Page 27 of The Match Faker

A normal person would’ve greeted me at the door, but then I remembered I was dealing with Liam.

When I got to the room, Liam was sprawled out on a white leather sofa, scrolling through his phone.

‘Drink?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Please,’ I said, trying to focus. Liam was wearing grey tracksuit bottoms (aka the sexy grey sweatpants I loved reading about in American romance novels). He’d paired it with a white vest top and his arms were huge. I swallowed hard.

‘You wanna tell me what you’d like to drink or are you just gonna keep staring at my arms?’ Liam smirked.

My eyes widened. Shit.

‘I wasn’t looking at your… I was just…’ I tried to think of an excuse, but my mind went blank.

‘So?’ He smiled. ‘What’s the verdict?’

‘I mean, they’re…’

Lie. Tell him you don’t care about his arms. That they’re average. Or just okay. Or shrug.

Whatever you do, do NOT tell him that they look great.

‘Um, you have… your arms are pretty impressive.’

Gah!

If I couldn’t even lie about something simple like this, how the hell was I supposed to lie about him being my boyfriend? I’d barely been here two minutes and this was already a disaster.

‘Good to know.’ The corner of his mouth twitched. ‘But when I asked for your verdict, I meant what you wanted to drink.’

Ground, swallow me up.

Now the arsehole would think I liked him.

‘Um, water. Please.’ If I couldn’t even hold it together when I was stone-cold sober, God knows what crap would fall out of my mouth after drinking something stronger.

‘Still? Sparkling?’

‘Still.’

He got up and strode across the room. Even though he was metres away, his woody scent hit me. And I hated how much I liked it.

I reached into my bag to look busy. There was no way I’d give him the satisfaction of seeing me staring at his firm arse. I mean, his firm arms. I definitely didn’t look at his bum at all when he walked past.

‘Here.’ He handed me the glass, then sat down. ‘So, what’s the plan?’

Plan. I liked that word. That I could deal with. I pulled out my pad and found the page where I’d made some notes.

‘Well, as I mentioned when we met, I’ve been entered for the Matchmaker of the Year competition at the Happily Ever After Awards…’

‘I have to ask,’ Liam interrupted. ‘This whole matchmaking thing: don’t you feel bad? For selling a false dream?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Perpetuating the myth that people will find one person and live happily ever after.’ He rolled his eyes.

‘It’s not a myth!’ Anger bubbled in my veins.

Matchmaking had been around for centuries. It’d been proven to work. Time and time again.

---