Page 18 of Failure to Match

“Now,” Minerva started, “tell me what happened last night.”

Jackson tapped his foot. “This is a waste of time. I’ve explained?—”

“Hush. I’ve already heard your version of the events. You barked about it for a full hour this morning. It’s her turn.”

He bristled. “She’s a liar and a fraud, Minerva. How can you believe a word?—”

“Either shut up, Jackson, or go help Vivian with the tea.”

Oh,hell yes.

Smug delight sprouted in my chest, easing the tension in my shoulders. I decided right then that, despite her unfortunate blood relation to the grumpiest hardboiled egg on the planet, I liked Minerva Sinclair. And I was going to tell her the truth.

After all, what did I have to lose?

“We call him Jack the Ripper,” I told her.

That was probably a good place to start.

5

It spilledout of me like a kettle on high heat.

I told her how he’d earned the nickname. How many hearts he’d ruthlessly stomped on to be dubbed “The Ripper” by me and my colleagues.

I told her about his insanely rigid and near-impossible criteria, and how difficult it was for us to find evenonewoman who met all the items on the list, let alone the sixty-seven he’d turned down.

I told her about the damage control line and the sheer amount of hours I’d spent comforting the women he’d turned down with such callous indifference—the sheer amount of hours we, as a team, had spent on his file.

And finally, I told her about why I’d gone undercover in the first place. About how his refusal to meet with us combined with everything else had pushed us over the edge. We needed accurate data and couldn’t think of any other way to get it.

I kept my tone and phrasing as professional as I could manage, presenting her with all the facts. Then I apologized for my actions, because regardless of what my motive had been, what I’d done was still wrong.

All the while Vivian had been sitting beside me on the couch, silent and stiff as a wooden board.

“I’m not convinced Jackson wants a partner,” I finished off almost an hour after I’d started. “Everything from his strict criteria to his behavior on our date indicates that he couldn’t be less interested in finding someone through our services.”

By the time I finally shut up, my untouched tea was cold, the pillow on my lap was permanently disfigured, and I was slightly out of breath.

But holy shit did that feel good.

It felt so, so,sofucking good.

I wished Alice and Mitch were here. I’d tried my best to cover everything, but it would have been nice for them to get their voices heard too. Finally, someone was listening.

After a long stretch of silence, Minerva nodded one last time. “Okay, so what would you recommend?”

“For what?” I asked.

“If we were to start over with Jackson, how would you suggest we go about it?”

“Vivian would have to…” I trailed off when she shook her head.

“I’d like to hearyourprofessional opinion, Miss Paquin,” she said calmly. “If you could hit rewind on Jackson’s file, go back to day one, how would you handle it? What would you do differently? Assuming, of course, that you had his full cooperation this time around.”

Jackson had remained silent while I talked, much like Vivian. Though I was very aware of how intently he’d been watching me the whole time.

I cleared my throat, keeping my focus on Minerva. “All right. In my professional opinion, unless Jackson is willing to enroll in our Immersive program and put in the work with a seniorconsultant, I wouldn’t recommend he stay with Charmed. I believe we’ve done everything else we can for him at this point.”

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