Page 29 of Love in Fine Print

The food came, and he didn’t skip a beat. He continued talking, even while chewing his filet mignon, which would have been a deal breaker if there was still a deal on the table. Spoiler alert: there wasn’t.

When the alarm on my phone sounded, a choir of angels sang the Hallelujah chorus in my head. I grabbed it from my purse and turned it off. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go.”

I was busy pulling a few hundred-dollar bills from my wallet because I never let a man pay on the first date and I didn’t trust him to tip well, when he said, “What about desert?”

“I’m full.”

His thin lips parted in a sleazy smile. “I wasn’t talking about food.”

“You have meat in your teeth,” I informed him as I stood.

I thought about leaving the money on the table but just like I didn’t trust him to tip well, I didn’t trust him not to pocket it.

“Goodnight,” I said as I turned.

“You’re really leaving?” he asked.

I didn’t respond.

On the way out of the restaurant, I saw Gannon and I slid the cash to him.

“Oh, are you leaving?”

“Yes, I am.”

That was sixty minutes of my life I would never get back, but at least I could tell Trevor I’d stayed. The hour had given me a lot of time to consider what Ben must think of me if that was the man he’d matched me with, and I was stewing with anger. And disappointment.

I’d thought Ben had seen me. He’d listened to me. That we’d had a connection. Clearly, I was wrong.

The longer I stood outside at the valet, waiting for my SUV, the angrier I got. When I climbed in, I was tempted to drive overto Ever After Matchmaking and give Ben a piece of my mind, but that would be impulsive.

I was not impulsive. Some people called me calculated. I liked to say I was cautious. I’d seen what happened when people acted on feelings. Affairs happened. Things were said that couldn’t be taken back. People lived with regrets.

I didn’t do regrets.

So tonight, I was going to go home, take a hot shower, and go to bed.

And I wasnotgoing to think about Ben.

Yeah, and if I believed that, then I had oceanfront property in Arizona I could sell to myself.

12

BEN

Beads of sweatbroke out on my forehead as I sat in Gran’s office. The air conditioning unit that was attached to the window was probably twenty years old and needed to be replaced—just one more thing to add to the list.

Since I’d moved into Gran’s house, I’d made some cosmetic improvements, including new appliances, bedroom furniture, couch, and, of course, the television. I’d replaced her 90s TV/VHS combo television with an 85” flat screen. But I’d stopped short of doing full-blown renovations.

I wasn’t sure how long I would be here. Gran had asked me to give the business eighteen months before deciding to keep it or not, which meant I had a year left to figure it out.

One more year to either preserve Gran’s legacy or watch it go up in flames. But no pressure.

My hand moved the mouse and I clicked on my email. I’d been avoiding checking it because I hadn’t wanted to find out how Olivia’s date had gone last night. I had a feeling I’d be disappointed either way. If it went poorly, that would be bad for my business. If it went great, that would be bad for me personally.

Not that I had a chance with Olivia Bradshaw. I didn’t. She was my client, so she was off limits. The only thing worse than being a bad matchmaker would be being a matchmaker who hits on his clients.

Taking a deep breath, I opened my email and saw that Darius had filled out the automated questionnaire that the system sent out after every date. I clicked on it and began to read what he’d written.

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