Page 50 of Failure to Match

I had so many questions. “And now…”

“And now I have to get married.”

Butwhy?

Jackson got up, straightening his tie. “Be ready by seven. I’ll take care of everything else.”

My stomach swooped. “I haven’t agreed to anything yet. I’ve got more questions?—”

“Which I’ll be happy to answer on our date.”

Was the AC still running? Because it was starting to feel uncomfortably warm in here.

“We’re going to need something to talk about, right?” he insisted just as I opened my mouth.

He maybe had a point there. It wasn’t like we had anything in common. The potential for painfully long stretches of awkward silences was quite high, so saving the questions was probably a good idea.

I crossed my arms as Jackson sat back down at his desk. He regarded me with a conflicting mixture of amusement and mild annoyance as he waited for another round of my objections.

“If I were to agree, where would we go?”

“To dinner.”

“Where?”

“A restaurant of my choosing.”

“You’d expect someone to go on a first date with you blind? They’re going to want to know the location ahead of time, for safety purposes if nothing else.”

“This wouldn’t be our first date,” he said. “It would be our second.”

Seriously, it was insanely warm in here all of a sudden. My knees were sweating.

“That’s a technicality,” I said.

He shrugged like that made no difference.

“At the very least, I need to know what to wear. What’s the dress code?”

“I wouldn’t worry about that either.”

What was he talking about? Had he ever met a human woman?

“This is already going terribly,” I informed him.

He rubbed a knuckle across his lips, almost like he was trying to hide an incoming smile. “Humor me, would you?” he said. “It’s one night.”

“I’ll give you one hour,” I decided. That was the amount of time he’d allocated to all his dates, so it seemed karmically fair.

His mouth twitched. “Sure. Let’s start with that. I’ll come get you at seven.”

My pulse tripped again, which was odd. There was no reason for it to be skipping any beats.

“Fine. I’m wearing jeans.”

I was half-hoping that would goad him into giving me a hint about the dress code, but it only made things worse.

“Wear whatever you want,” he said dismissively. “You’re not going to be keeping it on for very long anyway.”

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