Page 11 of Marrying Off My Husband

With a frown, I stared at the screen again before I deleted my profile on the dating app. A momentary pang of disappointment filled me again as I recalled my inability to make a connection in a sea of people.

“Good luck, Lou,” I murmured as I clicked the confirm button, wiping away any digital trace of my lousy attempt at dating.

Louise hated dating apps, and I could see why, but I had to start somewhere. I didn’t know enough people to find potential candidates for Louise.

Instead, I planned to use the dating app to locate a few. In fact, I’d considered writing a program to crawl around all of the stupid sites and find potential candidates.

Before I started to fill out the profile, I scrolled through my photo roll in search of the perfect picture of Louise. It wasn’t too difficult. Louise always looked striking in photos–she had an effortless elegance that commanded notice. It wasn’t just herpretty face or her figure, which certainly didn’t hurt, but it was the way she seemed to stand out, her lively eyes and genuine smile drawing you in.

I selected a photo where she looked professional, yet friendly, cropped myself out, and added it to her profile, hoping it would show off both her looks and her vivacious personality.

As I began to fill out the rest of the profile, the slamming of the front door startled me. I quickly powered off my display and jiggled my mouse, murmuring a command under my breath to encourage my monitor to wake up faster.

I cleared my throat and set my fingers on the keyboard, typing a few lines of code that added no value to my program, but Louise’s lack of coding knowledge would play to my advantage.

A few seconds later, a whiff of her perfume floated past me. I pretended not to notice, working away on my fake bit of code that would do nothing more than count to one hundred behind the scenes.

Behind me, she cleared her throat. I pretended to be surprised, ceasing my typing and swiveling in my chair. “Lou! You’re home early.”

The fake surprise in my voice was hardly convincing to me, but I hoped it fooled Louise.

The cat-who-caught-the-canary grin on her face slipped a little, and I wondered if something had happened. “The shopping wasn’t all I hoped for.”

“Already bought out all the stores?” I grinned at her, poking a little fun at her shopping habit.

“No,” she answered as she sashayed across the room and hopped onto my desk, her legs dangling over the side. “Mama called.”

My nose wrinkled instinctively. “How is the monster-in-law?”

“Her usual self,” Louise said, her full lips tugging into a frown. “You know, she accused me of dragging you around to social outings as if that’s a crime?”

Louise shot me an incredulous glance. If it hadn’t been her mother who’d said it, I would have agreed. Social outings were not fun. At least not for me. But since Constance Montgomery was the bane of Lou-Lou’s existence, I held back.

“Hmm,” I murmured.

Lou’s eyes went wide, and she gave me a playful slap against the arm. “Donottell me you agree with her, Spencer Whitaker.”

“I don’t…ish.” I lifted a shoulder, a dubious expression on my face.

“Spencer!” She leapt off my desk, fists pressed against her hips.

“Well, I mean…I hate social outings, you know that. But…I hate your mother even more, so it’s a wash.”

Louise crossed her arms, frowning down at me. “I don’t know what to do with you sometimes, Spence.”

I offered her a tentative grin. “What else did Mommy dearest want?”

Louise rolled her eyes as she leaned against the desk again. “She says she needs to see me about my future.”

A muffled groaned escaped her as she pushed off the edge and began pacing. “I just know she’s going to try to pull something.”

I leaned back in my chair, twisting it back and forth to follow her ambling. “But she can’t, right?”

Louise bit her lower lip. “I don’t know.”

The concern etched in her features answered my question more than her words could. That was exactly what she was worried about.

I rose and crossed to her, rubbing her shoulders. “Lou, we did everything the right way. She can’t touch your money.”

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