“I see,” she says. “Judging from your expression, I’m guessing it didn’t go well?”
I pull the chair out opposite her and sit down, crossing my arms over my chest. “Oh, I think it went as well as could be expected.”
Her eyes narrow, as if she’s expecting a trap. “How well was that?”
I’m as unable to stop taunting her as I had been on the first day we’d met. “I’m offended, actually.”
“Offended?”
“Yes. You analyzed my personality and made the conclusion that Ciara is the kind of woman I’d be interested in?”
She meets my gaze for a few long moments before her shoulders slump. “It was a gamble,” she admits. “I knew it could go either way. And for the record, I’m not one to speak ill of other clients. I won’t.”
“I’m allowed to, am I not?”
“Yes,” she acknowledges. “Was it that bad?”
“Let’s just say she’d made her intentions clear before we’d ordered the food. A rich man who could keep her.”
“Oh,” Summer breathes. “Well, you said your last date was too serious, so I made sure this one wouldn’t be.”
The irony tugs at my lips. “Perhaps an overcorrection.”
“I gave you someone bubbly.”
“You gave me someone who still chews pink bubblegum.”
“So you’re saying I’ve drawn the wrong conclusions about you,” Summer murmurs, hands flying over her keyboard as she fires up her computer. There’s a look of excited calculation I recognize from my first visit to this room.
When she’d thought I was a client.
“Are we going back to me answering ridiculous prompts?” I ask, drumming my fingers along the armrest. Looking away from the bright lightness that is her. “How long would I last in a zombie apocalypse? What was the name of my first pet?”
She laughs, like I’ve made a good joke. “They were very informative last time.”
“I doubt that.”
“People say a lot when they think they’re being shallow. Now… this means I only have one more try.”
“Yes.”
She turns those sky-blue eyes on me. “And you didn’t like Isabelle or Ciara.”
“I did not.” If anything, they’d only strengthened my preconceived notions. I find myself holding my tongue on that score, though, as she looks at me with playful challenge.
“It might take me a bit longer to think this through,” she says. “As you’re not only a client but the co-owner of Opate Match, you’ll get the absolute best service I can provide.”
The emphasis on co-owner makes me snort. Acture Capital has a fifty-one percent stake in the company, negotiated at painstaking lengths.
“Good. Because you remember what you have to admit if it doesn’t?”
“Yes, I do. Matchmaking isn’t for everyone. But that won’t happen. I’m determined.” The smile she shoots me is one of triumph, even if she hasn’t won yet. She’s surprising. Naive, perhaps… but funny. Unexpected.
I doubt anyone else would have led me down this path, or gotten me to agree to the outrageous idea of three dates. Not when I hadn’t been on a date in over a year before this.
I bite the inside of my cheek and look away from the expectancy in her eyes. Toward the half-blurry images of couples on the wall. Smiling with false happiness in stylized poses.
I surprise even myself with my response. “How about I give you two weeks? There’s an event I’m attending on Friday the fourteenth. I could use a date to that.”