Page 5 of Certified Heartthrob

“I might have a good idea why.” I nodded. “I’m just impressed Heartstring would send someone all the way out here to meet with me in person. And one of the bigwigs at that.”

“You know who I am?”

“Oh, yeah.” I laughed. “I know all about you and your siblings. Your rich daddy left you broke, and you turned to scamming lonely people to rebuild your fortune. Even though none of you really seem to have much luck with love yourselves.”

Her face dropped, looking wounded for a moment. Enough to make me feel bad for taking such a low blow...razzing her family and all. I was going to add that I was sorry she lost her dad, regardless, but the hurt look on her face quickly evaporated into sharp anger.

“First of all, we don’t scam anyone. We provide a service. Sometimes it works on the first or second try. For others, it takes longer. That’s just the nature of human beings and says nothing about the quality of the service we provide. Second, I don’t understand why someone who is so against love wouldn’t just let a service like ours, which you’ve deemed useless for yourself, exist for the sake of others rather than try to ruin it for everyone else. Third, your love life can’t be that much better if you have the time and motivation to troll our app with all these dates.”

She let out a breath, finally, and waited for my defense.

“You scam people by even offering the service in the first place,” I argued. “But you’ve already taken up two of our five minutes. So, I’m not even going to get into that. And maybe some people are selfish enough to turn a blind eye to wrongdoing if it doesn’t affect them personally, but I’m not one of those people. And the love life thing…”

“What makes you so certain my love life isn’t thriving, anyway?” she proposed. “Maybe I just keep those things private.”

“Nothing is private anymore.” I grinned. “Obviously. You’re sitting here right now because of that.”

“Which I’m sure brings you great joy,” she quipped. “You were baiting us, weren’t you?”

“No, actually. I was only trying to do what I have always said I was out to do.”

“Which is what exactly?”

“Tell people the truth about love.” I shrugged. “That it’s a lie. At least romantic love is, anyway. People neglect a plethora of other kinds of loving relationships for the sake of romance and sex...which in the end, only gets people hurt.”

She laughed incredulously. “There are plenty of happily married people.”

“Are there?” I arched an eyebrow. “Name one.”

“My brother. Lucas Meadows.”

I burst into laughter so hard that it took me a moment to catch my breath. “Maybe your brother’s PR stunt fooled everyone else, but not me.”

“It’s not a PR stunt,” she insisted. “He has loved Victoria since we were in high school. It may have been an arrangement at the beginning, but they’re madly in love and very happy together. They’re expecting a baby, which I’m sure you must know since you appear to be so obsessed with us.”

“Sure,” I offered sarcastically. I wasn’t buying it for one minute. “I give them five years tops before someone starts having an affair.”

“I’ve come here to personally request that you stop this rampage against our company,” she said sternly. “I’m sure you’ve considered the legal actions we could take for defamation. But I’d really rather it didn’t come down to that.”

“I had considered it...until you showed up here. I’m a lot less worried about it now. A company like yours would have just slapped me with a lawsuit already if you could have. But they sent you instead. It’s an act of desperation because you know there’s nothing more you can do.” I stood and gathered up my groceries again. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

“No one sent me,” she snapped defensively, standing up with me. “I came on my own. Did you ever think that maybe my brother and I and all of us, the company included, aren’t what you think we are? Maybe not all relationships are what you think they are, either.”

“I think they all eventually become what I think they are. And if it appears otherwise, it’s because people are lying.”

She crossed her arms. “You have an awfully low opinion of people and their capacity to truly love others.”

“Romantically, yes. As I said. But I also said I have dinner to cook, so if you’ll step aside...I’d like to go inside my apartment now.” She was hesitant to budge. “Without you.”

“Cooking dinner for another bogus date?” she teased, finally stepping aside just enough to let me in.

As I slipped past her, I caught a big whiff of her fruity vanilla perfume. It was the little things like that which made women so tempting and addictive. I was just glad to be above it now. But in addition to being above that, I was also above her...by about a foot or more in height. And my vantage, as I geared up to unlock my door yet again, gave me a perfect view of her perky cleavage. I did my best not to stare.

“I think this little rendezvous was bogus enough of a date for me this evening.”

“Very funny,” she scoffed, making her way down the steps. “Mark? Do consider stopping. We can take legal action against you.”

“Then do it.” I smirked. “I can take legal action right back for false advertisement.”

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