Her friends sent her to a millionaire as a joke, but his reaction made every person at the table stop laughing.

The morning sun filtered through the thin, faded curtains of Emily’s third-floor apartment, illuminating floating dust motes and the orange cat, Hemingway, who was currently asleep on her face.

Emily groaned, gently shoving the twenty-pound feline off her nose. Hemingway let out an indignant meow, stretched his stubby legs, and trotted off toward his empty food bowl to begin his daily campaign of harassment.

“I’m awake, I’m awake,” Emily muttered, rubbing her eyes.

She rolled over and reached blindly for her phone on the nightstand. Her thumb swiped lazily to dismiss her alarm, but as the screen lit up, her thumb froze mid-motion.

Notifications. Hundreds of them.

No, thousands.

Her lock screen was a chaotic waterfall of red badges. Instagram. Twitter—or X, as it was awkwardly called now. Facebook. Unknown numbers via WhatsApp.

*What on earth?*

She tapped her Instagram icon. The app lagged for three full seconds before opening, burdened by an unprecedented data avalanche. Her follower count, which usually hovered around two hundred and forty people—mostly coworkers, distant relatives, and high school acquaintances she hadn't spoken to in a decade—had exploded.

Over forty-five thousand followers. And climbing by the second.

Her heart seized. Her breath hitched in her throat. She tapped her profile, navigating to her most recent post—a picture of a rain-soaked maple leaf she had taken three weeks ago. The comment section was a warzone.

*@CityGossipQueen: "Is this the mystery girl from the Grand Oak? Look at her bio, she works at Maple Street Books!"*

*@TechBro99: "Bro, Daniel Brooks took her out? That’s wild. She looks totally ordinary."*

*@Haterade_101: "Gold-digger alert. Give it a week before she’s asking for a Tesla."*

*@Bookworm_Jane: "Wait, Emily? Emily from Maple Street? You guys, this is my coworker! Leave her alone!"*

Emily’s fingers trembled so violently she nearly dropped her phone onto the hardwood floor. She scrambled out of bed, her bare feet hitting the chilly floorboards, and rushed to the small vanity mirror in the corner of her bedroom. She looked pale, exhausted, and profoundly ordinary.

How had this happened?

She remembered Daniel noticing the livestream at the bar. She remembered security escorting those venomous women out. But someone—one of them, or someone sitting nearby—must have backed up the stream or recorded a clip of Daniel pulling out her chair, smiling at her, and whispering in her ear.

And now, the internet had found her.

Before she could process the sheer, suffocating scale of the digital exposure, her phone started vibrating violently in her palm.

An incoming call. *Olivia.*

Emily answered on the second ring, her voice tight with panic. “Olivia. What have you done?”

On the other end of the line, Olivia sounded breathless, a mixture of unbridled hysteria and manic excitement. “Emily! Oh my god, Emily, are you seeing this? Are you trending on Twitter? You’re number three on local trends! *‘Mystery Bookstore Girl and the Billionaire’*—that’s literally the hashtag!”

“You set me up!” Emily hissed, pacing across her small bedroom. “You knew! Don’t lie to me, Olivia. You knew who Daniel Brooks was, didn’t you?”

“Well… I mean… kind of?” Olivia stammered, the guilt bleeding clearly through her voice. “Look, my cousin’s husband works in venture capital, and he mentioned that Daniel was looking for a date for that charity auction thing, and I just casually mentioned that my brilliant, gorgeous, chronically single best friend deserved a night out, and—wait, why are you mad? He’s gorgeous! He’s a billionaire! And judging by the blurry video circulating on TikTok, he looked at you like you were the only person in the entire restaurant!”

“He looked at me like I was a science experiment, Olivia!” Emily yelled, though even as she said it, she knew it was a lie. Daniel hadn’t looked at her with clinical detachment. He had looked at her with a warmth that had kept her awake half the night, staring at her ceiling and remembering the weight of his hand on her wrist.

“An experiment that landed you forty thousand new followers and a date with the most eligible bachelor in the state?” Olivia countered. “Emily, this is Cinderella stuff! You should be popping champagne, not hyperventilating!”

“I don’t want to be Cinderella, Olivia! Cinderella had magic mice; I have a cat who eats electrical cords and a job where I alphabetize paperback romances! This is a disaster. What if reporters come to the bookstore? What if people start picketing outside my apartment?”

“Nobody is going to picket your apartment, calm down,” Olivia soothed. “Just… don’t look at social media. Turn your phone off. Go to work like normal.”

“Go to work?” Emily shrieked. “How am I supposed to go to work when half the city thinks I’m a gold-digging interloper?”

“By putting on your favorite shoes, walking through that door, and pretending you own the place. Talk to you later, love you!”

*Beep. Beep. Beep.*

Olivia hung up.

Emily stared at her phone screen in sheer disbelief. Easy for Olivia to say; Olivia didn’t have a line of reporters potentially waiting outside Maple Street Books.

Forty minutes later, dressed in a sensible gray sweater and dark trousers, Emily stepped out of her apartment building and immediately froze.

Parked across the narrow street was a sleek, matte-black luxury sedan. Tinted windows. A familiar silhouette in the front seat.

As Emily stepped onto the pavement, the passenger door swung open smoothly, and a tall man in a dark charcoal coat stepped out.

Daniel Brooks.

Passersby on the sidewalk stopped in their tracks, turning their heads, whispering, and frantically raising their smartphones to take pictures.

Emily’s soul practically left her body. She clutched her canvas tote bag against her chest like a shield and marched across the street, her heels clicking sharply against the pavement.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed, grabbing the sleeve of his coat and pulling him closer to the brick wall of her building out of the direct line of sight. “Are you insane? Do you want to attract every paparazzi vulture in a fifty-mile radius?”

Daniel looked down at her, entirely unbothered by the growing commotion around them. He adjusted his collar calmly.

“Good morning to you too, Emily,” he said smoothly, a faint smirk playing on his lips. “And to answer your question: no, I’m quite sane. But I’m also a man who likes to ensure his guests arrive at their destinations safely—especially when said destinations are currently surrounded by digital predators.”

Emily peered past his shoulder. Sure enough, down the block, two figures with long-lens cameras were sprinting toward them.

“Get in the car,” Daniel instructed, his tone shifting into one of absolute command.

“I take the subway!” Emily protested.

“Not today, you don’t.” Without waiting for her consent, Daniel scooped her elbow, practically lifting her off her feet, and ushered her swiftly into the back seat of the luxury sedan. He slid in right behind her, and the driver immediately locked the doors and pulled away from the curb just as the first flashbulb went off.

Emily slumped against the plush leather interior, breathing heavily. She looked at Daniel, who was calmly tapping away on his tablet.

“You love this, don’t you?” she accused quietly.

Daniel paused his typing, turned his head, and looked at her with eyes that were suddenly very soft.

“Emily,” he said quietly, closing the tablet. “I hate the press. I hate the noise. But more than that, I hate seeing someone I care about being targeted by bullies who think they can control her life.”

Emily’s breath caught. *Someone I care about.*

The phrase hung in the quiet interior of the car, heavy with implication. Before she could process the dizziness it caused, Daniel reached out, gently brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear.