by JC Harroway
All he’d ordered was a date for the evening, and now it occurred to him how odd the whole process had been. He hadn’t been shown any photos. Hadn’t talked to his potential match through email or text. Was Liaisons International actually a dating service?
Or was it something else entirely?
An escort service?
No. Before signing up, he’d thoroughly checked it out. Even though its name had recently changed, the business had been active for a long time with nothing but glowing reviews and recommendations. But that had been for when it was Matchmakers International. It sounded like something else entirely now.
Not that he would have signed up for a matchmaking service; that sounded too old-fashioned and far too permanent, like finding the match for the rest of one’s damn life. Teo just wanted a date, so he could ward off amateur matchmakers and the gold diggers those amateurs often found for him.
Where the hell was his date?
Not that she was late.
Yet.
He glanced down at the crack beneath the door and noticed the shadow receding. Maybe the cart or trolley was being pushed away. Or maybe...
Curiosity compelled him to pull open the door and, feeling like he’d been punched in the gut, he sucked in a breath of shock. She had her back to him but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, since her backside was so very good.
A black silk dress clung to the sweet curves of her hips and her ass, and the short hemline of the dress exposed the longest damn legs he’d ever seen. Blond hair flowed partway down her back, falling like a deep gold curtain against the fabric that couldn’t compare to the silky look of her hair. If her face was half as attractive as her legs...
Then the dating service had done damn well. But maybe she had been walking away from some other room, not his.
She might have nothing to do with Liaisons International. But before she even turned around, he hoped like hell that she did, that she was his date.
“Ciao,” he called out to her. She didn’t stop, those long legs bringing her ever closer to the elevator and ever farther away from him. So he tried English. “Hello? Are you looking for me?” he asked.
She stopped, as if frozen, in the hall, her back to him yet.
So he continued, “I’m Matteo—” She turned around, and he was so stunned by her beauty that he momentarily forgot his own damn name.
She couldn’t be from the dating service. There was no way that a woman this stunningly beautiful was unattached. She must have been leaving some other room, some other man...
And for the first time in a long time, envy gripped Matteo. He hadn’t felt this envious in years, not since he was a hungry kid begging for change on the streets of Rome, so that he could help feed his family. In the years since then, he had worked hard and accumulated a fortune, so Teo hadn’t thought he would ever be hungry or jealous again.
He’d thought wrong.
Copyright © 2020 by Lisa Childs
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ISBN-13: 9781488062254
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Copyright © 2020 by JC Harroway
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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