Chapter ONE
ELIZABETH BENNEThad never trusted a chandelier that looked like it knew your net worth.
The one above her felt like it did, and it looked more like a constellation of crystal suspended like the judgment of God. It glittered down upon The Plaza Hotel’s Grand Ballroom, casting glimmers over a sea of polished ambition. Everyone in the room looked as though they had just been unboxed. Suits fitted within an inch of circulation. Gowns that swished like secrets. Conversations clinking over cocktail glasses and beta-launch buzzwords. The TechFuture Awards Gala was in full swing, and Elizabeth had already located the bar, the exit, and the precise limits of her patience.
Elizabeth had agreed to attend the gala under two conditions: one, that she could leave the moment the speeches turned to blockchain, and two, that no one would try to set her up with a single founder named Chad. Both conditions, she suspected, were already in jeopardy.
She was there for Jane.
Sweet, luminous Jane, who had fallen for a man named Charles Bingley just four weeks prior and had not stopped glowing since. They’d met at a dinner for the faculty of Easton Ridge School, the junior high where Jane taught eight grade and believed in the inherent goodness of children—a fact Elizabethfound both inspiring and deeply suspicious. The dinner had been thrown in honour of some tech-backed “catch them young” program. Bingley, it turned out, was one of the catchers.
Elizabeth had only seen a photo—shared reluctantly, after three days of pestering and one vaguely threatening meme. In it, Bingley looked like a Labrador in human form: golden, enthusiastic, and implausibly pleased to exist. Later, Jane invited him onto a FaceTime call under the guise of saying hello, which quickly turned into him complimenting Elizabeth’s bookshelf and asking, in earnest, whether she believed in finding love online. She did not. But she did believe in charisma, and he had it in unnerving quantities.
He was also, inconveniently, the co-founder of TrueNorth, a dating app currently being praised for its “scientific approach to love” and its “data-first empathy engine.” Phrases that made Elizabeth want to fling her phone into the Hudson and apologise to it afterwards.
As a freelance tech journalist, she had thoughts. Scathing, fully formed, bullet-pointed thoughts. None of them appropriate for polite company, which was precisely why she hadn’t shared them. Yet.
“You promised to behave,” Jane whispered, looping her arm through Elizabeth’s as they stepped through the gilded doors of the ballroom.
“I promised to wear heels,” Elizabeth replied. “Everything else is a bonus.”
Jane gave her a mock-stern look. “You promised.”
Elizabeth raised her free hand in a theatrical gesture of surrender. “Fine. I’ll behave. Unless someone says something truly dreadful. Then I’m morally obligated.”
They relieved a passing waiter of two glasses of champagne. He smiled at them with the weary grace of a man who had long ago stopped hoping anyone would remember his name.
“So,” Elizabeth said, taking a sip, “where’s Prince Charming?”
“Bingley’s probably with his friend. I think they’re speaking next. Some new innovation.”
Elizabeth laughed into her glass. “Innovation,” she repeated, with all the reverence of a woman quoting the contents of a spam folder.
Jane swatted her arm just as the lights dimmed slightly. A ripple passed through the crowd, a collective knowing, a rehearsed stillness. Small talk dissolved. Someone near the front straightened their posture. The announcer’s voice rang out over the PA system: “Please welcome Fitzwilliam Darcy, co-founder of TrueNorth, presenting tonight’s keynote, ‘Love, Mathematically: Engineering Compatibility in the Age of Algorithms.’”
Fitzwilliam Darcy. The name sounded like it should belong to a man who had invented antiseptics or stolen an estate from a dying cousin. And the man himself did not disappoint.
He was tall, sinfully handsome, perfectly tailored, and walked with the air of someone who knew exactly how much his suit cost in multiple currencies. His face was all sharp angles and unsmiling calculation, like a machine vision model that had learned to detect sarcasm but not enjoy it. He took the podium with minimal fanfare, adjusted the microphone as if it had personally inconvenienced him, and began.
“Good evening,” he said, in a voice that managed to be both flat and vaguely disdainful. “Tonight, I want to speak to you about compatibility.”
Elizabeth took a sip. Or possibly a gulp.
“Love, as we define it,” Darcy continued, “is a variable function of behaviour, attraction, and predictability. At TrueNorth, we believe chaos is optional. We’ve spent the last two years building an algorithm capable of reducing emotional entropy in long-term pairings.”
The screen behind him lit up with slides. Graphs, diagrams, and pastel-coloured charts. “Our new model leverages a user’s search history, browsing behaviour, and digital footprint to build what we call a psycho-affective blueprint. The things you search. The choices you make. The content you linger on. These speak volumes.”
Another slide clicked forward.Search Query Heatmap: Predictive Markers for Romantic Intent.
“We are what we search and do online,” Darcy said. “And with enough data points, desire becomes legible. Attraction becomes mappable. Compatibility becomes programmable.”
Elizabeth blinked. Had he just said ‘desire becomes legible’ without wincing?
Darcy went on. “By modelling emotional heuristics across partner archetypes, we can anticipate needs before conflict arises. Reduce disappointment. Minimise romantic inefficiency.”
It was, Elizabeth thought, like watching a man try to taxonomise a kiss.
He clicked to his final slide. “…When properly understood, romantic attachment need not be chaotic. Love is not magic. Love is data.” He paused, then added, “And tonight, we are introducing the updated version of what we’ve been building and testing for the past two years. The new TrueNorth app.”
