Mister Match (The Match Series Book 1) (20 page)

“We need to talk,” Adam said apologetically. “That was Dan. I guess we have a little problem.”

Chapter
23

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I
t was strange, Lisa thought the next morning, how quickly she’d gone from blissfully happy to distinctly...not.

She took a sip of the strong coffee Adam had ordered up from room service, and poked at the fresh fruit still sitting on her breakfast plate. Strawberries, cantaloupe, pineapple. All her favorites, yet she didn’t feel like eating any of it. All she could think about were those images Adam had shown her last night, and the headline—
MISTER MATCH SCANDAL—THE MISSUS STEPS OUT!

The very thought of the article he’d shown her—the article Dan had called about, the “little problem” they needed to deal with—made her queasy. “Fiancée caught cheating,” the odious thing had blared, supported by photographs of Lisa from last week, on her breakfast date with Reese.

At least Reese’s face had been blurred out. His privacy was protected, and he would be spared the embarrassment Lisa was currently enduring.

This morning, there had been even more photos posted to the same celebrity gossip site.
MISTER MATCH STANDS BY HIS WOMAN
, had been the latest headline, attached to photos of Lisa, Adam and Rodney from just last night, during their showdown in the Water Lily lobby.

Rodney’s face had been blurred out as well, though Lisa didn’t feel nearly so grateful about that preservation of privacy.

The article had gone so far as to call Adam a cuckold. Lisa winced and dropped her head into her palms. How did things move that fast in the world of celebrity gossip and paparazzi photography? Some of those pictures, posted this morning, had been from barely twelve hours earlier.

The whole thing filled her with impotent anger. Her initial reaction to the photographs had been to blink and stare and blink again, in an effort to make sure her eyes were working correctly. Quickly, the terrible, futile rage had settled into the pit of her stomach.

The paparazzi and the gossip bloggers were ruining her reputation. Not that she’d ever even had one—you kind of had to be known to have a reputation, and she’d been a nobody, completely, wonderfully anonymous, until this whole mess had started.

Now, people who had never met her before were saying awful things about her, and it made her feel sick to her stomach. The only perk, the only good thing about the whole thing, was getting to be with Adam, who knew the truth.

She heard the door to the suite beep and then click as the latch opened. She sat up straighter and did her best to put on a bright face.

“Good morning,” Adam said as he entered, giving her an intimate little smile. “How are you feeling?”

Lisa considered for a moment, and then shrugged. “Like the whole world thinks I’m a cheat,” she admitted. More than anything, she felt embarrassed. Adam hadn’t said a word about her going on a date with another man. How could he, really? It wasn’t as if he had any claim on Lisa. Their relationship was all for show. Except last night had changed things between them, at least in Lisa’s mind.

And she had no idea whether he felt the same. And even though the date with Reese had happened days ago, before she’d ever signed Adam’s non-disclosure form and hiring contract, and even though it had been a non-starter from the very beginning, she couldn’t help but feel as if she’d somehow betrayed Adam by going out with him.

Adam’s expression was sober now. “I’m so sorry. I really am. I never meant for you to be in this position.” He joined her at the table and gave her a quick kiss on the temple before pouring himself some coffee.

Great. The man was apologizing to her. Now she felt even more miserable.

“At least things are all set for the Dream Date today,” he went on, after taking a long gulp from his mug. “So that’s one good thing, at least.”

“That’s good,” Lisa agreed automatically. “Look, surely there’s something we can do, some kind of damage control—”

Adam was already shaking his head. “Nope. No need.”

“No need? Everyone only just found out we’re engaged—fake-engaged—whatever, and now all of a sudden I’m cheating on you. I think we’d better do something to set the record straight.”

“Set it straight?” Adam raised his eyebrows. “Which part? The part about our fake-engagement, or the part about how you’re not actually cheating on me because we aren’t actually together, and you can date anyone you want?”

Another hot, sick little burst of embarrassment curdled through her. She scowled. “I see your point. I just hate thinking I caused you to look bad by meeting up with that guy, and not even realizing we were being photographed.” She shook her head and stabbed at a strawberry with her fork. “I didn’t even like him. I mean, it wasn’t even worth it!”

Adam laughed. “Do you mind if—” He paused and cleared his throat. “Can I ask who he is?”

Lisa rolled her eyes. “He’s just some guy I met through your site. Willow and Clare kind of made me go out with him. They chose him. It wasn’t even my idea.”

“Wait, you’re on Mister-Match?” Adam blinked, and then squinted. “And your friends are choosing dates for you?”

It was no wonder he looked confused. It sounded kind of ridiculous.

Lisa heaved a sigh. “I didn’t even want to start dating again, and I definitely didn’t want to go the whole online-dating route again. No offense, but it hasn’t worked out very well for me in the past. But Clare and Willow, I guess they think I’ve been single long enough, and they kind of took me on as their little project, and appointed themselves my Fairy God-Cupids...” She shook her head. “It’s stupid. The whole thing is just dumb.”

“Well.” Adam was sitting back again, looking at his hands bemusedly. “On the one hand, I’m tempted to encourage you to give the Mister Match system a try. I mean, especially if other dating sites haven’t worked for you in the past. And, like I already said, you can date whoever you want.” He frowned. “I mean, of course you can. It’s not even my place to say that—to give you permission.” He shook his head, as if annoyed with himself.

Then, slowly, he raised his gaze to hers. “But I’d be lying if I said I liked the idea of you going out with other men.”

A beat of silence stretched out between them, pregnant with all he’d left unsaid. Suddenly, Lisa’s heart was bumping in her throat, fast and insistent.

Had Adam just made a declaration of his feelings for her?

A beat later, the moment had passed.

“Anyway,” Adam was saying, and he was no longer looking at her in that intense, intimate way. “Maybe this will turn out to be a good thing.”

“A good thing? How?”

He stood, and shrugged a shoulder. “You said, yourself, last night, we need an exit strategy. Maybe the reason for our fake-breakup has just fallen into our laps.”

Lisa blinked, trying to pretend her stomach hadn’t just turned into concrete. Soon, she and Adam were going to break up in the eyes of the world, and she was going to be the cheater who’d made it happen.

At least Adam couldn’t be held responsible for the breakup. Maybe, she thought bitterly, he could even spin it further in his company’s favor. He could tell the media he’d met Lisa when he’d gone to her for a massage, but from now on he’d be relying on the Mister-Match system to meet women.

“I need to get going,” Adam said, breaking into her roiling thoughts. “We can talk more about it all later. What are your plans today? I mean, until this afternoon. We’ll need you in the massage room by four-thirty, to set things up for the couple’s massages.”

“Of course,” she said automatically. “I’m not sure what I’ll be doing until then. I haven’t decided.”

“Well, try to have some fun, all right? Relax. You deserve it.” He smiled at her again, from where he stood by the door. “I’ll see you in a while.”

“See you.”

They were in such a strange space together, she reflected, as she watched the door swing slowly and silently shut behind him. Their newfound intimacy had seemed so enormous last night, and so secure. But apparently the balance had been fragile at best. It had been completely thrown off by the celebrity gossip bombshell, and Dan’s phone call.

“What should I do now?” she asked aloud, a carryover from her habit, back home, of talking aloud to her cat as if Mr. Monkey could actually understand her, or actually cared.

She’d known she would have the bulk of the day to herself. She liked Houston, and she’d welcomed the idea of a free day simply to walk around, visit bookstores, maybe hit a museum or an art gallery. In Austin, whenever she had free time, she filled it up with errands or housecleaning or any of the million other chores that were always on her plate. She hardly ever allowed herself just to relax and be aimless. Today, she’d decided her goal would be complete and total aimlessness.

Of course, she was beginning to learn that things rarely went exactly as she planned.

After a quick shower, she took a leisurely stroll around the streets near the hotel. But when she returned to the Water Lily an hour later to change shoes—her sandals were rubbing a hole in her pinky toe—she saw that the red light on the phone by the bed was blinking furiously at her.

There were three messages, all from Adam.

“So, change of plans,” he said in the first. “Big change. The Dream Date is off.” He took a deep, audible breath and blew it out gustily. “Yep. Apparently Orlando and Valeria took one look at each other and decided they had less than nothing in common. Guess we were totally off about the whole Shakespearean name-bond thing.” He gave a humorless chuckle. “So this weekend’s a wash.”

The second and third messages were similar, except with increasing discouragement and distress apparent in Adam’s tone.

By the end of the third message, Lisa was grimacing in sympathy. Poor Adam. He must be feeling terrible. She knew he took his job seriously, and the site, and these so-called dream dates. If she knew him at all, he was feeling responsible for the whole thing.

“I
just can’t believe it.” Adam scrubbed a hand through his hair as he paced the length of the hotel room he had reserved for the couple’s massages that were no longer going to happen. “I don’t understand why the Mister-Match system didn’t work for them.”

“Who knows, man,” Dan said flatly, on the other end of the phone line. “Look, I really hate to say this, but...”

Adam’s stomach clenched. “What?”

“I just keep thinking it has something to do with this Lisa DeLuca person.”

The way Dan said her name, his tone laced with distrust, made Adam scowl into the phone. “What are you talking about? Lisa wasn’t even around earlier, when the Dream Date couple had their run-in—”

“I mean,” Dan interrupted, “maybe Lisa’s having a Yoko effect. On you, and on the website by extension.”

“A Yoko effect?” Adam repeated. He felt like his head might explode with all the thoughts and emotions currently bouncing around inside—anxiety, disbelief, disappointment, and now pure incredulity.

“You know, the Yoko effect. Like when John Lennon got together with Yoko Ono, and the Beatles completely fell apart—”

“I know about John and Yoko and the Beatles,” Adam ground out. He dropped heavily into a chair by the window that overlooked the hotel’s lush garden, several stories below. “What I don’t know is how they relate in any possible way to Lisa, or to Orlando and Valeria getting into a fight at the hotel check-in desk this morning.”

“Look,” Dan said grumpily, “all I know is, as soon as Lisa entered the picture, everything to do with Mister-Match.com started going bad.”

For a second, Adam didn’t react. He couldn’t. He felt as if he’d been sucker-punched. His friend’s comment stung, a lot. He was surprised how much, and how quickly.

After a beat, he felt capable of speaking, or possibly shouting, but Dan was talking again.

“What happened, anyway? I mean, what the hell went wrong?”

Adam closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. His partner might have gotten it all wrong when it came to Lisa, but he deserved to know what had happened to make the Dream Date implode.

“Earlier today,” he began, “I got a call from Ellen, from the video team. She was going to shoot some interview footage of the Dream Date couple’s first meeting. Valeria and Orlando were supposed to check into the hotel at noon, but I guess they both checked in a little early, and Ellen saw the whole thing.” He shook his head. “She even got video footage of it.”

“Of what, exactly?” Dan demanded.

Adam took a deep breath. “Somehow they happened to come into the lobby at the very same time, and I guess they didn’t recognize each other—”

“Didn’t recognize each other?” Dan repeated. “Didn’t they know who they were looking for? I mean, they’d been in touch through Mister-Match before today, hadn’t they?”

“Obviously, they’d been in touch before. That’s how they won the Dream Date.” Adam shrugged, feeling defeated. “I don’t know, maybe they’d both used old profile pictures, or something.”

“Don’t you make sure things like that won’t happen?” Dan blustered. “There’s got to be a way—”

“Yeah,” Adam shot back, “right. I make it a point to personally check every one of our three million users’ profiles to make sure they’re using a profile picture that’s accurate and current.” He rolled his eyes. “Anyway, for whatever reason, they didn’t recognize each other. Do you want me to tell you how everything went down, or not?”