Thirteen

by Scarlett Finn

  “You take control,” he said. “I just dragged you over here, you have no idea why, and you don’t even blink, you just jump straight into steering.”

  She’d have thought the why was obvious. “Are you threatened by confident women?” she asked, pushing out her lips in a mocking pout. “Oh, Mr. Orion, I’m sure your penis isn’t that tiny. Most men greatly over-exaggerate—”

  He laughed. “And then you do that. You say something shocking that you think will make me capitulate. Don’t worry, I’m sure it works with plenty of guys and I commend you for trying.” Their eyes met. He peered closer, lowering his volume. “I don’t scare that easy. You talk about my tiny penis as much as you like.”

  The female server who approached with their drinks slowed.

  Evie couldn’t contain her grin but did wrinkle her nose as she waved her pinkie at the blushing youngster. “We give him points for admitting his shortcomings.”

  Also by Scarlett Finn

  STANDALONE CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

  MAESTRO’S MUSE

  GETTING TRICKY

  REMEMBER WHEN…

  THIRTEEN

  EXILE

  HIDE & SEEK

  KISS CHASE

  THE BRANDED SERIES

  BRANDED

  SCARRED

  MARKED

  THE KINDRED SERIES

  RAVEN

  SWALLOW

  CUCKOO

  SWIFT

  FALCON

  FINCH

  THE EXPLICIT SERIES

  EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION

  EXPLICIT DETAIL

  EXPLICIT MEMORY

  RISQUE SERIES

  TAKE A RISK

  RISK IT ALL

  GAME OF RISK

  HARROW DUET

  FIGHTING FATE

  FIGHTING BACK

  MISTAKE DUET

  MISTAKE ME NOT

  SLEIGHT MISTAKE

  Copyright © 2018 Scarlett Finn

  The right of Scarlett Finn to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  First published in 2018

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover by Liz at LKO Designs

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1724497963

  ISBN-10: 1724497960

  for billy

  contents

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty-one

  twenty-two

  twenty-three

  twenty-four

  twenty-five

  twenty-six

  twenty-seven

  twenty-eight

  one

  “This is your big plan?” Oakley Orion asked the boardroom table occupied by three of his colleagues.

  “It’s perfect,” Taylor said.

  Taylor was his baby sister and one of his most-trusted employees. She’d only graduated college last year, but she was a vital part of the MatchMate family and had worked for him part-time and through summers since she was in her mid-teens. Beautiful, tenacious, and always willing to take a risk, his sister was more like a daughter than a sibling. Usually, he loved her positive attitude, because she would be the first one to jump on with any of his schemes or ideas. This time… not so much.

  “MatchMate is the biggest dating company in the world,” Ian Blundell said. Again, this guy was supposed to be his man, his wingman, his buddy, what the hell was he doing subscribing to this insanity? “We’re so successful because we think outside the box. Like Taylor said, this is perfect. I can’t believe we didn’t think of it sooner.”

  MatchMate didn’t start out as an online agency, but they had moved with the times and now retained fifteen different international websites. Their USP was their safe approach to connecting members. The company owned several venues across the US and franchised across the world. Each MatchMate site had a restaurant, usually a couple of bars, and hotel rooms. They’d even branched out to rural retreats where members could try different activities on organized vacations either as singles or MatchMate couples.

  They prided themselves on not only matching people but nurturing relationships from beginning to… sometimes, end. Hosting events, they didn’t just match profiles using algorithms; they did it in person, offering all sorts of options for meeting. Speed-dating and drinks mixers were held at every venue several times a week. Weekend breaks were offered to new couples getting to know each other, and counselling was offered for those thinking about embarking on marriage as well as to MatchMate couples who had wed and were experiencing marital difficulties.

  Oh, and they did the odd wedding too.

  For couples who met through events or the website, they could use the restaurants and bars to meet, holding their dates in safe, secure environments. Food and drinks were free during MatchMate organized events, but members paid as they would anywhere else at other times. The hotel rooms were also available to couples who might want to take advantage of the opportunity to get more intimate. Again, it was all about giving members a safe place to enjoy each other. Security was always on site, discreet, but always there, and they had lawyers and counsellors on staff too to offer all kinds of ongoing support to members.

  “You wanted a radical marketing strategy,” Kody said. “Something to mix things up. Something that would make headlines. That’s what you said. Interest the media and we get a bunch of free advertising. In this day and age, with the competition—”

  “Ok, ok,” Oak said, waving a hand at Kody Aitken, his head of marketing. “Media coverage, I get that, but how the hell do we market this without making it look like just that, a strategy?”

  “What’s the number one question you’re always asked when you do interviews?” Ian asked, clasping his fingers together on the desk.

  “Why am I still single?” he said, focusing on the surface.

  Taylor took her turn to taunt him. “Because it doesn’t look good that the CEO of our massive dating company, a company who prides themselves on producing strong relationships, can’t find love.”

  “I date,” he said to Taylor who was using her pitying eyes on him again. Their mother had taught her how to use those eyes against him, he was sure of it.

  “Once in a blue moon,” Ian said.

  Oak huffed, he knew it was petulant, but really, he got enough of this from his mother and the media. “It’s time you settled down,” Taylor said. “Don’t you want marriage and kids, you know, stability? You’re thirty-five, you should—”

  “I’m thirty-three,” he said, scowling at her, though the discrepancy was hardly worth noting given that his next birthday was just a few months away.

  Taylor must have felt the same, because she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and exhaled. “Fine, you’re thirty-three, but you started this company when you were in college.” And he’d done it as a joke; he could never have known what it would become. “You shouldn’t live like you’re still there. You can’t be
a bachelor forever.”

  “I’m waiting for Ian’s eyes to meet mine at midnight over the coffee machine in the breakroom.”

  Taylor could do unimpressed better than anyone he’d ever met and her growling expression forced him to lose his deadpan delivery and smile. “You think this is a big joke, Oakley,” she said. “But one day you’re going to wake up in that breakroom alone and realize we’re all happy and settled down.”

  Oak straightened his back. “Wait, are we here to discuss a marketing strategy or my life plan?” he asked, flattening his hands on the table.

  “The former,” Ian said.

  “Both,” Taylor said at the same time.

  He didn’t know which of his colleagues he should believe, but if anyone was going to convince him to go along with this crazy plan, it was going to be these two.

  “All we have to do is prove the product works,” Ian said. “We find a girl who’s been on the books for a while and convince her to play your girlfriend for a few months. We toss you both out on the TV; you do the chat shows, interviews in the papers, easy. Signups will go through the roof.”

  “But,” Taylor said, drawing her eyes off Ian. “To make it look good, you should go to a few events, meet a few women, make it look like, you know, you’re actually trying.”

  Taylor was so transparent, but she meant well so he couldn’t be mad. “And if I happen to fall crazy in love by accident, all the better, right?”

  Taylor grinned and shrugged. “Mom does want grandchildren.”

  “Yeah, you feel free to get started on that and I’ll catch up.”

  At only twenty-three, Taylor got plenty of interest from men, and he hated every single one of them. But their age gap meant he’d always felt a strong need to care for her. Since their father had died when she was just eight, Oak had been the dominant male influence in her life.

  Taylor had been a major reason for his drive, and his need for success. He’d almost dropped out of college when their father passed in the accident, but his mom had insisted he finish his studies. He did, after starting MatchMate, and the rest was history.

  He’d taken care of both women ever since.

  “Ok, I will,” Taylor said, and he didn’t like the way her chin went up.

  What the hell? He’d been kidding and expected his sister to get offended, not cocky. “Who the hell are you going to have kids with? I thought you dumped that Edgar idiot.”

  “Ethan,” Taylor corrected him. He’d known the fool’s name, but Oak didn’t want anyone to think the guy even pinged on his radar. “And we’re talking again.”

  “Well stop talking. Talking leads to… not talking.”

  “Oh, so you do remember?” Taylor asked and slid an arm under her chest as she slanted toward him. “Tell me, brother, when was the last time you spent a night ‘not talking’ with a woman? Huh?”

  At least her attitude made it easy for him to return to deadpan. “My sex life, really? That’s what this is about? Faking a relationship I can get on board with, but you want me to sleep with this woman? Will that be in the contract? ‘Cause that would make it much easier for me.”

  Taylor sneered out a faux laugh. “I’m sure once she’s literally forced to spend time with you, you’ll be able to wear her down. You’ve worn women down before. Unless…” She gasped. “You’re not a virgin, are you?”

  “Yeah, I am,” he said. “You should try it.”

  She laughed again. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I tried sending you to a convent when you were fifteen, Mom wouldn’t sign the paperwork.”

  Her next laugh was more genuine, but he wasn’t really kidding. If he’d been able to get away with it, he probably would’ve done exactly that. “That’s ‘cause Mom knows the value of a good lay.”

  “Ok,” he said, revulsion making him recoil. “You’ve taken it too far. You’ve officially found my banter boundary… Mom? Sex? Really?”

  Taylor shrugged. “Her and Henry have been not talking for a while.”

  His lip curled in disgust. “How do you know that and I don’t? Why would you even want to know that?”

  “I listen when people talk, and she’s into him… they’ve been travelling together for a year. Did you think she was going to be celibate forever?”

  “Celibate? Yeah, I’d have been ok with that.”

  “So, the women in the family have to be celibate, but you can go out there spreading your seed? Who’s going to take over your great empire when you’re six feet under?”

  “This is about my legacy?” he asked, searching for the truth. “You need to pick an argument and stick with it, sis.”

  “I think we’re getting kind of off-topic here,” Ian said, spreading his arms to draw attention away from the siblings and onto himself. “Marketing? Remember?” Giving him a look and then sharing it with Taylor, Ian was really telling them to finish this argument later. “We’ll set you up at a couple of events so you can meet some women. Meanwhile, we’ll work behind the scenes to find the right one and we’ll bring her in. Once she’s signed up, we’ll have the two of you meet… by accident at a MatchMate event.”

  By accident? This couldn’t be further from an accident. Oak didn’t mind being involved in schemes; he liked to have fun. At least, he used to, but Taylor’s griping was irritating him.

  He dated… sometimes.

  Yeah, ok, it had been a while, but the company needed his attention and he was bored of the dating scene. As soon as women knew what he did they expected him to be some sort of relationship genius. He wasn’t. Far from it. He had an incredible team and a wealth of technology to assist the company in what they did. He knew no more about women than the next guy.

  Oak was open to having a relationship, he just wished he could skip over the whole awkward dating part and jump right into the commitment. He was good at commitment. Once he was sure something was right, he’d give it his all.

  And that was where he stumbled.

  How the hell did someone know who they were supposed to spend the rest of their lives with?

  Speed-dating.

  In all the years Oak had talked about it in meetings and how it could be mixed up or marketed, he’d never actually taken part. Now he knew why.

  Twenty women.

  Twenty men.

  Well, nineteen—he wasn’t sure he counted.

  The bar was busy. It was the smaller of the two bars on the premises and had been designed specifically for this purpose. Another good thing about MatchMate was that every venue they had was modelled for exactly what they needed.

  So, twenty two-seat tables were arranged in their own individual booths. The wooden screens between the tables were only six feet high, but that was enough to conceal each table from the other when the couple was seated. Oak got the strangest feeling like he was in a confessional every time he sat down, which was weird because he wasn’t even Catholic. But it made him uneasy all the same.

  The women were nice.

  There was nothing overtly wrong with them.

  Some tried far too hard. Others were too nervous to make much of an impression. But he couldn’t judge them; the whole contrived situation didn’t give anyone a chance to relax enough to be themselves.

  Ding.

  Next table.

  Woman number thirteen.

  Leaving the table of woman number twelve, Oak shook her hand and she giggled. Great, a giggler. He’d met a few of those tonight. The IT guys had taken his picture down from the websites, but it was too little, too late. Most of the women here knew exactly who he was. So much for the anonymity everyone else was afforded. Maybe this was exactly why he’d never used his own company to find love.

  At the start of the evening, the men had been put at one side of the bar with the women at the other because they weren’t supposed to mingle. The men hadn’t known who he was and he got a boost of confidence. Good, he didn’t want to be recognized.

  Then he’d sat at the first table and
he was reminded that women were far more thorough when it came to dating. They knew who owned the company they were entrusting their future happiness to.

  Shuffling down to the next table, Oak expected a smile, a handshake, a cheek kiss, just like he’d received at every other table. Instead, he saw the top of a head.

  The petite brunette was typing something into her phone and didn’t even look up. Ok, maybe she was taking notes on the last guy, maybe she liked him, maybe they’d exchanged numbers. Members weren’t supposed to contact each other outside the MatchMate system, but he and his colleagues weren’t naïve to the fact that it did happen.

  “Can I sit down?” he asked, tilting the neck of his beer bottle toward the seat opposite hers.

  When she tipped her head back, she sort of sagged as she exhaled. Her keen eyes slowly began to glitter. A smile curled her lips at such an excruciatingly gradual pace that he thought he might wait the entire six minutes to see it. Eventually, when it lit her whole face, it hit him full-force, grabbing him so deep he couldn’t inhale.

  He sealed his lips tight, flat.

  Shit.

  “I would absolutely love to say no,” she said, losing none of her glee. “But my car isn’t due to pick me up for another hour, so… what the hell? Let’s go crazy.”

  Gesturing toward the vacant chair with a flat hand, she slipped her phone into her purse as he sat down.

  “So…” he said.

  Linking her fingers, she rested her forearms on the table, parallel to her body and bobbed her head. “Going with the awkward opening, ok… do you want me to giggle or bat my eyelashes? Or is it your preference that I lean forward and…”

  Pushing her breasts together with her upper arms, she bowed forward, plumping them behind the low neckline of her dress, leaving little to the imagination.

  “Whichever you prefer,” he muttered, finding himself transfixed by her cleavage for a good few seconds.