“I couldn’t sleep.” I felt my cheeks warm. “Anyway, I think I see your problem. You’re measuring what people buy, but you’re not accounting for why they buy it. Holiday shopping isn’t rational. It’s emotional. People aren’t optimizing for value or utility—they’re optimizing for feelings. Joy. Nostalgia. Connection.”
His eyes widened. “The things you can’t measure.”
“The thingsyouhaven’t been measuring,” I corrected. “But they leave traces. You just have to know where to look.”
He stared at me like I’d just solved world hunger. “Show me.”
“I need access to your actual data first. Not just the public stuff.”
“Done. Anything you need.” He was already pulling out his phone. “I’ll set up your credentials right now. Full access. Whatever you want.”
“Nicholas.” I stopped him with a hand on his wrist. His skin was warm, and I felt him go very still. “I need you to understand something. If I help you with this, I’m going to tell you things you don’t want to hear. About your data, about your methodology, about your entire approach.”
“I can handle it.”
“Can you? Because from where I’m sitting, you’re a control freak who’s built his entire life around quantifying the unquantifiable. And I’m about to tell you that most of what you think you know is wrong.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “You really don’t pull punches, do you?”
“Not my style.”
“Good.” He turned his hand under mine, linking our fingers for just a second before letting go. “I don’t want someone who’ll tell me what I want to hear. I want someone who’ll tell me the truth.”
“Even if the truth is that your whole system is fundamentally flawed?”
“Especially then.” He met my eyes. “Fix me, Danika.”
I should not have found that as hot as I did.
“I’m not fixing you,” I said, taking another sip of latte to buy myself time. “I’m fixing your analytics. You’re on your own for the rest.”
“We’ll see about that.”
And there it was—that smirk. The one that made me want to argue with him just to see it again.
I was in so much trouble.
“Okay,” I said, tugging his laptop toward me so I could reach the keyboard. “First lesson. Stop treating Christmas shopperslike rational actors. They’re not. They’re stressed, sentimental, and running on sugar cookies and false hope.”
“Like someone I know?”
I kicked him under the table. “Focus.”
He was grinning now, the stress from earlier melting away. “Yes, ma’am.”
And for the next two hours—surrounded by coffee cups in a lobby that smelled like espresso and poor life choices—I taught a billionaire that some things couldn’t be predicted.
Including, apparently, the way my heart rate spiked every time he looked at me like I was the answer to every question he’d ever asked.
3
NICHOLAS
Danika.
Her name played on repeat in my head like a glitch in the system I couldn’t debug. I’d tried. Meetings, calls, code reviews—none of it helped.
She wasn’t just beautiful—though, God help me, she was definitely beautiful. But what was most interesting about her was the way her brain worked. The strategy, the curiosity…the way she saw solutions before anyone else even spotted the problem. Smart was sexy. And Danika was dangerously, devastatingly smart.
