his face away, acting incredibly stubborn. "Wh-who wants to be best friends with you?!"

Huh? Fine. What was the saying for this again?

Giving away the bacon and still getting rejected? "That's okay. I'll just come back and ask you again tomorrow