Page 34 of Daddy's Little Matchmaker

Gwen asked, “Did you find the four thousand?”

“I did. Thanks again for keeping an eye on things down here so I could concentrate.”

“No problem. I can come by tomorrow afternoon if you want.”

“No.” Tessica shook her head. “That’s your only day off. You should do something fun or relaxing.”

Gwen frowned. “When’s the last time you had a day off?”

“That’s irrelevant.”

Gwen turned to Connor. “It’s not irrelevant. She’s working alot. Like?—”

“Gwen!” Tessica scolded.

Connor focused on Tessica. “How much is a lot?”

“It’s notthatmuch,” Tessica assured him.

Connor turned to Gwen. “Is that true?”

Gwen shook her head.

Connor turned to Tessica. “Last week at the club, Paul also mentioned that you’d been working too many hours. I wasplanning to talk to you about it last week on our date, but I forgot.”

“Date?” Gwen’s eyes shot wide open.

Tessica pursed her lips, irritated that the cat was out of the bag, and refused to comment. Instead, she focused on Connor. “I don’t see how that’s any of Paul’s business.” She was definitely going to have a talk with the club owner the next time she saw him.

“Do you have some blank paper?” Connor asked.

The question threw Tessica off for a moment, but soon enough she nodded and pulled a couple of pages out from under the counter. She held them out to Connor.

Instead of taking them, he said, “Please write down your schedule for the past week.”

“What?”

“All the hours for both your accounting work and the shelter work. Including any extra work you did at night on your laptop.”

“But...”

“But what?” He asked.

“Why?”

He leaned forward. “Because I told you to.”

Gwen gasped.

Tessica purposely ignored her and scowled at Connor. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

He sighed. “Because I doubt you realize how many hours you’re actually putting in. Seeing it written out might help you to be more objective about it.” He raised his eyebrows and leaned in. “And because I told you to.”

Tessica felt her face heat up. It was difficult to argue with his logic. Reluctantly, she began writing, and tried not to think about how she was going to explain this to Gwen later.

Gwen said, “I uh, I should probably get going.”

“I have a question for you before you go,” Connor said.

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