Mister Match (The Match Series Book 1) (23 page)

Nothing. There was nothing she could say to make this situation any less awful. All she had was the truth.

“I went out with him,” she said, “because I couldn’t think of any good reason not to.”

Adam looked at her first with confusion, then with incredulity. “What does that even mean?”

“I wanted to be swept off my feet, okay?” She raised her arms, futilely trying to encompass the simultaneous enormity and simplicity of it. “I wanted to believe Clare and Willow might be right—that I deserve love in my life, that I’m not just a complete failure at relationships. That there might be a guy out there that could sweep me off my feet and treat me well and laugh with me and love me and be my best friend—”

She stopped talking, because she couldn’t make any more sound come out of her tear-clogged throat.

Adam’s expression had softened a degree. “I understand,” he said, a moment later. He shook his head, frowning again. “I also understand the non-disclosure agreement you signed didn’t say anything explicit about not dating other people, or any action at all expected on your part besides not talking to the press about Mister-Match matters. I just didn’t think you would go out with anyone during the term of our agreement.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “I mean, anyone other than me.”

The afternoon sun was shining on his dark hair, and Lisa could see tiny beads of sweat on his forehead and at his temples. She had the inexplicable urge to lick his skin, to taste the saltiness she knew she would find there.

If things between them had still been lighthearted, sexually charged, as they had been before now, she might have done it. But the mood between them was heavy and filled with hurt.

So she kept the distance between them. “I’m sorry,” she said again, though it was such an inadequate expression. “My date with Reese happened before—before I signed anything with you, and before we—you know.”

Adam nodded, glancing away.

“And the date with Jacob,” she went on, “if you can even call it that—it was after I signed the agreement, and I’m sorry for that. It was stupid of me to do it. I guess I just wasn’t thinking about being in the public eye. I was still thinking I was just little old me. Anonymous, nobody me.” She sighed. “It was thoughtless, and I’m sorry.”

“Well,” Adam said, and glanced back to where the driver, James, was still waiting in the car at the curb. “It’s done. I’ll deal with it from here.”

There was a scratching at Lisa’s front door just then, coming from the inside.

“Mr. Monkey,” she said, smiling in spite of her dark mood.

“Who?” Adam asked.

“My cat. I guess he heard us talking.”

As if in answer, an annoyed meow came from inside.

“You should go in,” Adam said, and backed away a pace. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Am I still—do you still need me next weekend?” Lisa asked, suddenly feeling almost panicky at the way things were between them.

“We’ll talk later this week,” he said. “We’ll have to see where things stand for the next Dream Date. Depending on various factors, it might—” He stopped and cleared his throat. For the briefest second, she could see the muscles in his jaw quiver, as if he were wrestling with something. “It might just be best if we implement our exit strategy sooner rather than later.”

“Oh.” Lisa swallowed, hard, and nodded. “All right. Let me know.”

A brief smile flickered across Adam’s lips, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Talk to you soon,” he said, and then turned and loped back to the car.

Lisa watched him go, feeling a heaviness settle into the pit of her stomach as he got into the backseat and closed the door.

She didn’t open her front door until the car had rolled away.

Chapter
27

____________________________________

L
isa managed to get through work on Monday without missing Adam too terribly. At least, that was what she adamantly pretended to herself. It took more willpower than she’d realized she had—sternly telling her brain to forget about him when it repeatedly turned toward the subject of Adam Masters—but somehow, she did it. She got through the day.

“Are we on for tonight at Diego’s?” Clare asked as she finished organizing her client sheets for the following day. “I want to hear all about your weekend with Mr. Wonderful.”

Willow, sitting in one of the chairs opposite Clare’s desk, clapped her hands. “Oh, I’ve been wanting to ask all day! But I didn’t want to pry, so...”

“So you just waited for me to do it,” Clare finished for her, with a wink.

Willow shrugged, smiling blithely.

Lisa tried to smile too, but instead, she felt her mouth twist into something closer to an unhappy grimace. “We’re on for tonight,” she said, turning away. She hadn’t yet told them what had happened. If Willow saw her face, she would know instantly something was wrong.

Of course, the story was going to come out, sooner or later. Lisa could never keep things from her best friends for long. Trying to do so now was an exercise in futility.

Apparently, she had even more in common with Adam than she’d already thought. He’d accused himself of avoiding reality, and now she was doing the same.

She could feel Clare’s eyes on her. “Are you all right? You’ve seemed kind of off all day.”

“I’m fine.” Lisa busied herself with digging through her purse for her car keys. “It was a long weekend, that’s all.”

“You aren’t wearing the ring,” Clare observed.

Lisa played dumb. “What ring?”

Clare gave her a look that said she wasn’t buying the bull Lisa was trying to serve up. “Your engagement ring. Did something happen between you and Adam?”

“I haven’t been wearing the ring to work,” Lisa hedged, “because it’s easier to do massages without it. And I don’t want to lose it. And I don’t want Harry Richmond asking questions and getting all excited.”

Each of those was somewhat true. There was no need to mention the rest of the truth—the fact that she’d worn the ring all night long, and then resolutely put it away in a drawer this morning. Doing so had made her sadder than she would have expected. But she needed to face the fact that her brief, mad affair with Adam might already be over. Whenever things ended officially, she would take the ring to a jeweler for appraisal and then find a buyer.

There was a beat of silence, and then Clare rounded her desk. “Okay. Out with it. What happened?”

“When? Nothing.”

“Stop lying,” Clare said. “You aren’t good at it. You have the most obvious tell in the book.” She pointed accusingly at Lisa. “When you lie, you don’t make eye contact.”

Lisa glanced away, rolling her eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about—”

Clare shifted her body a pace so that she was standing directly in the path of Lisa’s averted gaze. “See?” she said, pointedly. “There’s no point, so just stop. Tell us what happened.”

Lisa shook her head. “I want to tell you guys, I just...” She let out a breath. “I don’t know if I should. Especially not at Diego’s. Someone might overhear us, and...that would be bad.”

“We don’t have to go out,” Clare said. “We can stay right here, if you want.”

“Already on it,” Willow said. She had risen and gone to the front door of the spa. Now she flipped the last of the door’s three locks into place and then turned back to Lisa and Clare. “There,” she said. “No one else is getting in here. We have complete privacy. So let’s talk, sweetie. Tell us what went wrong.”

T
wenty minutes later, Clare had opened a bottle of pinot noir she’d stashed in her desk—“In case of emergency,” she’d explained—and splashed some into three plastic cups, one for each of them. Now she was hooting and shaking her head, while Willow tapped a slim finger against the tip of her nose, in what appeared to be deep concentration.

“Well,” Clare said to Lisa, “at least you got some hot sex out of it before the deal went south. I know this isn’t the point, but I just have to know—is the man just amazing in bed, or what? Ten bucks says he’s amazing.”

Lisa tried to look haughtily outraged, but after a moment, all she could manage was a grin. “Yes, the sex was amazing. Like, mind-blowing.” She leaned in and whispered, “He gave me multiple orgasms. Multiple times!”

Clare clapped her hands gleefully. “I knew it!” She tapped her plastic cup of wine against Lisa’s. “Cheers to that! So is he kinky? I bet he’s just a little bit kinky. Tell me everything, and I mean everything.”

“Clare,” Lisa protested, “I have a really big problem on my hands.”

Clare frowned. “What, you mean the fact that the guy who gave you earth-shattering orgasms all weekend long, the guy who is so clearly head-over-heels in love with you, seems to have gotten his poor widdle feelings hurt because you had a couple of crummy dates before you and he were even involved? Don’t worry about it. He’ll get over it.”

Lisa blinked. “He’s not in love with me. And he didn’t just get his feelings hurt because of my dates with Reese and Jacob. And...” She took a deep breath. “That’s not the problem I’m talking about.”

“There’s more?” Clare demanded. “Tell me. Now.”

“I really don’t know if I should,” Lisa hedged.

Willow’s delicate eyebrows drew together. “Lisa, if something happened—if you’re mixed up in something you shouldn’t be, we can help you.”

Lisa smiled tiredly. Willow might seem as soft and delicate as a flower petal, but she knew how to fight for her friends. “Look, I’ll tell you guys, but you have to swear you won’t say anything to anyone. I don’t even think I’m supposed to be talking about it.”

After taking a fortifying gulp of wine, she told them about the email to Mister-Match.com, threatening to expose nude photos of Mister Match’s fiancée to the press.

“Some dude has nudie pics of you?” Clare shrieked.

“No, of course not. What kind of person do you think I am?”

“Uh...a sexual one? I thought everyone took nudies with their partners.” Clare looked first at Lisa, then at Willow. “No? Seriously? Oh, you guys, you are so missing out on some truly erotic foreplay.”

“If you don’t mind,” Willow said primly, “I think we ought to get back to the subject at hand.” She turned to Lisa. “Does Adam know who sent the email?”

“He said it came from someone named Jacob,” Lisa said. “And I don’t know why, but I just have the worst feeling that it’s Jacob from last week.”

“The fake restaurateur?” Clare asked, and hooted with laughter. “He sent an email trying to blackmail Mister Match from his real name? Oh, little man, getting too big for his britches. That is too hilarious!”

“It’s not funny,” Lisa said. “It’s serious.”

“You said he doesn’t actually have nudie pics of you,” Clare said. “Correct?”

Lisa nodded.

“So he’s just blowing smoke up their asses. He’s an opportunist. He probably saw one of the celebrity gossip stories that have come out lately about you and Adam, and now he’s trying to get some money out of the deal.” She shrugged a shoulder carelessly, as if that kind of thing happened all the time.

“Okay,” Lisa said, “but what can I do about it? I want to fix this. I feel awful about going out with that loser in the first place, because it hurt Adam’s feelings, and it might even lead to more bad press for the site.”

“You know,” Willow said thoughtfully, “they always say there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

Lisa frowned. “I don’t know, Adam seemed pretty upset about it. Well, his partner, Dan, did, anyway.”

“Yeah, because Dan’s the money guy,” Clare said. “Isn’t that what you said? He’s a former lawyer, and now he’s the website’s big financial backer? I’ve known so many guys like him. Guys who think that once their money is behind something, it should be untouchable. They’re the same kind of guys who think that once they’ve had sex with a woman, no other man should get to even look in her direction.”

Lisa squinted in her effort to follow her friend’s logical leap.

“Anyway,” Clare went on, “Adam’s not upset because he’s worried about the future of his dating site.”

“He’s not?”

“Of course not. He’s upset because he thinks the woman he loves banged some other dude.”

Lisa winced. “I didn’t ‘bang’ anyone. And I told you, Adam’s not in love with me.”

Clare didn’t listen. “And if it really was your Jacob who sent that email—”

“He’s not
my
Jacob,” Lisa interrupted grumpily.

“—then fixing this is gonna be easy-peasy.” Clare stood, grabbed her cup of wine and went to her computer.

“Fixing this?” Lisa looked up. “How can we fix it?”

Willow had already joined Clare at her desk. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked Clare.

“If you’re thinking we should ask dear Jacob to meet us at the Dive Bar in an hour,” Clare said, tapping at her keyboard, “then yes.”

“Meet us?” Lisa squeaked, jumping up. “No! What? Why? We can’t!”

“Oh, yes, we can,” Clare said, with relish. “I’m messaging with him right now.”

Willow leaned in to read along as Clare typed.

Lisa’s eyes popped. “You’re messaging with him from my Mister-Match account?”

Clare frowned at her briefly over her shoulder. “Of course not. Then he’d think it was you. I’m on iChat.”

“On what?” Lisa shook her head. “Wait—you have his cell number?”

“I’ve been messaging with him on Mister-Match.com for weeks,” Clare said. “Of course I got his number. What do you think I am, an amateur?”

“But...” Lisa was still thoroughly confused. Over the reception counter, she could see little message bubbles pop up on Clare’s computer screen—Clare’s right-aligned, in blue, and the answering messages left-aligned, in gray.

“She’s logged into her text messages through her computer,” Willow explained, still reading over Clare’s shoulder. “It’s an Apple thing.” To Clare, she said, “Oh, that’s good. That’s really good!” She clapped her hands and did a delighted little dance behind Clare’s desk chair.

“What’s good?” Lisa asked, but Willow didn’t answer and Clare kept pecking at the keyboard.

“Just to be clear,” Lisa said after a beat, “Jacob doesn’t think he’s texting with me, right? Because I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.”

“Apparently,” Willow said, a gleeful edge to her gentle voice, “Jacob thinks Clare is someone named Destinee.”

Clare giggle-snorted, tapped a few more keys on the keyboard and then sat back triumphantly in her chair. “Done. He’s meeting us at the Sidecar in half an hour.”

“The Sidecar? That must be his standard pickup spot,” Lisa muttered. “Why are we meeting with him? I really don’t think this is a good idea. The guy could be dangerous. Maybe we should just let Adam and Dan work it out on their end, with the police—”

“Lisa.” Clare rounded the desk and put an arm around her friend. “You worry too much. Willow and I have it all planned out. All you have to do is come along and watch the poor sucker go down.”