Matched to Her Rival

She didn’t scowl, didn’t immediately negate the statement. Instead, she smiled and clicked the laptop closed. “Can’t stand being under the spotlight, can you? If you don’t like the setting I use to walk through the profile questions, just tell me.”

A spontaneous and unexpected laugh shot from his mouth. Why was it such a surprise that she was on to him?

He held up both hands. “I surrender. You’re right. That little room with the fish book is like being in therapy. Restaurants are more relaxed.”

Elise opened a desk drawer and withdrew a brown leather bag. “Since my schedule is mysteriously clear, lunch it is. On one condition.” She cocked her head, sending her dark hair swinging against her chin. “Don’t evade, change the subject or try to outsmart me. Answer the questions so we can be done.”

“Aww. You’re not enjoying this?” He was. It was the most fun he’d had with a woman he wasn’t dating in his life.

“You’re quite honestly the most difficult, disturbing, contrary client I’ve ever dealt with.” She swept passed him in a cloud of unidentifiable perfume that hit him in the solar plexus, and then she shot back over her shoulder, “Which means you’re paying. But I’m driving.”

He grinned and followed her to the parking lot, then slid into the passenger seat of the sleek Corvette she motioned to. He would have opened her door, but she beat him to it.

New car smell wrapped around him. “Nice ride. I pegged you for more of a Toyota girl.”

She shrugged. “Even fairy godmothers like to arrive at the ball in style.”

“I’m not threatened by a woman driving, by the way.” He crossed his arms so he didn’t accidentally brush shoulders with Elise. The seats were really close together. Perfect for lovers. Not so good for business associates. “Just in case you were worried.”

Elise selected an out-of-the-way bistro-type place without asking him and told the hostess they’d prefer to sit outside, also without his input. The wrought iron chairs and tables on the terrace added French charm and the wine list was passable, so he didn’t mind. But two could play that game, so he ordered a bottle of Chianti and nodded to the waiter to pour Elise a glass whether she wanted one or not.

“To loosen you up?” she asked pertly and picked up her glass to sniff the bloodred wine with appreciation.

“Nah. To loosen you up.” He dinged their rims together and watched her drink. Elise liked red wine. He filed that tidbit away. “I didn’t actually agree to your condition, you know.”

“I noticed. I’m banking on the fact that you’re a busy man and can’t continually take time away from work to finish something you don’t want to be doing in the first place. So don’t disappoint me. What’s the difference between love, romance and sex?”

Dax choked on the wine he’d just swallowed and spent his time recovering. “Give a guy a warning before you lay that kind of question on him.”

“Warning. Question imminent. Warning. Question imminent,” she intoned in such a perfect robot voice, he sputtered over a second sip, laughing this time.

For an uptight matchmaker, she had an offbeat sense of humor. He liked it. More than he should. It was starting to affect his focus and the more Elise charmed him, the less he remembered why it was important to punish her for Leo’s defection.

“Let’s see,” he said brusquely. “Fiction, Sade and yes, please.”

“Excuse me?”

“The answer to your question. Love equals fiction, Sade is romantic music and critical to set the mood, and I would assume ‘yes, please’ is self-explanatory in relation to sex.”

“That’s not precisely what I was looking for.”

“Then tell me what you would say. So I have an example to go by.”

“You never give up, do you?”

“Took you long enough to figure that out. So?” he prompted with raised eyebrows.

She sighed. “They’re intertwined so closely you can’t remove one without destroying the value of the other two.”

“That’s a loaded statement. Tell me more before I proceed to tear it apart.” He propped his chin on his hand and ignored the halibut a waiter placed in front of him, which he scarcely recalled ordering.

Her lips mushed together in apparent indecision. Or frustration. Hard to tell with her.

“You can have sex without being in love or putting on romantic music. But it’s so much better with both. Without love and romance, sex is meaningless and empty.”

As she warmed to the topic, her expression softened and that, plus the provocative subject matter, plus the warm breeze playing with her hair, plus...whatever it was about her that drew him all swirled together and spread like a sip of very old, very rare cognac in his chest. “Go on.”

“On the flip side, you can certainly make a romantic gesture toward someone you’re in love with and not end up in bed. But the fact that you’ve been intimate magnifies it. Makes it more romantic. See what I mean?”

“Philosophy.” He nodded sagely and wondered if the thing going on inside might be a heart attack. “I see. You want to understand how I feel about the three, not give you examples. Rookie mistake. Won’t happen again.”

“Ha. You did it on purpose so you could probe me.”

That was so close to the truth, the back of his neck heated. Next his ears would turn red and no woman got to have that strong of an effect on him. “Yeah, well, guess what? I like the spotlight. When you accused me of that earlier, it was nothing but a classic case of projection. You don’t like the spotlight so you assumed that was the reason I didn’t want to sit under yours.”

She didn’t so much as flinch. “Then what is the reason you went to such great lengths to get me out of the office?”

The shrewd glint in the depths of those chocolaty irises tipped him off that he hadn’t been as slick with the schedule-clearing as he believed. Odds were, she’d also figured out that she’d hit a couple of nerves yesterday and lunch was designed to prevent that from happening again.

“That’s your turf.” He waved at the crowd of tables, people and ambiance. “This is mine.”

“And I’m on it, with nary a peep. Cut me some slack. Tell me what your ideal mate brings to the relationship.”

“A lack of interest in what’s behind the curtain,” he said instantly as if the answer had been there all along. Though he’d never so much as thought about the question, not once, and certainly wouldn’t have told her if she hadn’t made the excellent point about the turf change.

But lack of interest wasn’t quite right. It was more the ability to turn a blind eye. Someone who saw through the curtain and didn’t care that backstage resembled post-tornado wreckage.

Was that why he broke up with women after the standard four weeks—none thus far had that X-ray-vision-slash-blind-eye quality?

“Good.” Elise scribbled in her ever-present notebook. “Now tell me what you bring to her.”

When she’d called the questions intensive, she wasn’t kidding. “What, presents aren’t enough?”

“Don’t be flip. Unless you want me to assume you bring nothing to a relationship and that’s why you shy away from them.” A light dawned in her eyes. “Oh. That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t think you have anything to offer.”

“Wait a minute. That’s not what I said.” This conversation had veered way too far off the rails for comfort.

He’d agreed to this ridiculous idea of being matched only because he never thought it would work. Instead, Elise challenged his deep-seated beliefs at every turn with a series of below-the-belt hits. That was not supposed to happen.

“Then say what you mean,” she suggested quietly. “For once. If you found that woman, the one who didn’t care what was behind your curtain, what do you have to offer her in return?”

“I don’t know.” It was the most honest answer he could give. And the most unsettling.

He shoveled food in his mouth in case she asked a follow-up question.

What did he have to offer in a relationship? He’d never considered it important to examine, largely because he never intended to have a relationship. But he felt deficient all at once.

“Fair enough. I get that these questions are designed to help people who are looking for love. You’re not. So we’ll move on to the lightning round.” Her sunny tone said she knew she was letting him off the hook and it was okay.

Oddly grateful, he nodded and relaxed. “I rule at lightning rounds.”

“We’ll see, Mr. Wakefield. Glass half-full, or half-empty?”

“Technically, it’s always full of both air and water.” Her laugh rumbled through him and he breathed a little easier. Things were clicking along at a much safer level now, and eating held more appeal.

“That’s a good one. Apple or banana?”

“What is that, a Freudian question? Apple, of course.”

“Actually, apples have biblical connotations. I might interpret it as you can’t stay away from the tree of knowledge,” she said with a smirk. “What relieves stress?”

“Sex.”

She rolled her eyes. “I probably didn’t need to ask that one. Do you believe in karma?”

These were easy, surface-level questions. She should have started with them. “No way. Lots of people never get what’s coming to them.”

“That is so true.” She chuckled with appreciation and shook her head.

“Don’t freak out but I do believe you’re enjoying this after all.”

Her smile slipped but she didn’t look away. This might not be a date, but he couldn’t deny that lunch with Elise was the most interesting experience he’d had with a woman, period. Even ones he was dating.

The longer this went on, the harder it was going to be to denounce her publicly. She was good—much better than he’d prepared for—and to criticize her abilities would likely reflect just as poorly on him as it did her.

Worse, he was afraid he’d started to like her. He should probably do something about that before she got too far under his skin.

* * *

By one o’clock, Elise’s side hurt from laughing. Wine at lunch should be banned. Or required. She couldn’t decide which.

“I have to get back to the office,” she said reluctantly.

Reluctantly? She had a ton of things to do. And this was lunch with Dax. Whom she hated...or rather didn’t like very much. Actually, he was pretty funny and maybe a little charming. Of course he was—he had lots of practice wooing women.

Dax made a face. “Yeah. Duty calls.”

He stood and gallantly took her hand, while simultaneously pulling her chair away. It was amazingly well-coordinated. Probably because he’d done it a million times.

They strolled to the car and she pretended that she didn’t notice how slowly, and she didn’t immediately fish her keys from her bag. Dax put his palm on the driver’s-side door, leaning against it casually, so she couldn’t have opened it anyway. Deliberately on his part, she was sure.

She should call him on it.

“Tomorrow, then?” he asked.

Elise shook her head. “I’m out of the office tomorrow. I have a thing with my mother.”

Brenna had an appointment with a plastic surgeon in Dallas because the ones in L.A. stopped living up to her expectations. Apparently she couldn’t find one who could make her look thirty again.

“All day?” Dax seemed disappointed. “You can’t squeeze in an hour for me?”

No way was he disappointed. She shook her head. The wine was affecting her more than she’d thought.

“I have to pick her up from the airport and then take her to the doctor.” Oh, that might have been too much information. “I need to ask for your discretion. She wouldn’t like it if she knew I was talking to others about her private affairs.”

“Because your mother is famous or something?”

Elise heaved a sigh. “I assumed you checked up on me and therefore already knew I was Brenna Burke’s daughter. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

Stupid wine.

“Brenna Burke is your mother?” Dax whistled. “I had a poster of her above my bed when I was a teenager. The one where she wore the bikini made of leaves. Good times.”

“Thanks, I needed the image in my head of you fantasizing about my mother.” That’s precisely why she never mentioned Brenna. Not only because of the ick factor, but also because no one ever whistled over Elise. It was demoralizing. “You know she was thirty-five in that photo, right?”

Elise called it her mother’s I’m-not-old stage, when the hot runway models were closer to her nine-year-old daughter’s age than Brenna’s, and the offers of work had all but dried up.

I should have waited to have kids, Brenna had told her. Mistake Number One talked me into it. Being pregnant and off the circuit ruined me.

Bitter, aging supermodels took out their frustration on those around them, including Elise’s father, dubbed Mistake Number One when he grew tired of Brenna’s attitude and left. Adult Elise knew all this from her psychology classes. Still hurt, even years later.

“So?” Dax sighed lustily. “I didn’t care. She was smoking hot.”

“Yeah. So I’ve been told.” She feigned sudden interest in her manicure, unable to take the appreciation for her mother in Dax’s expression.

“Elise.” His voice held a note of...warmth. Compassion.

Somehow, he’d steered her around, spine against the car, and then he was right there, sandwiching her between his masculine presence and the Vette.

He tipped her head up with a fist and locked those smoky irises on hers and she couldn’t breathe. “Tastes change. I like to think I’ve evolved since I was fourteen. Older women aren’t so appealing anymore.”

She shrugged. “Whatever. It hardly matters.”

“It does.” The screeches and hums of the parking lot and chatter of other diners faded away as he cocked his head and focused on her. “I hurt your feelings. I’m sorry.”

How in the world had he figured that out? Somehow, that fact alone made it easy to admit the truth. She probably couldn’t have hidden it anyway. “It’s hard to have a mother known for her looks when you’re so average, you know?”

He shifted closer, though she would have sworn there wasn’t much space between them in the first place.

“You’re the least average woman I’ve ever met, and you know what else? Beauty fades. That’s why it’s important to use what’s up here.” He circled an index finger around her temple, oh so slowly, and the electrified feel of his touch on her skin spread through her entire body.

“That’s my line,” she murmured. “I went to college and started my own business because I never wanted a life where my looks mattered.”

After watching her mother crash and burn with Mistake Number Two and then Three without finding the happiness she seemed to want so desperately, Elise learned early on that a relationship built on physical attraction didn’t work. It also taught her that outward appearance hardly factored in matters of the heart.

Compatibility and striving to find someone who made you better were the keys to a relationship. She’d built EA International on those principles, and it hadn’t failed yet.

Dax was so close; she inhaled his exotic scent on her next breath. It screamed male—and how.

“Me, too. Unlike your mother, I never wanted to make a career out of modeling.” When her eyebrows shot up, he chuckled. “Figured you checked up on me and knew that Calvin Klein put me through college. Guess you’ll be looking me up when you get home.”

A lit stick of dynamite between her and the laptop couldn’t stop that from happening. “My mother put me through college. Reluctantly, but I insisted.”

Funny how they’d both paid for college with modeling dollars and then took similar paths to chart their own destinies. She never would have guessed they had anything in common, let alone such important guiding experiences.

Dax’s gaze drifted lower and focused on her mouth. Because he was thinking about kissing her. She could read it all over his expression.

Emergency. This wasn’t a date. She’d led him on somehow. They didn’t like each other, and worse, he shied away from everything she desired—love, marriage, a soul mate. She was supposed to be matching him with one of her clients.

First and foremost, she’d given him permission to ruin her business if he didn’t find the love of his life. And she was compromising the entire thing.

All of it swirled into a big black burst of panic. Had she lost her mind?

Ducking clumsily out of his semi-embrace, she smiled brightly. “So I’ll call you to schedule the next session. Ready to go?”

His expression shuttered and he nodded. “Sure. I’ll leave you my card with my number.”

In awkward silence, they rode back to EA International where Dax’s car was parked.

Despite knowing he thought happily ever after was a myth, despite knowing he faked interest in her as a method of distraction, despite knowing he stood to lose $500,000 and pretended to misunderstand her questions or refused to answer them strictly to prevent it—despite all that, she’d wanted him to kiss her.

Dax Wakefield was better at seducing a woman than she’d credited.

* * *

When Elise got to her office, she locked the door and sank into the chair. Her head fell forward into her cupped palms, too wined-and-Daxed to stay upright any longer. If he flipped her out this much without laying those gorgeously defined lips on hers, how much worse would it be if he’d actually done it?

She couldn’t take another session with him.

Match him now.

She had enough information. Dax might have thought he was being sneaky by probing her for answers to the questions in kind but he’d revealed more about himself in the getting there than he likely realized.

While the match program booted up, Elise stuck a stick of gum in her mouth in hopes it would stave off the intense desire for chocolate. She always craved chocolate, but it was worse when she was under stress.

Maybe she should take a page from Dax and relieve her stress with sex.

But not with him. No sir.

Almost of their own accord, her fingers keyed his name into the browser. Provocative photos spilled onto the screen of a younger Dax with washboard abs and formfitting briefs scarcely covering the good parts. Her mouth went dry. The man was a former underwear model with a psychology degree, a wicked sense of humor and a multibillion-dollar media empire.

Who in the world did she have in her system to match that?

Usually she had a pretty good idea who the match would be ahead of time. One of the benefits of administering the profile sessions herself—she knew her clients very well.

A slice of fear ripped through her. What if the program couldn’t find a match? It happened occasionally. The algorithms were so precise that sometimes clients had to wait a few months, until she entered new clients.

Dax would never accept that excuse. He’d call foul and claim victory right then and there. Either he’d crow about proving Elise a sham or worse, claim she’d withheld the name on purpose to avoid the fallout when the match wasn’t the love of his life.

Newly determined, she shut down the almost-naked pictures of Dax and flipped to the profile screen. She flew through the personal information section and consulted her notes before starting on the personality questions.

That went easily, too. In fact, she didn’t even have to glance at the scribbled words in her notebook.

Do you want to be in love? She typed yes. He did, he just hadn’t found the right person yet, or he wouldn’t have agreed to be matched. Plus, she’d watched his face when he described a woman who didn’t care about whatever he hid behind his curtain. That man wanted to connect really, really badly with someone who got him.

How do you sabotage relationships? She snorted and typed “by only dating women he has no chance of falling in love with.”

When she reached the last question, she breathed a sigh of relief. Not so bad. Thank goodness she wouldn’t have to see him again. A quick phone call to set up his first meet with the match and she’d be done with Dax Wakefield.

She hit Save and ran the match algorithm. Results came back instantly. Fantastic. She might even treat herself to half a carton of Chunky Monkey as a reward. She clicked on the pop-up link and Dax’s match was...Elise Arundel.

No! She blinked, but the letters didn’t change.

That was so wrong, she couldn’t even put words together to say how wrong.

She ran the compiler again. Elise Arundel.

Stomach cramping with dread, she vised her temples. That’s what she got for not asking him all the questions. For letting her professional ethics slide away in the wake of the whirlwind named Dax.

He’d think she did it on purpose—because she’d started to fall for his slick charm. If she actually told him she was his match, he’d smirk with that knowing glint in his eyes and...

She’d skewed the results. That had to be it. Talk about your Freudian slipups—she’d been thinking about the almost-kiss and the almost-naked pictures and his laugh and thus answered the questions incorrectly.

Besides, the short, fat girl inside could never be enough to change Dax Wakefield’s mind about love. She had to match him with someone else.

Her fingers shook and she could hardly type, but those answers had to change. He didn’t want to be in love. Total projection on her part to say that he did, exactly as he’d accused her of earlier. She fixed that one, then the next one and eventually worked her way back through the profile

There. She clicked Run and shut her eyes.

This time, the pop-up opened to reveal...Candace Waters.

Perfect. Candy was a gorgeous blonde with a high-school education. Dax would love running intellectual circles around her and Candy liked football. They’d get along famously.

No one ever had to know Elise had nearly screwed up.

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