by Laura Burton
I stepped forward. “Belinda, is it? Why don’t you head back downstairs and enjoy your evening? We were having a private conversation.”
Belinda guffawed. “Oh, sure you were. The thing is, Dexter, I’m not here to enjoy my evening. I’m here to work. Just like your little kissing partner is supposed to be.”
“I didn’t know you had clients booked for the cruise tonight,” Amy said.
“It was a last-minute switch. I had Bobby set it up when I heard you’d be here. I thought it would be fun to catch up while our dates were in progress.”
Amy laughed bitterly. “I’m sure you did.”
Belinda turned her wicked eyes back on me. “Where is Lindie Miller? Where does she think you ran off to? I don’t see a restroom up here anywhere.”
My nostrils flared. How did this woman know so much about who I was supposed to be on a date with? I got the sense that there was more to this story than met the eye, so I looked to Amy to take cues from her. If she gave me even the slightest hint that she wanted to escape this moment, I’d get her out of here, fast. But something told me she’d want to face this enemy head-on.
“Belinda,” Amy started again, smoothing her hands down her dress. “Lindie isn’t here. Dex isn’t here on a date.”
I tried not to let her words sting. I knew what she meant. Had I really expected her to call me her date for the evening? Of course not. But it was also clear that I wasn’t there to have a professional meeting with her, given that we were caught kissing.
“So, you lied to me? I thought my client couldn’t go out with Lindie tonight because she was supposed to be with Dexter. Were you just trying to get a leg up in the competition?” Belinda put her hands on her hips, the gleam in her eye as she flicked her gaze in my direction told me she knew exactly what she was doing bringing up the competition.
And she was right. I had no idea what she was talking about. I cleared my throat, not wanting to ask about it in front of this woman, but the words left my mouth before I could claw them back. “What competition?”
Amy’s eyes brimmed with tears as she looked at me. “Dex.”
“Oh, this is riveting stuff, Dex,” Belinda said, clearly enjoying herself. “Amy and I are competing to take over Julia’s position at First Comes Love. She’s retiring.”
I heard the words, but they still didn’t make sense. Why did Amy look so upset? What did this competition have to do with me? Amy’s sad eyes never left mine.
Belinda took a step toward us. “You see, the way it works is, Amy and I each have three clients—spoiler alert, you’re one of her three—and whichever one of us finds a match for our three clients in the lowest number of combined dates gets the job.”
I looked at her then, registered the smug smile on her round face, then looked back at Amy. “Which is why were you were so upset about my first two dates getting messed up with that computer glitch.”
Amy might have missed it, but I had a keen sense of observation, and I noticed the nervous change in Belinda’s stance when I mentioned the glitch. I zeroed in on her. My years of experience with cybercrimes and strategy games made pieces of this puzzle click into place that I was sure Amy’s optimistic nature wouldn’t have thought of.
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that computer glitch, would you Belinda?” I asked, my mind slipping easily into strategy mode as I watched her face.
Belinda’s smug attitude faltered under my scrutiny. “Of course not.”
I glanced at Amy, who was looking between us, her face pale with worry over how this would end. Right before we’d kissed, I’d asked her where her path was leading. Without hesitation, she’d spoken about running the company. She wanted to win the competition. She dreamed of beating Belinda and taking Julia’s place.
When everything went wrong with Harumi, it was because I wanted her to sacrifice the life she wanted to be with me. And then she wouldn’t. How could I blame her? Amy’s ex had done the same thing. And rightfully so, she, too, wouldn’t do it. I wasn’t even going to ask this time.
“Belinda, how many dates are you up to for this competition?” I asked.
Amy’s face whipped to mine, confusion all over it. “Dex?”
I held out my hand as if to say, It’s okay.
Belinda didn’t know what to make of the question either, but she squared her shoulders and tossed her head. “All three of my clients should be paired up by the end of the evening. I’m here with the last one, and it looks promising. That will leave me with a total of ten dates.”
I turned to Amy. “How many for you?”
Amy bit her lip. “You’re the last one without a match. If you had matched with Lindie tonight, that would have made eleven for me.”
“And what if I tell you I want to match with someone from a previous date, without needing another one to make sure?”
Belinda rolled her eyes and huffed impatiently.
“Then I’d also have ten,” Amy said, her voice barely audible above the wind on the deck of the boat.
Resolved, I nodded. “Fine. Consider me matched up with Erin. Now you have ten. Julia will have to choose a winner based on merit and not the number of dates. I’m sure she had some kind of tie-breaker in mind when she came up with this.”
“You can’t do that,” Belinda shrieked. “I’ll tell Julia that I caught you up here kissing him. You know she’ll boot you right on your butt, family or not.”
Dex snorted. “You have no proof, and I’ll deny it. And if I were you, I’d just be grateful not to be turned in for causing whatever computer issues Amy had at the start of this whole thing. I’d bet my life that you had something to do with it. It really wouldn’t be hard to prove if I dug into the network. Don’t tempt me.”
The air was thick with tension as the three of us stood on the deck, almost completely dark now without the sun or the lights from the main area. No one spoke for a long moment as we all let the events of the last five minutes settle over us.
Finally, I took a deep breath, backing away from them and toward the stairs to lower levels. “So much for not getting trapped on a three-hour tour with the wrong woman, huh?”
Amy
“A tie?” Julia asked, standing at the head of our long conference table on Monday morning. “You can’t be serious.”
Claire and Bobby looked at each other, then back at Julia. They had each turned in the client files for their respective matchmakers, and neither one of them had known what Belinda and I had already been aware of.
Julia blew out a breath and waved her hand, dismissing Claire and Bobby. They moved to sit in the open chairs next to myself and Belinda, each of them looking surprised and disgruntled. I wondered idly if they had their own wager going on the side of the main one and made a mental note to ask Claire about it later.
“I need a minute to think about how to handle this,” Julia said. “I hadn’t considered a tie.”
I chuckled dryly to myself, then bit my lip, and tried to play it off. I wasn’t surprised at all that a gamer and professional strategist like Dex would assume there was a backup plan in place for a tie. But apparently, Julia wasn’t on his level when it came to being a gamemaster, and she hadn’t thought about it. I wondered if he would have made the same choice had he known this was the case. Not that I could ask him, since he hadn’t returned a single one of my texts or phone calls since that night.
“Let’s move on with the regular Monday morning report while I chew on this,” Julia said to the room of matchmakers, assistants, and Singles Club ambassadors. “We’ll go around the table from the right, today.”
I tried to pay attention to everyone else’s client reports, but my heart just wasn’t in it. For years I’d dreamed of one day taking over this company when Julia retired. For years I’d hoped she would just pick me over Belinda because it was me. Now, I wasn’t sure what would happen. So, even though I knew that if I wanted to run the place I should pay attention to how everyone else’s accounts were going during
the morning meeting, I just couldn’t focus.
The kiss with Dex had been … everything. Everything I’d thought it would be—and more. And I had thought about it. Thoughts of kissing those full lips, of being held in those strong arms, of being gazed at by those piercing blue eyes had plagued me from that first meeting we’d had over coffee.
I’d once dismissed those fantasies as being purely a physical reaction to his outward appearance, but as I’d gotten to know him better with each interaction, the urge to be his had only grown stronger in my heart. And then when it finally happened, Bibbity-Bobbity-Belinda had been right there to ruin it.
Ugh, I couldn’t believe she’d been on that boat. Sure, we were already playing with fire since I also had two other clients somewhere nearby, but Belinda? I had no reason to believe she’d be there. There were only so many date-night spots in our area, of course, but it wasn’t often that we overlapped. And when she’d told me that she’d done it on purpose to catch up? She was so full of it. I knew she just wanted to spy on Dex and Lindie’s date. In fact, maybe she was there to ruin their date and make sure she won the competition.
Speaking of Belinda’s conniving ways, was Dex right about the computer glitch being intentional? Sure, Claire and I had wondered if Belinda could have something to do with it, but we’d dismissed it, thinking she wasn’t savvy enough to pull it off. But Belinda wouldn’t have to do it herself. I looked at Bobby. He was a total computer buff. If Belinda had asked him to mess up my dates, he would surely know how to do it.
What if Julia picked Belinda as her successor? I sat back in my chair, convinced that Belinda had cheated with Bobby’s help, and she could possibly become my boss thanks to that dishonesty. As convinced as I was, there was no proof. Well, no proof without Dex, anyway. But would he help me after what happened this weekend? My heart squeezed. I couldn’t even get him to talk to me, let alone dig around our computer network.
“Amy?”
I jumped. “Sorry, what?”
“Just waiting for the status of your accounts, dear,” Julia said, a wry smile on her fruit-punch red lips.
“Right, sorry.” I sat upright and scrambled to open my folder. “Okay, so, you already have my files for the competition. Outside of those, I have Teeny Thompson who just matched with another VIP, Chuck Watson.”
Ricky, the matchmaker assigned to Chuck’s VIP account, gave me an air high five from the other end of the table. “Teamwork makes the dream work.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied, then looked back at my notes. “Nikki Stevens is on her seventh date and hasn’t found a match yet. She’s turning out to be a lot pickier than expected. I’m sure I’ll figure it out by the twelfth date, though, don’t worry.”
“I never do with you,” Julia said.
“Right. Um, I also have Carrie Corry, she just had her first date last night and she wants to match with him, but he’s not sure because he has the singles cruise with the Club next weekend and he doesn’t want to lose his deposit.”
Julia scoffed. “Psh, if he’s worried about his deposit, he’s not the right match for her.”
“That’s what I told Carrie. Plus, it was only her first date. She’s just too eager.”
Julia held up a hand as if to say, Preach.
“Lastly, I have a new client named Paul who’s having his first date tonight with another VIP who should be a great match for him.”
Paul’s matchmaker shot me a confident look. “She is, I can already tell.”
“Thanks, Becca,” I replied.
“That’s everyone?” Julia asked.
I nodded. “Yep.”
“Great. Next?” Julia moved on down the line and I sighed inwardly.
Claire slid a note in front of me, and I discreetly peered at it. It wasn’t a rule that matchmakers and their assistants couldn’t pass notes during the morning meeting. Julia was a workaholic and didn’t expect business to grind to a halt while we were together. We just didn’t want to be disruptive.
Claire: You tied with Belinda? I can’t believe it.
I picked up my pen and scrawled out my reply, passing the note back to her.
Me: I have a lot to fill you in on. I spent the weekend hiding in a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.
I felt Claire stiffen beside me before she hastily scratched the pen against the paper.
Claire: Did something happen with Dex? Did you tell him you had a thing for him? Did he not feel the same way? I’m so sorry, friend!
My brow furrowed as I read and replied to her note and then slid it back.
Me: Thanks a lot! I see you have lots of faith in me.
Claire snorted, covered her mouth with her hand, and waited a minute before replying because she’d drawn the eyes of a couple of other staff members with her little outburst.
Claire: I’m sorry! Don’t kill me. You said you spent the rest of the weekend with your ice cream. I figured if it went well, you would have spent the weekend with him!
I shrugged slightly when I read her reply. That was fair.
I checked the time. We had at least another forty-five minutes before this Monday morning meeting was scheduled to end. Plus, we had to wait to find out how Julia would choose the winner of the competition now that we’d finished with a tie. I decided to use the time to write out exactly what happened on Saturday night on the harbor cruise and tell my best friend how I felt about it.
Enjoying the cathartic process of writing it out, I gave Claire every last detail, only stopping short of mentioning things like the way Dex’s huge hands had left burning trails of fire behind them as they moved over my skin during the kiss. Those memories could stay locked up in my brain forever. This wasn’t a romance novel, after all. And as Dex so keenly observed, I loved me some romance novels. And as I admitted to Claire in the note, I also loved me some Dexter Harrington.
I sighed as I slid the note to Claire. Thanks to Belinda, my memories of that one kiss with Dex would probably be the closest I’d ever get to my own happily ever after.
Dex
I picked up my knife and fork, ready to dig into the steak dinner I’d just made for myself. It had been a long Monday after a rough weekend, and I was in the mood for some comfort food. Just as the first savory bite was halfway to my mouth, a knock sounded at the door. I stared down the door, my fork hovering in the air. Maybe if I didn’t make any sudden movements, whoever it was would just go away.
Another knock. “Dex? Dexter Harrington?”
My brow furrowed at the sound of the female voice who’d called my name. I couldn’t place it.
With a sigh, I put down my silverware and scooted back from the table. So much for my perfectly timed meal. It took a lot of planning and foresight to make sure you prepared each part of the dish at the right time so that the final product was ready all at once. There was nothing worse than cold side dishes while you finished cooking the steak. Except maybe a cold steak while you finished cooking the sides. Now my whole meal would be ruined by this interruption.
I swung open the door, and as my brain took in the face of my visitor, I was still clueless as to who she was. “Can I help you?”
“Hi Dex,” she replied. “Can I call you Dex?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and looked around her for a clue about her identity. “That depends. Who are you?”
She rolled her eyes and smacked her forehead with her palm. “Duh. Sorry. I feel like I know you from your pictures but you have no idea who I am. I’m Claire. I work with Amy at First Comes Love.”
“I see.” My heart pinched at just the sound of her name. Was Claire here to take Amy’s place as the matchmaker for my account? Because if that was the case, she’d wasted a trip. Amy was the one I’d hoped to get out of that deal, and since it was apparent that wasn’t going to happen, I wanted nothing to do with having a matchmaker again. I took a deep breath, ready to send this woman away with no dice. “What can I do for you, Claire?”
“Well, I was hoping to get your help with someth
ing.” My petite visitor looked behind her and then around me, eyeing my living room. “Mind if I come in?”
Did I mind? I wasn’t sure. That wasn’t the kind of answer I expected from her if she was taking over as my matchmaker. What could I possibly be able to help her with?
She seemed to sense my unease and pursed her lips. “It’s actually Amy who could use the help.”
Well played, Claire.
I sighed and stepped back, holding the door open with one hand and waving her in with the other. “Come on in.”
“Thank you,” Claire said brightly as she skipped past me. When she eyed my steak dinner-for-one on the table, she spun around and wrinkled her nose. “Ooh, sorry. Looks like I have terrible timing. You can eat while we talk if you’d like.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, no. I insist. I love a good steak as much as the next guy and you definitely don’t want to let that bad boy go to waste. Have a seat—you eat, I’ll talk.” Claire plopped into one of my kitchen chairs and gestured to mine. “Seriously, sit. Eat.”
I snorted, feeling a little bit like a dog being told what to do. But I was starving and minutes away from having an ice-cold twenty-dollar fillet. I sat and took my first bite, noting that it wasn’t too cold yet. Good thing I hadn’t had the fan above the table on.
“All right,” Claire said, pulling out her laptop and clicking around. “Let me start by saying Amy doesn’t know I’m here. I’m her assistant, so she’d kill me if she knew I was sticking my nose in all of this.”
I chewed my food, deciding not to comment. I wasn’t a fan of people sticking their noses in other people’s lives, either.
“But … she told me everything that happened on the harbor cruise.”
I flinched, but again, didn’t comment. Just simply ate my dinner while she talked, like I’d been instructed.
After all the time I’d spent working myself up to making a move on Amy, something inside taunted me, telling me it wouldn’t work out. When her coworker—and apparent nemesis—had caught us kissing on that boat deck, I almost wasn’t surprised to stand there and watch it all fall apart. Who was I kidding? This woman wasn’t going to sacrifice her career for me. She’d wanted to win that competition and go on to run the company, and I sincerely hoped that my efforts had helped make it happen. You know what they say, if you love something, let it go. And I was no stranger to that story line.