Matched to the Millionaire BBW Romance

Olive Peters raced to her laptop, the excitement in her chest reaching a point where she feared it might just combust right there on the spot.

Today, she would finally be seeing her online boyfriend of six months for the first time. She had waited forever to be sure he was the one, and that time was now.

Her heart palpitated.

Blind Match was the only dating website and app available that was strict about not letting people see each other while they dated exclusively online for at least four months. It was a new matching site that guaranteed a 99 percent success rate, as long as all the rules were followed.

The first rule was no sending pictures of body parts of any sort.

The second was not to talk about money, except in the sense of how you used it, but not how you earned it or how much you had.

The third was that you could call and text, but you couldn’t send pictures of each other until you met.

Couples could only meet in real life after dating exclusively online for four months, with a minimum number of hours of interaction each week.

They assured everyone that if they answered all the initial questions as accurately as possible and followed those specific rules, there would be no issue finding their mates for life.

It was a big buzz. A few celebrities tried it, which prompted everyone who was lonely to take a stab at it. Soon, however, people started posting that their relationships were bad and the app wasn’t working. The app and website, though, insisted that those people must not have followed the program’s steps to a T.

Olive had been in a relationship when the website first came out, albeit a terrible one. It wasn’t until that fateful day in September, six months ago, that she’d finally decided to give it a try. The day after her messy breakup, she’d signed up and been matched with a man who had intrigued her from his very first message.

“My name is Hunter. Nice to meet you. May I ask, if it’s not too personal, what is your love language?”

She’d been even more quickly smitten with him when, after she’d replied that her love language was acts of service, he’d told her his was physical touch.

Reading it had sent a shiver down her spine. Maybe that was a little bit of her love language too, though she’d never been with someone who was that way.

Her last relationship hadn't ended because her ex’s love language was receiving gifts, expensive ones at that. It had ended because he wanted so badly to be seen as better than everyone else that the second someone appeared richer or better than Olive, he lost interest in her. Not that it took much, in her opinion. She was lower middle class at best and pretty chunky and still trying to figure out her life.

It had still been a slap in the face, she had to admit, as he’d just convinced her that he wanted to move in together one day, and the the next he was meeting a woman he’d met on the subway in a subway.

She shook her head, refusing to let thoughts of that loser affect her elevated mood.

She touched her dark brown hair, straightening the frizz as best she could, then took another look at the photo she’d taken of herself. She was chubby, but cute in her new light pink, off-the-shoulder shirt and thick white skirt. She felt prettier than ever and believed that, no matter what Hunter looked like, their love wouldn’t waver. It couldn’t, not after everything they’d shared, all the things they’d learned about one another that nobody else in the world knew but them.

She was still on cloud nine.

A notification on her screen showed that he’d sent her a message. She took a deep breath, her hand shaking as she opened it.

The picture popped up, and she screamed.

The man was gorgeous, buff, way out of her league, and someone she realized she knew in real life.

James Guinther.

A wave of panic washed over her. There had to be some mistake. There was no way the person she’d been talking to, sharing her most intimate secrets, thoughts, and desires with, was this man. Her best friend’s boss. The literal CEO of the company that owned the biggest skyscraper in the city. His name was James, not Hunter, if she recalled correctly.

She knew then and there that she was either being catfished, which was the most likely explanation, or she wasn’t, and it was Her ebay friends boss. Either way, there was no way she was comfortable sending her picture now.

She waited, unsure what to say, before finally deciding to write back.

“So, um, are you sure that’s an actual picture of you?”

“Yeah, of course. Why? You disappointed?”

“No... I just... I recognize you.”

“Oh? Do you?”

“Yeah. I mean, aren’t you the CEO of Guinther Industries Inc.?”

The response took so long that she began to fear she might soon be ghosted. Her heart sank.

Then the words popped up on the screen.

“Oh, wow. I guess you do know me.”

For some reason, that answer still didn’t make her feel any better. Her heart was beating so fast in her chest that she didn’t know what to do next. If he was lying, then the relationship was over. But if he wasn’t, it was over anyway, because there was no way he’d want her once he saw the huge difference between them.

Her stomach twisted at the thought that if it was him, he probably already had a picture in his head of what she looked like, and it likely looked nothing like the real her.

She cringed again.

How and why did she keep getting herself into these situations? How was she supposed to proceed?

A bang on her bedroom door made her jump. It was her roommate and older sister, Jaime. Someone who treated Olive like garbage, but...

Her mind raced, and before she could even think straight, she found a full-body picture of her sister and sent it.

Instant regret slammed into her as she stared at the screen, waiting for his reply. What the hell had she just done? She couldn’t take it back. She couldn’t unsend it. All she could do was sit there and wait for the inevitable.

“Olive!”

Olive felt as though she might spontaneously combust on the spot as she double-checked that her door was locked.

“I know you’re in there! Open up!”

“Leave me alone. I’m busy.”

“No.”

Olive threw something at the door, and the loud thud was satisfying enough to make her feel a little better. Unfortunately, it did nothing to stop her sister from rattling the doorknob.

Olive flinched and turned back to her laptop, her heart hammering against her ribs. The message sat there on the screen, a silent reminder of the mistake she’d just made. Why had she done that? Why hadn’t she stopped to think for even a second? She’d spent so long hiding behind a screen, letting him see the parts of herself she was too afraid to show anyone else, and now she’d gone and sent him a picture of her sister.

What if he figured it out? What if he realized she’d lied?

Worse, what if he didn’t care?

Her eyes burned as she stared at the empty chat window. Seconds dragged by, each one making her more anxious than the last. She checked the screen again, then again, willing a message to appear while simultaneously dreading the moment it did. Her fingers tightened around the edge of the laptop, and she swallowed against the knot forming in her throat.

She didn’t even know why she’d sent her sister’s picture. All she knew was that she wished she could take that moment back and do something else, anything else, rather than send it to the one person who knew the deepest, darkest, most intimate parts of her.

Then, finally, a ding broke the silence.

Olive froze.

For a moment, she couldn’t bring herself to look. Her stomach twisted, and she held her breath, as if not opening the message could somehow delay whatever was coming next.

But she had to know.

She lowered her eyes to the screen.

Five words.

“Nice to finally see you.”

She felt sick.