I texted my mother back furiously, but she didn’t respond.
"She does not seem like the type to take no for an answer," Chloe observed. "Why is she so committed to marrying you off?"
I sighed, putting my phone down and dropping my head into my hands. "She is terrified I will make her mistake."
"Which was?"
"Falling in love." I looked back up at Chloe.
Chloe’s mouth dropped open. "What? Why would that be a mistake?"
I slumped into one of the tall stools next to the counter. I'd heard the story so many times, I didn't have to think to repeat it to Chloe. My mother had been young, beautiful, evidently not very smart. She'd fallen for my father, who had been a playboy. They were in love, but it was an affair of passion for him, and he wouldn't marry her, even after she was pregnant. Her heart was broken and her parents had disowned her because they'd already set up a match, which she'd broken to be with my father. When he'd moved on, she'd been alone with me, and life had not been easy. She’d worked multiple jobs, I’d been left home alone as a very young child, and we often weren’t sure where our next meal would come from.
"Your poor mother. I can’t blame her for not wanting to be in an arranged marriage though. How old fashioned.”
“It was—they’d been doing it in my family for generations. The man ended up being very wealthy, running a big company. I think my mother always regretted not marrying him for the security.”
“Did your grandparents ever forgive her?"
I smiled, thinking of my grandfather's kind face. "Eventually, when I was three or so, but they wouldn’t help her financially." I lifted my coffee cup to my lips again. "But a few years ago, Maman met Emile, and she's happy now and taken care of."
“So she does believe in love now?”
I shook my head. “She has been very clear that the biggest mistake she ever made was not listening to her parents, going ahead with the practical match they had made for her. She says she and Emile have an agreement. Not love.”
Chloe made a clucking noise of understanding. "She trying to set up an agreement for you.”
"It's awful," I said.
"It is," Chloe agreed. "She thinks she’s taking care of you, though."
"Well I feel terrible for poor Henri. I’ve emailed him and explained everything, and I thought he understood." I put down my cup so I could explain my point better, waving my hands as I spoke. "Maybe he still thinks there's a chance I'll marry him. He isn't very assertive, and maybe my mother is wrangling him to come here."
"Maybe you need to show them both that there is no chance," Chloe suggested.
"I've told them."
"Yes, but show them." She wiggled her eyebrows.
"How?" I lifted my hands, palms up, in confusion.
"Be already taken when they arrive." Chloe smiled, her dark brown eyes shining above her full pink lips. She looked pleased with herself, like she'd just solved the world's greatest problem.
"I’m not dating anyone.” I shook my head, making a curl spring loose from my bun. “I don’t want to, either. I don’t need complications. I have work.”
"Sign up for Mr. Match," Chloe said. And then she proceeded to explain about a dating site she'd heard of on the news, and forced me into the back office to fill out the longest questionnaire of my life after going back to tell Adam I’d be late because I was helping her with something up front. It took two hours and included questions about my preferred fruits and my opinions about smoked fish.
"I don't understand why it cares what I think of hamsters as pets," I called out to Chloe at the tasting counter just outside the door. “And I don’t want a match, Chloe. I should just find an actor.”
"It's very scientific," she replied. “I saw it on the news. And if you end up meeting your real match? Won’t that be a good thing?”
"It also says there are no guarantees," I told her, stepping back through the door after finishing the profile and hitting submit. “If I’m going to do this, I need a man now.”
She turned and raised an eyebrow at me. "Look at you, darling. The dark lush hair, those deep soulful eyes. Your perfect French complexion and those curves! You'll be matched before you know it."
“It specifically says it could take months or even years, and that the match depends on your perfect algorithmic match also being in the database. It has nothing to do with looks.”
Chloe shrugged, and I envied her easy certainty about everything. “But it doesn’t say it won’t happen right away. Worth a try.”
"I don't think I want to be matched," I moaned, readjusting my bun.
"It would only be to show your mother you aren't available. And Henri," Chloe reminded me. "Ooh, you know what would work best?"
A little pit of dread opened in my stomach. "What?"
"If you pretended to be engaged. Then there would be no questions at all."
"You want me to convince a man I haven't even met yet to pretend we are engaged? And make my mother believe this has all happened in two weeks?"
“Your mother is not an issue. She knows you might not tell her everything all the time, right?”
“I suppose.” I definitely did not tell Maman everything.
“So maybe you would have been keeping this a secret, too.”
“But if I just tell her I’m engaged now, maybe that will stop her from bringing Henri in the first place.” I pulled my phone back out and began texting. “There. I’ve just let her know there is no point in bringing Henri because I am already seeing someone, and that there will be plenty of time for her to meet him, so she should not rush to see me now.”
Chloe smiled, and we both watched my phone for a response.
We got one. Flight confirmation details.
“She’s coming anyway. And still bringing Henri.”
"It will be fine." Chloe looked so certain, I almost believed she knew what she was talking about. “This will work.”
I put a hand on her shoulder, smiling at the few early visitors sipping wine at the counter as I headed for the back of the winery. I'd already ignored my duties too long today, thanks to the insane Mr. Match intake form. I'd think about this problem later.
Chapter 3
Never Skip Leg Day
Trace
ONE WEEK LATER
"Fuerte, can you bring me my shake?" I was flat on my back, my legs still in the spare room I used as a gym at my house and my body in the hallway leading to the front room where I could see the television. It was leg day, and when it was over, I'd nearly lost the will to live, except that my teammate Fernando Fuerte and my sister were watching reruns of Game of Thrones in preparation for the final season. From where I lay on the floor, I could see the television.
"I'm not the help, man." Fuerte's voice came over the back of the couch.
"I've fallen, Fuerte. Please?"
"Get your own shake, Trace." Erica sounded annoyed. But she was only a little bit annoyed. I'd had a lot of years of irritating my sister, and I knew exactly how far I could push before she'd make me sorry.
"I don't think I'll be able to get up again until I have some calories to replace all the ones I burned. I think I probably worked down to a pretty severe deficit. If I stand, I might pass out. You don't want that, do you, sis?"
Erica's head popped up over the back of the couch so she could roll her eyes at me. "You're pathetic."
"I think that's been well established," I said. Her head disappeared again and no shake materialized. "If I was Jamie and you were Cersei, you'd be bringing me my shake right now."
Now Fuerte's head appeared, and he did not look amused. "You wanna go any further with that one and see what happens?" he asked. I surmised that referencing the incestuous twins on Game of Thrones might have been one step too far.
"Ooh, now I see why they call you the Fuerte Fire," I said, sitting up and making my voice into a nice little falsetto that made his eyes squint to even tinier slits.
"Trace!" Erica's head joined Fuert
e's and a little jolt of satisfaction ran through me. I had everyone's attention now.
"Shake . . ." I whispered weakly.
"Oh my God!" Erica paused the television and got up, stomping into the kitchen to pull my protein shake from the fridge. I would have been completely satisfied if only she hadn't thrown it at me so hard.
"Ow, sis," I said, sitting up and reaching for the bottle where it had bounced to land next to the wall after hitting my chest. "That may leave a bruise."
"Happy now?" She asked, standing with her hands on her hips. "Will you stop being ridiculous and just watch the show please?" She sat down next to Fuerte again and turned the television back on.
I leaned against the doorway, drinking my shake and watching Khaleesi ride her dragons around for a few minutes, and finally stood up to dispose of the shake container. Fuerte's hand was on my sister's leg. I cringed and picked up my phone, wandering over to squeeze between them.
"Dude!"
"Trace!" They slid apart to make room for me, but Erica punched me in the arm pretty hard before I could get truly comfy.
"This seat taken?" I asked.
Fuerte glared at me. "We're watching the rest at my place," he said. "And you're not invited to watch the new season with us unless you can control yourself. Dude, you're soaking wet." Fuerte stood, his lips pulling open in a comical gape of disgust.
"A little honest sweat, Fuerte. Shouldn't you be working out? We have a game Friday."
I thought Fuerte might be about to lose his shit, so I turned my attention to my phone as Erica slid away from me. They both sat down again on the other couch.
"You could at least put a towel down," Erica said, but her voice had lost its fight.
I flicked through my email until I came to one I had definitely not expected. "Erica," I said, my voice just above a whisper.
"What?" She sounded a little bit exasperated with me.
"That thing you made me do . . ." I didn't necessarily want to admit to Fuerte that I'd signed up for Mr. Match. Just because he knew everything about Erica didn’t mean he needed to know everything about me. "The uh . . . meat delivery service? The one with the crazy order form?"
"Mr. Match?" she asked immediately and I glared at her. Fuerte's face broke into a knowing smirk and I restrained myself from leaping across the table to wipe it off for him. He'd met my sister that way, after all.
"Meat delivery?" Fuerte asked, still smiling.
Dragons shrieked in the background as I opened the email and stared at the words before me. "My meat is a fit for some wine lady," I told them. "I think she's French."
"Photo?" Fuerte said, holding out a hand.
The email said if I was ready to move forward I should click accept to see her photo. "I can't look," I said, and stood to hand my phone to my sister. Fuerte and I might be teammates, but Erica was the only one I'd trust with something like my soulmate. If I believed in that kind of thing, which I totally did not.
"Trace," Erica said, her voice filled with the kind of reverence usually reserved for a very large sundae or maybe a stupidly big purse in some fruity color. "She's gorgeous."
Fuerte was looking over her arm at my phone, and even he looked impressed. "It's gotta be a mistake," he said, looking up to smirk at me.
I held out my hand and Erica put the phone back into my palm. I looked down into the face of a woman who could give the mother of dragons some strong competition. Dark soulful eyes, gorgeous curly dark waves down past her shoulders, and the kind of creamy skin I thought only appeared in those renaissance paintings in Italy. Fuerte was right. This was probably a mistake.
“What’s her name?” Erica said, her face scrunching in confusion. “Ma-GAL-ee?”
“Maybe it’s MAG-a-LEE,” I said, reading it and trying to figure out how to say it correctly. “Mag-A-lie. MAG-a-LAY?”
“I think you should let her say it first,” my sister suggested.
“Meh.” I made a non-committal noise. I needed time to process this. I still wasn’t sure a soulmate was something I could handle.
I closed the email and stretched out on the couch. Erica and Fuerte were both staring at me, wordless.
"Turn it up, sis," I said, pointing at the television. "This is the best part." Watching white walkers battle dragons seemed far easier to accept than the possibility of me ever meeting that woman in person.
I was not calling this girl. It had seemed like a good idea, but now it seemed like a terrible plan. I didn’t need a match. And this woman? She looked like an actual adult and would certainly not be charmed by yours truly. I wasn’t ready for this.
I let my sister talk me into signing up because I was sure it would take months. Not days. Mr. Match was high.
Chapter 4
Mr. Match Doesn't Smoke
Max
Max here.
Yeah. I’m not high.
At this point, the algorithm is a finely tuned piece of mathematical perfection, and if it says Trace Johnson is a perfect match for some French winemaker who happens to be ridiculously supermodel gorgeous in a deliciously curvy way, then that's basically a fact.
Plus, I don't smoke. We're in season, and my body is a freaking temple.
Chapter 5
Swiping for Sharks
Magalie
Adam and I stood next to the huge fermentation tanks in the winery, exhausted as we gathered together with the entire team of workers. My limbs tingled with fatigue and my head was a low throb.
"Thank you all," Adam said, standing on a crate and addressing the gathered workers who had helped for the past two weeks with harvest and crush. "It's been a lot of work, but the weather was perfect, and I'm really optimistic about the product in these tanks. And now that Magalie is here, I'm even more optimistic about the wine we're going to be putting into bottles in the next years."
Chloe gave me a shoulder squeeze and beamed at me, and a warm sense of satisfaction rolled through me. This was the first step to everything I’d ever wanted. I wanted to make award-winning wine. I wanted to have my name roll off the lips of wine experts everywhere as a winemaker to watch. But I'd have to actually make some first.
"I'm just as optimistic," I assured everyone. "To Chateau Le Sec!" We all raised our glasses and drank to what we'd accomplished during the stressful and physically challenging harvest, which I’d finally gotten to help with as we crushed and pressed the fruit. The rest of the hard work would happen inside the winery walls, and would be up to Adam, and to me.
As the gathered group began to disperse, Adam and Chloe stood nearby, smiling. I'd basically ignored everything for the past few days as we'd gone through the hectic crush, moving the harvest from the field to the crushing machinery and finally into the tanks. Now Adam and I would be tasting and blending the wines aging in barrels from last year's harvest. But for a day or two, we'd be resting.
"Dinner?" Chloe asked me, bumping her shoulder against mine. "To celebrate?"
I sighed and took a physical inventory of my aching limbs. "Definitely. But nothing too late or you'll be carrying me home."
She smiled and Adam grinned at me. "Let's go."
We were filthy, so we stopped through their house, which was on the winery property, to change clothes and shower off quickly. I kept a spare set in the office, since winery work was often dirty work. When we were clean, we headed to a little bistro in town that made amazing chili. We sat over steaming bowls, each of us smiling in exhaustion.
"Hey," Chloe said. "Things have gotten so crazy I forgot to ask if you've heard anything from the site you signed up for."
"The site?" I hadn’t exactly forgotten, but I also hadn’t thought of it since signing up. I’d figured my mother would arrive, and I’d just have to tell her the truth and assert myself for once and for all. I’d have to make her hear me this time.
"Mr. Match," she clarified.
Adam's eyebrows rose to his forehead. "Are you looking for your match here in San Diego, Magalie? Do you think you’ll stay he
re?"
A flush crept hot up my neck and I tried not to let it turn my entire face bright red. This was nothing to be embarrassed about, right? "Not my match," I explained, "so much as . . ."
"She needs a fake fiancé for when her mother comes to visit." The words flew out of Chloe's mouth in a rush.
"Oh," Adam said, as if this made perfect sense. He seemed to realize a minute later that it did not, and his eyebrows knit together again. "But—"
"It's a long story," I told him. "But yes, I signed up for Mr. Match." I pushed down the feeling of embarrassment that wanted to send my mouth into a sputtering explanation. I was a grown woman, after all. If I wanted to convince some poor local man to pretend to be engaged to me, that was my business.
"And?" Chloe asked.
"Chloe, the introductory material at the site explained that you might never hear anything at all. Or that it could be months or even years. It is not a sure thing. I'm going to have to be ready to face my mother either way." My stomach clenched at the thought of trying to tell her, yet again, that I would manage my own life from here on out. It wasn’t that I was weak; it was that my mother so single-mindedly believed she knew best that she just didn’t hear me.
"So you haven't heard anything?" Chloe looked disappointed.
I knew she wouldn't like my answer. "I haven't checked email all week."
As predicted, her lips jutted out in a pout and her eyebrows lowered. "Magalie . . . "
"We've been very busy," I reminded her. "I've been falling into bed and getting up before the sun." Harvest was the absolute busiest time of the year at a winery, and I had a lot to prove here. I’d been studying winemaking since I was young, though no one had taken me seriously until college. And now I had a real chance to make my dream into my life. Adam and I were entering some of our blends in the Temecula Valley Heritage Festival this year. If we won, it’d be real validation of my skill.
Scoring a Fake FIANCÉE: Mr. Match Book 2 Page 2
