The Terms of Engagement
Mira was halfway to the door when Derek’s voice cut through the room like a scalpel.
“Mira. Leo. My office. Now.”
She froze, her hand hovering over the door handle. Behind her, she heard Leo’s chair creak as he stood, the slow, deliberate sound of someone who had all the time in the world. She turned. He was already walking toward her, that infuriating half-smile plastered across his face like he knew something she didn’t.
He probably did. That was the problem.
The walk to Derek’s corner office felt like a death march. The open-plan floor was a sea of glass partitions and exposed brick, the kind of aesthetic that cost millions to look “authentic.” A row of junior developers hunched over their monitors, their faces lit by the cold blue glow of code. Someone had left a half-eaten avocado toast on a communal table, the bread going soft and brown. The kombucha tap gurgled in the corner, a sound Mira had once found comforting but now sounded like a dying animal.
Derek’s office was a glass box at the far end, the blinds half-drawn. He was already seated when they walked in, his hands flat on the polished walnut desk. His tie was loosened, his sleeves rolled up, and the vein in his forehead was doing something that looked medically concerning.
“Close the door,” he said.
Leo closed it. The click of the latch was loud in the sudden silence.
Mira took the chair on the left. Leo took the one on the right. They sat like opposing counsel, a polished oak desk between them and a CEO who looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.
Derek didn’t bother with pleasantries. “The investors are pulling out.”
Mira’s stomach dropped. “All of them?”
“All of them.” Derek rubbed his temples. “They gave us thirty days to produce a verified success story. A real couple. A love story they can put on a billboard. And we have nothing. The app is hemorrhaging users. Our retention rate is in the toilet. The only thing HeartSync is known for is a glitch that matched a vegan with a butcher.”
“That was one time,” Leo said.
“It was three times,” Derek snapped. “And it made the local news.”
Mira pressed her fingers into her palms. Her algorithm was sound. It was efficient. It was mathematically superior to every other matching system on the market. But efficiency didn’t sell. Efficiency didn’t make people feel warm and fuzzy. Efficiency was a spreadsheet, and nobody fell in love with a spreadsheet.
“We need a couple,” Derek said, his voice dropping to something quieter, more desperate. “We need two people who met on HeartSync, who are visibly, publicly, undeniably in love. And we need them at the Product Launch Gala in thirty days.”
Mira opened her mouth to suggest hiring actors, but Derek held up a hand.
“I’ve already checked. Every agency in the Bay Area is booked. There’s a tech conference in San Jose and every available performer is working the trade show floor. We’re out of options.”
Leo leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed. “So what’s the plan, Derek? You want us to manufacture a miracle?”
“Yes.” Derek’s eyes flicked between them. “Exactly that.”
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
Mira looked at Leo. Leo looked at Mira. For a brief, horrifying moment, they were in perfect sync.
“No,” Mira said.
“Absolutely not,” Leo said at the same time.
Derek didn’t flinch. “You’re the only two single employees in this entire company. Everyone else is married, engaged, or in a relationship that’s been verified by at least three social media platforms. You two are it.”
“We hate each other,” Mira said.
“She’s not wrong,” Leo added.
“I don’t care if you hate each other,” Derek said, his voice rising. “I care if you can pretend to like each other for thirty days. That’s it. Thirty days. You go on a few dates. You post some photos. You look at each other like you’re not planning to rewrite each other’s code when the other isn’t looking.”
Mira’s jaw tightened. She had, in fact, considered rewriting Leo’s code. Multiple times. She had a folder on her desktop labeled “LEO_BUGS” that was mostly just screenshots of his work with red circles around the questionable parts.
“This is insane,” she said.
“This is survival,” Derek said. “If we don’t have a success story by the gala, HeartSync is dead. The investors walk. The company folds. You both lose your jobs, your stock options, and your reputations. Do you think anyone in this town hires a data scientist from a failed dating app? You’ll be toxic. You’ll be a cautionary tale told at happy hours.”
Mira wanted to argue, but the math was brutal. The job market was saturated. Her last three LinkedIn messages had been from recruiters offering contract work at companies she’d never heard of. The rent on her studio apartment was going up next month, and her savings account was a sad, round number that didn’t inspire confidence.
She looked at Leo. He was staring at the ceiling, his jaw working. He was doing the math too.
“Fine,” Leo said, the word coming out like a sigh. “I’ll do it.”
Mira’s head snapped toward him. “What?”
“I said I’ll do it.” He dropped his gaze to meet hers. “But only if we set ground rules. Clear terms of engagement. No ambiguity.”
Derek nodded, already pulling out a legal pad. “Name them.”
Leo ticked them off on his fingers. “One. This is strictly professional. We are coworkers executing a business strategy. Two. No physical contact beyond what’s necessary for public appearances. Hand-holding for photos, arm-linking for events, nothing more. Three. We maintain separate living spaces. No sleepovers, no overnight stays, no exceptions.”
“Agreed,” Mira said, before Derek could respond. “And I want my own terms. Four. We create a shared document with a complete timeline of our fake relationship. Every date, every conversation, every detail. If we’re going to lie, we’re going to lie consistently. Five. No sabotaging each other’s work. The algorithm competition is separate from this charade. We keep them in different buckets.”
Leo’s eyes narrowed. “You think I’d sabotage you?”
“I think you’d do whatever it takes to win,” Mira said. “And I want it in writing that you won’t.”
Derek was scribbling furiously on the legal pad. “I’ll have legal draft a formal agreement by end of day. Anything else?”
Mira thought for a moment. “We need a backstory. How we met, when we started dating, what we see in each other. It has to be believable.”
“We met on the app three months ago,” Leo said, his tone flat, like he was reading from a script. “You swiped right on my profile because of my witty bio.”
“Your bio was one sentence,” Mira said. “‘I’m looking for someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously.’ It’s the most generic thing I’ve ever read.”
“It’s charming.”
“It’s lazy.”
“Enough,” Derek said, holding up a hand. “You can argue about the bio later. Right now, I need you to agree to the basic premise. You met on HeartSync. You’ve been dating for three months. You’re in love. Can you do that?”
Mira looked at Leo. He looked at her. The air between them felt charged, like the static before a thunderstorm.
“Yes,” she said, the word tasting like ash.
“Yes,” Leo echoed, his voice flat.
Derek exhaled, a long, shaky breath. “Good. I’ll have the PR team draft a press release. We’ll announce it at the end of the week. In the meantime, I need you to start acting like a couple. Go to lunch together. Walk out of the office together. Make it look real.”
Mira stood, her chair scraping against the floor. “Fine. But I’m documenting everything.”
She walked out of the office without waiting for Leo, her heels clicking against the polished concrete. The open-plan floor was buzzing with activity, but she didn’t see any of it. Her mind was racing, running through scenarios, calculating probabilities, trying to find the flaw in this plan.
There were too many variables. Too many unknowns.
She made it to her desk before Leo caught up with her. He leaned against the partition, his arms crossed, that insufferable smile back on his face.
“So,” he said. “First date. What’s your schedule like?”
Mira didn’t look up from her monitor. “I’m busy.”
“You’re always busy. That’s part of your charm.” He pulled out his phone, scrolling through something. “There’s a new place in SoMa. Overpriced, underlit, exactly the kind of restaurant where tech couples go to be seen. I’ll book us a table for Friday at eight.”
“I don’t eat out.”
“You do now.” He pocketed his phone. “And Mira? Try to smile. It’s a date, not a code review.”
He walked away before she could respond, his footsteps light, confident, infuriating.
Mira stared at her monitor. The screen was dark, reflecting her own tired face back at her. She looked like someone who hadn’t slept in days, which was accurate. Her hair was escaping its ponytail, her glasses were smudged, and there was a coffee stain on her collar that she’d been meaning to treat for a week.
She opened a new Google Doc and titled it “OPERATION: FAKE LOVE.”
Underneath, she typed:
**Timeline of Events (Fabricated)**
- **Day 1 (Three Months Ago):** Mira swipes right on Leo’s profile. Reason: His bio was “acceptable.” (Need to flesh this out. Make it more romantic. Maybe mention his photo with the dog. Was that his dog? I’ll assume it was his dog.)
- **Day 3:** First message. Leo sends a witty opener. (I’ll write this later. Something about algorithms. He’d probably make a joke about Bayesian probability. It’s the only thing we have in common.)
- **Day 7:** First date. Coffee at a café in the Mission. (I’ll pick one that’s already closed. Less chance of someone verifying it.)
She paused, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. This was absurd. She was a data scientist, not a fiction writer. She dealt in facts, in numbers, in verifiable truths. And now she was supposed to invent a love story from scratch, complete with meet-cutes and witty banter and the kind of romantic details that made people believe in something that didn’t exist.
Her phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.
**Unknown:** This is Leo. I got your number from HR. Don’t be mad.
**Mira:** I’m mad.
**Leo:** I know. But I also know you’re already writing a timeline document. I can see you typing from across the room. Your face does this thing when you’re concentrating. It’s very specific.
Mira looked up. Across the open floor, Leo was sitting at his desk, his phone in his hand, watching her. He raised an eyebrow.
She looked back down at her phone.
**Mira:** Stop watching me.
**Leo:** Can’t. It’s part of the job now. I need to learn your mannerisms. Your habits. The way you tap your fingers when you’re annoyed. (You’re doing it right now.)
Mira looked at her hand. She was, in fact, tapping her fingers on the desk.
She stopped.
**Mira:** This is a terrible idea.
**Leo:** Probably. But it’s the only one we’ve got. See you Friday. Try not to wear anything with a company logo.
She set her phone down, face-down, and stared at the Google Doc. The cursor blinked at her, patient and expectant.
She typed one more line:
**Note to self:** Do not fall for him. He is the enemy. He is smug, arrogant, and his code is sloppy. This is a business transaction. Nothing more.
She saved the document and closed her laptop.
Across the room, Leo was still watching her. She could feel his gaze like a weight on her skin.
She didn’t look up.
“Mira. Leo. My office. Now.”
She froze, her hand hovering over the door handle. Behind her, she heard Leo’s chair creak as he stood, the slow, deliberate sound of someone who had all the time in the world. She turned. He was already walking toward her, that infuriating half-smile plastered across his face like he knew something she didn’t.
He probably did. That was the problem.
The walk to Derek’s corner office felt like a death march. The open-plan floor was a sea of glass partitions and exposed brick, the kind of aesthetic that cost millions to look “authentic.” A row of junior developers hunched over their monitors, their faces lit by the cold blue glow of code. Someone had left a half-eaten avocado toast on a communal table, the bread going soft and brown. The kombucha tap gurgled in the corner, a sound Mira had once found comforting but now sounded like a dying animal.
Derek’s office was a glass box at the far end, the blinds half-drawn. He was already seated when they walked in, his hands flat on the polished walnut desk. His tie was loosened, his sleeves rolled up, and the vein in his forehead was doing something that looked medically concerning.
“Close the door,” he said.
Leo closed it. The click of the latch was loud in the sudden silence.
Mira took the chair on the left. Leo took the one on the right. They sat like opposing counsel, a polished oak desk between them and a CEO who looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.
Derek didn’t bother with pleasantries. “The investors are pulling out.”
Mira’s stomach dropped. “All of them?”
“All of them.” Derek rubbed his temples. “They gave us thirty days to produce a verified success story. A real couple. A love story they can put on a billboard. And we have nothing. The app is hemorrhaging users. Our retention rate is in the toilet. The only thing HeartSync is known for is a glitch that matched a vegan with a butcher.”
“That was one time,” Leo said.
“It was three times,” Derek snapped. “And it made the local news.”
Mira pressed her fingers into her palms. Her algorithm was sound. It was efficient. It was mathematically superior to every other matching system on the market. But efficiency didn’t sell. Efficiency didn’t make people feel warm and fuzzy. Efficiency was a spreadsheet, and nobody fell in love with a spreadsheet.
“We need a couple,” Derek said, his voice dropping to something quieter, more desperate. “We need two people who met on HeartSync, who are visibly, publicly, undeniably in love. And we need them at the Product Launch Gala in thirty days.”
Mira opened her mouth to suggest hiring actors, but Derek held up a hand.
“I’ve already checked. Every agency in the Bay Area is booked. There’s a tech conference in San Jose and every available performer is working the trade show floor. We’re out of options.”
Leo leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed. “So what’s the plan, Derek? You want us to manufacture a miracle?”
“Yes.” Derek’s eyes flicked between them. “Exactly that.”
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
Mira looked at Leo. Leo looked at Mira. For a brief, horrifying moment, they were in perfect sync.
“No,” Mira said.
“Absolutely not,” Leo said at the same time.
Derek didn’t flinch. “You’re the only two single employees in this entire company. Everyone else is married, engaged, or in a relationship that’s been verified by at least three social media platforms. You two are it.”
“We hate each other,” Mira said.
“She’s not wrong,” Leo added.
“I don’t care if you hate each other,” Derek said, his voice rising. “I care if you can pretend to like each other for thirty days. That’s it. Thirty days. You go on a few dates. You post some photos. You look at each other like you’re not planning to rewrite each other’s code when the other isn’t looking.”
Mira’s jaw tightened. She had, in fact, considered rewriting Leo’s code. Multiple times. She had a folder on her desktop labeled “LEO_BUGS” that was mostly just screenshots of his work with red circles around the questionable parts.
“This is insane,” she said.
“This is survival,” Derek said. “If we don’t have a success story by the gala, HeartSync is dead. The investors walk. The company folds. You both lose your jobs, your stock options, and your reputations. Do you think anyone in this town hires a data scientist from a failed dating app? You’ll be toxic. You’ll be a cautionary tale told at happy hours.”
Mira wanted to argue, but the math was brutal. The job market was saturated. Her last three LinkedIn messages had been from recruiters offering contract work at companies she’d never heard of. The rent on her studio apartment was going up next month, and her savings account was a sad, round number that didn’t inspire confidence.
She looked at Leo. He was staring at the ceiling, his jaw working. He was doing the math too.
“Fine,” Leo said, the word coming out like a sigh. “I’ll do it.”
Mira’s head snapped toward him. “What?”
“I said I’ll do it.” He dropped his gaze to meet hers. “But only if we set ground rules. Clear terms of engagement. No ambiguity.”
Derek nodded, already pulling out a legal pad. “Name them.”
Leo ticked them off on his fingers. “One. This is strictly professional. We are coworkers executing a business strategy. Two. No physical contact beyond what’s necessary for public appearances. Hand-holding for photos, arm-linking for events, nothing more. Three. We maintain separate living spaces. No sleepovers, no overnight stays, no exceptions.”
“Agreed,” Mira said, before Derek could respond. “And I want my own terms. Four. We create a shared document with a complete timeline of our fake relationship. Every date, every conversation, every detail. If we’re going to lie, we’re going to lie consistently. Five. No sabotaging each other’s work. The algorithm competition is separate from this charade. We keep them in different buckets.”
Leo’s eyes narrowed. “You think I’d sabotage you?”
“I think you’d do whatever it takes to win,” Mira said. “And I want it in writing that you won’t.”
Derek was scribbling furiously on the legal pad. “I’ll have legal draft a formal agreement by end of day. Anything else?”
Mira thought for a moment. “We need a backstory. How we met, when we started dating, what we see in each other. It has to be believable.”
“We met on the app three months ago,” Leo said, his tone flat, like he was reading from a script. “You swiped right on my profile because of my witty bio.”
“Your bio was one sentence,” Mira said. “‘I’m looking for someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously.’ It’s the most generic thing I’ve ever read.”
“It’s charming.”
“It’s lazy.”
“Enough,” Derek said, holding up a hand. “You can argue about the bio later. Right now, I need you to agree to the basic premise. You met on HeartSync. You’ve been dating for three months. You’re in love. Can you do that?”
Mira looked at Leo. He looked at her. The air between them felt charged, like the static before a thunderstorm.
“Yes,” she said, the word tasting like ash.
“Yes,” Leo echoed, his voice flat.
Derek exhaled, a long, shaky breath. “Good. I’ll have the PR team draft a press release. We’ll announce it at the end of the week. In the meantime, I need you to start acting like a couple. Go to lunch together. Walk out of the office together. Make it look real.”
Mira stood, her chair scraping against the floor. “Fine. But I’m documenting everything.”
She walked out of the office without waiting for Leo, her heels clicking against the polished concrete. The open-plan floor was buzzing with activity, but she didn’t see any of it. Her mind was racing, running through scenarios, calculating probabilities, trying to find the flaw in this plan.
There were too many variables. Too many unknowns.
She made it to her desk before Leo caught up with her. He leaned against the partition, his arms crossed, that insufferable smile back on his face.
“So,” he said. “First date. What’s your schedule like?”
Mira didn’t look up from her monitor. “I’m busy.”
“You’re always busy. That’s part of your charm.” He pulled out his phone, scrolling through something. “There’s a new place in SoMa. Overpriced, underlit, exactly the kind of restaurant where tech couples go to be seen. I’ll book us a table for Friday at eight.”
“I don’t eat out.”
“You do now.” He pocketed his phone. “And Mira? Try to smile. It’s a date, not a code review.”
He walked away before she could respond, his footsteps light, confident, infuriating.
Mira stared at her monitor. The screen was dark, reflecting her own tired face back at her. She looked like someone who hadn’t slept in days, which was accurate. Her hair was escaping its ponytail, her glasses were smudged, and there was a coffee stain on her collar that she’d been meaning to treat for a week.
She opened a new Google Doc and titled it “OPERATION: FAKE LOVE.”
Underneath, she typed:
**Timeline of Events (Fabricated)**
- **Day 1 (Three Months Ago):** Mira swipes right on Leo’s profile. Reason: His bio was “acceptable.” (Need to flesh this out. Make it more romantic. Maybe mention his photo with the dog. Was that his dog? I’ll assume it was his dog.)
- **Day 3:** First message. Leo sends a witty opener. (I’ll write this later. Something about algorithms. He’d probably make a joke about Bayesian probability. It’s the only thing we have in common.)
- **Day 7:** First date. Coffee at a café in the Mission. (I’ll pick one that’s already closed. Less chance of someone verifying it.)
She paused, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. This was absurd. She was a data scientist, not a fiction writer. She dealt in facts, in numbers, in verifiable truths. And now she was supposed to invent a love story from scratch, complete with meet-cutes and witty banter and the kind of romantic details that made people believe in something that didn’t exist.
Her phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.
**Unknown:** This is Leo. I got your number from HR. Don’t be mad.
**Mira:** I’m mad.
**Leo:** I know. But I also know you’re already writing a timeline document. I can see you typing from across the room. Your face does this thing when you’re concentrating. It’s very specific.
Mira looked up. Across the open floor, Leo was sitting at his desk, his phone in his hand, watching her. He raised an eyebrow.
She looked back down at her phone.
**Mira:** Stop watching me.
**Leo:** Can’t. It’s part of the job now. I need to learn your mannerisms. Your habits. The way you tap your fingers when you’re annoyed. (You’re doing it right now.)
Mira looked at her hand. She was, in fact, tapping her fingers on the desk.
She stopped.
**Mira:** This is a terrible idea.
**Leo:** Probably. But it’s the only one we’ve got. See you Friday. Try not to wear anything with a company logo.
She set her phone down, face-down, and stared at the Google Doc. The cursor blinked at her, patient and expectant.
She typed one more line:
**Note to self:** Do not fall for him. He is the enemy. He is smug, arrogant, and his code is sloppy. This is a business transaction. Nothing more.
She saved the document and closed her laptop.
Across the room, Leo was still watching her. She could feel his gaze like a weight on her skin.
She didn’t look up.