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‘Gemma, with respect, absolutely not,’ Sienna said, her voice tight. ‘I am not co-headlining an event with a woman who treats life like a low-budget romantic comedy.’

Gemma leaned back, smiling. ‘Sienna, it’s basic cross-promotion. If you won’t do it, we can’t spark new growth for your show. And then I’ll have to rethink your production budget increase after all. And I really don’t want to do that to Dating by Design.’

OK, so it was going to be like that, was it?

‘You don’t have to agree with her way, Sienna,’ Gemma added, still smiling. ‘Quite the opposite. It’s a debate. Show our audience why your ethos holds up against hers. I don’t see a world in which that doesn’t help your numbers.’

The threat was clear. Gemma had her by the ovaries.

Then again, there was another way to look at it. Stepping onto that stage could provide an opportunity. A chance to expose Robin Croft as the snake oil merchant she was.

Looking at it like that, Sienna started to warm up to the idea.

Sienna drummed up a dramatic sigh, as if she were conceding to her boss’s demands and not plotting her rival’s downfall.

‘Fine,’ Sienna said. ‘I’ll do the panel.’

‘Wonderful,’ Gemma said, beaming as if there had never been any doubt. ‘I knew I could count on you. I’ll email you the itinerary.’

***

Sienna opened the door to the office she shared with Pip, which was small but perfectly organised. Pip was hunched over her desk, organising a mess of soundboard cables with colour-coded ties. She looked up at Sienna expectantly.

‘Guess who’s about to go head to head with Robin Croft,’ Sienna said calmly, pulling up a blank document on her laptop.

Pip raised an eyebrow. ‘It would be odd if the answer wasn’t you.’ She paused. ‘You look happy. Why do you look happy? Don’t you dislike her?’

‘Do I dislike that cheese ball? Very much,’ Sienna smiled. ‘And now I get the opportunity to show people what a bullshit artist she really is.’

Two

Robin Croft leaned back in her swivel chair, propped her battered Converse up on the edge of the mixing desk, and flashed a dimpled smile at her microphone.

‘So, to my sweet listener who just texted in… Yes, throwing a paper aeroplane with your phone number on it across a crowded underground platform is a bit of a safety hazard,’ Robin said, her voice dripping with warm charisma. ‘But no one lost an eye, and she caught it, didn’t she? And now you have a date on Friday. Risk it all, my friends. Buy the flowers, text first, and let your heart run the show.’

She meant every word. Because Robin Croft believed in love. She really did. Even if she’d never actually found it herself.

Her own romantic history was, for the most part, a trail of three-month fizzles. Yet her personal drought only fuelled her devotion to the show. She fought for her listeners because she genuinely believed the world needed more love in it. Only the most hardened cynic could deny that. If enough women were brave enough to leap without checking the wind conditions, love would win out.

Even if she was still waiting for the big one to find her.

But, as she often reminded her callers, if you stayed open to it, love was bound to find you eventually. At thirty-five, it was taking Robin a bit longer than she’d have liked to find the woman of her dreams, but she held out hope. How could she not, when she heard true love stories every day? Granted, she heard about dreadful shitshows too—and she’d be the first to tell a listener to bin off a partner who wasn’t treating them right. She was here as much to steer women away from absolute wrong ‘uns as she was to encourage the leap.

But above all, Robin’s mission was to champion feeling. The world was far too quiet and sad without it.

She tapped the screen to fade in the smooth jazz outro.

‘I’m Robin Croft, and this has been Meet-Cute.’

Robin cut the feed, pulled off her headphones, and tossed them onto the console.

Across the glass, her sound engineer, Leo, gave her a lazy thumbs-up. ‘Clean take, Rob. Oh, and guess what? Download numbers for that proposal episode last month hit another peak this morning.’

‘We’re a beacon of hope in a dark world, Leo,’ Robin grinned, swinging her legs off the board and reaching for her iced chai.

In six short months at Violet Audio, Robin had taken Meet-Cute from a scrappy indie passion project to one of the network’s fastest-growing shows. The money was nice, but the feeling that she was helping queer women actually go after what they wanted instead of wallowing in existential fear was even better. Well, at least equal.

Her phone buzzed against the console. Bloody hell, had she forgotten to turn it off? That could have wrecked the live feed. And Leo hated editing out her errors before he put the eps up for download. Robin would do better next time. Probably.