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Dedication

For the Swoon Squad, the most effervescent readers an author could hope for

chapter one

“Detest” was a very strong word. So were “abhor” and “despise” and “loathe.” Annika, being a pacifist, preferred a different term—something her yoga teacher had said that struck a much more civil chord.

“I am elementally unaligned with you, Hudson Craft,” she muttered, staring at his picture on the Tech Buzz magazine website. Her right hand was curled so tightly around her wireless mouse that the opalescent white plastic creaked in protest. “Completely and utterly elementally unaligned.”

They were calling him “the hottest tech entrepreneur who doesn’t believe in true love.” It was like a train wreck you couldn’t help but stare at. A gratuitously handsome, Harvard-educated, blond train wreck who had (probably) stolen her idea.

Also, that magazine feature was supposed to be hers.

When the journalist had called to interview Annika, she’d assumed she was going to be the feature. Instead, this was her big mention: “‘Relationships are the new frontier as far as the tech sector goes,’ a local businesswoman agrees.”

That was it. That was all of it. Not only was there no mention of her business, Make Up, at all but Annika had been reduced to an anonymous “local businesswoman,” just propping up Hudson Craft in all his amazing amazingness.

“Arrrrghhhh.” Annika reached into her desk drawer to browse her stable of stress tools, all neatly organized using drawer separators. Mini Zen garden? Multicolored breathing sphere? Singing bowl? No, today called for something much more basic.

She grabbed the unicorn-zombie-shaped stress ball she’d lovingly named ZeeZee (he’d been a white elephant gift from one of her friends at yoga; when you squeezed him, his green brains squirted out between your fingers) and shut her drawer slightly harder than she meant to.

Spoil the ending to his book, Annika said to herself, aggressively kneading ZeeZee’s brain. Designer virus to his email address. Glitter bomb that’ll take days to rinse out of his stupid golden hair. She hadn’t seen him since Las Vegas last year, but she could renew their acquaintance in a way he wouldn’t easily forget.

Glancing away from the laptop screen, she let her gaze fall on the newest letter from the bank, lying facedown on her desk under an old teacup. Just like that, Annika’s anger was momentarily swallowed by a wave of anxiety.