“There’s nothing to tell,” he insisted, striving to keep his tone light but firm.
Kiki wasn’t having it. She turned to the audience again. “Adam Match is playing hard to get,” she told them. “I guess that means it’s up to me to lay it all out for you. I mean, if you’re interested. Tell me, are you interested?”
The audience clapped and cheered, and each chanting shout of “Yes!” made Adam feel a degree more panicky.
“Sounds like they want to know the truth,” Kiki said to Adam, over the audience’s roar. “And since you won’t tell it to us...” She shrugged. “I’ll just have to share what I’ve learned.”
What, exactly, did the woman think she’d learned?
“So there’s this mystery woman...” Kiki was saying, as the monitors switched back to another photo of Adam and Lisa, from earlier, when he’d held the door to the restaurant open for her to enter. She’d been smiling up at him, and he’d been smiling back, and though they hadn’t been touching, Adam had to admit, as he looked at the photograph, there was something undeniably intimate between them. The connection they shared was unmistakable.
“And then there’s this mystery woman,” Kiki James continued, “from February—that’s just two months ago, folks.”
The monitors displayed another shot of Adam, Jess and Benny.
He rolled his eyes. This was too much. “Hey,” he started, “please, could we just—”
“And then there’s this mystery woman,” Kiki said, and Adam frowned—who else could they have possibly photographed him with? Aside from today’s lunch with Lisa DeLuca, he hadn’t been out with a woman in what felt like forever.
And then the monitors displayed a photograph of Adam, looking a little younger, his hair a little shorter, laughing as he held a gorgeous, exotic beauty in his arms. The woman gazed up at him with a saucy grin that he remembered all too well.
His stomach suddenly felt as if he’d eaten concrete for lunch instead of sushi and miso soup.
It was Ivana. Somehow, they’d found out about Ivana.
Dan’s not going to like this, Adam thought, as the concrete in his stomach solidified. He’s not going to like this at all.
Two hours later, he actually had to hold the phone a few inches away from his ear, so Dan’s shouting wouldn’t hurt his eardrum.
“How the hell did they get pictures of you and Ivana?” his partner was yelling. “I thought you burned them all.”
“I did,” Adam said. Shortly after the divorce, he’d tossed all the photos he had of his ex-wife into the fire pit in Dan’s back yard. Dan had been there, himself. He knew perfectly well that Adam, in his heartbreak and the haze brought on by several cans of cheap beer, had made that rash move.
“Then how?” Dan insisted.
“I have no idea.” Adam rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was already tired of this whole thing, and it had only just begun. What he wouldn’t give to go back in time, just a few hours, back to his lunch date with Lisa. He wanted to be there again, with her, happy and relaxed, enjoying the company of a woman he’d felt inexplicably drawn to.
Not here, now, wondering how a woman he hadn’t seen in five years had managed to find a brand-new way to screw him over. Not wracking his brain about how to get out of the mess he’d made by making one stupid mistake after another in the interview with Kiki James.
“Ivana must have sold that photo to a tabloid site,” he said. That was the only explanation. Some celebrity gossip website had approached his ex-wife, and she’d handed over photographs and information about Adam in exchange for money. It was just the type of tawdry thing she would do.
Now that he thought about it, he was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. He wondered dully whether Ivana had told them the whole, sordid truth—that she’d cheated on him repeatedly, and he’d actually been stupid enough to try to patch things up with her—or if she’d sold them lies about him.
Probably the latter. Ivana had never been overly attached to honesty, and the way things had ended between them, she’d probably welcomed the chance to stick it to him, even several years after the fact.
Now, all there was left to do was damage control.
“Look,” he said, cutting into Dan’s tirade about the Kiki James interview and Adam’s apparent innate idiocy. “Let’s not waste time trying to figure out what happened or how. Let’s just figure out what we’re going to do about it.”
“Yeah, let’s,” Dan snarled sarcastically. “Why in the hell did you think it was a good idea to tell that idiot woman you were engaged to this—this Lisa person?”
Adam winced and banged a fist against his forehead.
In the heat of the moment, when Kiki James had put him on the spot and had him squirming, he’d somehow let it slip that Lisa was his fiancée.
It had been a complete accident. It was as if his mouth had moved faster than his brain. One second, Kiki had been calling him a failure at relationships and regaling the live audience with the story of how she’d received a very interesting tip from an intern about Adam’s ex-wife and the new mystery woman he’d taken to lunch mere hours before the interview—as if Adam weren’t allowed to have lunch with whomever he wanted—
And the next second, he’d blurted it out. “She’s not a mystery woman,” he’d announced. “Her name is Lisa, and she’s smart and successful and beautiful, and she’s going to be my wife.”
Kiki James, of course, had pounced. As the audience had hooted and shouted and clapped, and as Adam had mentally kicked himself for blurting out such a ridiculous lie, the interviewer had started firing questions at him—where had he and Lisa met? How long had they been dating? When was the wedding?
Each question, and each answer he’d fumbled through, had led him deeper and deeper into the hole he’d dug.
Now, he had to figure a way out of it, and not just for his own sake or the sake of the website. He had to do it for Lisa. Somehow, he’d managed to ruin her life, even as he’d attempted to salvage his own.
“On the other hand,” Dan was saying, and his tone was actually a bit calmer now. “Maybe that was sort of an inspired move, on your part. I mean, if this Lisa person is willing to cooperate. Did you have her sign a CDA?”
“A what?” Adam shook his head. Dan had been a lawyer for five years before partnering up with Adam to found Mister-Match.com. Even though now he was just an investor and no longer a practicing attorney, he was still Mr. Legal, always talking contracts and non-disclosures when Adam just wanted to focus on the business.
“A confidential disclosure agreement. If you’re going to pretend to be engaged, we need to be sure she’s not going to spill the beans to the highest bidder.”
Adam’s stomach clenched. “I didn’t have her sign anything. We didn’t discuss anything. We just had lunch. And then my big, stupid mouth took over in a tense moment, and...” He waved a hand, let it drop. “Here we are.”
“Well, you’re going to have to talk to her,” Dan said shortly. “I’ll email you a form for her to sign. We need to be absolutely sure she’ll play along, with our version of the story—not her own.”
Crap. Adam needed to stop doing live interviews. Or just stop doing interviews altogether. Somehow, he always managed to bungle things up.
“I’ll talk to her,” he agreed, banging his fist against the side of his head. He’d wished for a reason to talk to Lisa DeLuca again. Even before their lunch date had ended, he’d started trying to think of a way to see her again, to spend more time with her.
This wasn’t exactly what he’d envisioned.
That night, Lisa went to sleep thinking about Adam, and woke up late the next morning, sweaty, with Reese on her mind.
She glanced at the clock and then sat straight up in bed. “Shit. Shit!” She had to shower. She had to get dressed. She had to get down to Sweetish Hill Bakery by nine.
Her cat, Mr. Monkey, let out a feline version of a growl as Lisa jumped out of bed and hurried into the bathroom.
&n
bsp; After a quick shower, she dressed carefully, resisting the urge to call Clare for clothing advice. Skirt or pants? It was definitely hot enough out for a skirt, of course, but she was heading to work afterward. Better to go with pants, at the risk of Reese thinking she was a little too stiff and formal for a May morning.
On the other hand, she reminded herself, the man’s name was Reese. She probably didn’t need to worry about him judging her as stiff and formal. She’d already judged him as being the same, based on his first name alone.
She ended up in gray linen Capris and a sleeveless rose-colored shirt that, she hoped, showed off her upper arms and lifted the color in her cheeks. But when she glanced in the mirror, she found the effect to be more PTA-president—all bright and preppy and spring-like, with her hair in a thick, bouncy ponytail.
“Ugh.” She already had a boring life. She didn’t need to dress ten years older to prove it. Hurriedly, she yanked off the shirt and pulled on a plain black knit one instead.
She checked the mirror and saw that it wasn’t a whole lot better. She turned away, annoyed with herself. “This is fine,” she said. She never paid much attention to her clothes. It was ridiculous to do it now, for someone she didn’t even know.
At Sweetish Hill, she parked and then stood out on the patio, looking around for a single man with red hair, as Clare and Willow had instructed. Her stomach was doing cartwheels—she seriously felt as if she’d eaten something bad the night before, except microwave popcorn didn’t normally cause food poisoning—and she kept tugging at the hem of her shirt, which seemed suddenly to have shrunk several sizes.
“Are you Lisa?”
She turned at the sound of the tentative voice behind her.
At first glance, it appeared her stiff-and-formal prediction had been a little off. He appeared shy, but not stiff, and he was conservatively dressed, but not formal. He was taller than she’d expected, and his short, gingery mop of hair was cute. He wore a short-sleeved shirt with an alligator on the chest, and held a pair of sunglasses in his hand. He was fiddling with one of the earpieces with long, pale, sensitive fingers.
The thought popped into her head that he looked just like Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh. The effect was sort of endearing.
After a beat, she remembered to smile and held out a hand.
“Reese?”
“Yes. Are you Lisa? Hello.” He laughed nervously, and gave her hand a quick, precise shake. His fingers were cool and a little bit...well, rubbery was the only way to describe them. His skin felt like one of those Resusci-Annie dummies they used in her CPR classes.
“Humid, isn’t it?” Reese observed, glancing around with another nervous little smile.
“Um. Yes, it is. Very humid.” Perfect. This was going even better than she could have imagined. Thirty seconds in, and they were already discussing the weather.
“I took the liberty of finding us a table and ordering you some breakfast. I hope that’s all right.”
Lisa felt her smile freeze. Whatever endearing effect his apparent nervousness had had on her, it evaporated in a moment. He’d ordered breakfast for her. Without even asking what she wanted, or what she ate, or whether she had any food allergies, or whether she might prefer to make her own decisions about things, like any other adult human being.
Strike one, she thought.
“Actually, I would have preferred to order for myself, but that’s all right.”
His sensitive face twitched. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly, and some maternal instinct within her wanted to reach out and pat him on the back. “I thought—I was just trying to—” He shook his head and passed a hand over his forehead, as if wiping away a sheen of sweat. “My therapist keeps telling me I should try being more assertive—” He stopped, and every inch of visible skin on his face and neck flushed red. “And now I’m talking about my therapist. On a first date, with a beautiful woman. Which is just...perfect.”
Something about the compliment paired with his self-consciousness made the endearing effect bloom again, as if by magic. On the other hand, Lisa thought, maybe she should find the nearest phone and call Clare to ask whether this poor guy deserved extra points for honesty, or points off for rapidly emerging neurosis.
“Assertiveness is a great goal.” She smiled at him. “Just, you know, most women like to make their own decisions about personal things like what to eat. Shall we sit down?”
He had ordered her a plain bialy with no butter or jam, and a small cup of grapefruit juice. The endearing effect receded again as Lisa blinked at the sorry little spread. Yesterday, at lunch, Adam had treated her to a feast, and told her he loved her appetite. Today, here she was with Reese, who apparently expected her to eat nothing but fat-free carbs.
She hoped her distaste didn’t show too plainly on her face.
“I hope it’s all right,” Reese said quickly as he pulled out her chair for her to sit down.
“Oh,” she said, “it looks great. It’s just, I’m pretty hungry this morning. I think I’ll go order some sausage and eggs, and some butter. And some coffee.”
Reese’s long nose wrinkled slightly. “Oh. You eat animal products?”
The endearing effect disappeared altogether. Lisa indulged in a quick fantasy of smacking him over the head with her handbag and running away—or, better yet, smacking Clare and Willow, for choosing this guy for her in the first place.
Come to think of it, she should smack Adam Match. It was his Questionnaire, after all, that had apparently zeroed in on Reese as an excellent match for her. Apparently, the thing didn’t include anything about eating habits. What people ate was kind of important, not to mention revealing about their politics and personal philosophies.
“Yes, I eat meat and dairy. Do you?”
“Oh, no.” Reese shook his head emphatically. “I’m vegan. I’m very active in campaigning for animal rights.”
“What about plants’ rights?” Lisa joked, and then wished she’d just smiled and nodded, as his face registered confusion. She waved a hand. “I’m kidding. I’ve just always thought it was funny that people can be so concerned for animals and their pain and their rights, but then they have no problem taking clippers and knives and just whacking off parts of a plant, or yanking it up by the roots and plunging it into boiling water—”
She stopped when she noticed a faint look of horror marring Reese’s pale face. “Sorry. Never mind. Forget I brought it up. Can I grab you anything while I’m up?”
He shook his head, and she welcomed the excuse to duck into the air conditioning of the bakery and regroup for a minute.
The rest of breakfast wasn’t quite such a train wreck, though it came close.
“So you’re a masseuse.” He looked at her so admiringly, she didn’t even bother to correct his outdated terminology with “massage therapist.”
“That’s right.” She tried to ignore his expression of faint distaste as she dug into her sausage and eggs. “I love my work. Getting to help people center themselves, getting to identify problems and help solve them in a gentle way that makes people feel great, it just makes me feel, well, great.” She laughed, and hid her self-consciousness in a long sip of coffee.
“That’s amazing,” Reese said softly.
She shifted in her chair. His close attention was beginning to feel just a little bit uncomfortable.
But no, she mentally amended, it was sweet. He was sweet. When they finished eating, he threw her trash away for her and then walked her to her car, and even attempted to open her door for her. It squawked on its hinges and resisted his yanking, until she put out a hand to stop him.
“Betty’s old,” she said, smiling. “She’s kind of cantankerous. She needs a gentle touch.”
Reese blinked. “Betty? You named your vehicle?”
Lisa blinked back. Either the guy was just too nervous to relax, or he had zero sense of humor. She wasn’t at all sure whether she cared enough to find out which one it was.
She stuck o
ut a hand to shake. “Well, thank you. This has been interesting.”
“I’d love to get together again sometime,” he said shyly. “There’s a vegan café up on Exposition that I’ve been meaning to try, um...if you’re interested?”
Her smile felt forced, but she faked it anyway. “Sure, I’ll be in touch.”
Why had she said that? Flustered, annoyed with herself for out-and-out lying to the poor guy—she had about as much intention of contacting him again as she had of giving him her home address and asking him over for a drink—she got into her car and cranked her over.
If she hadn’t already realized how thoroughly she did not match up with Reese, she would have figured it out from the immediate sense of relief she felt at the messy, uncivilized sound of Betty’s engine clattering to life.
She glanced at her watch. She’d just spent thirty-seven minutes on her very best behavior with a man who probably set cockroaches free instead of smashing them with the nearest shoe, as they deserved.
Which was kind of sweet, really. “Ugh,” she whispered. This ping-ponging of her feelings was starting to get annoying.
Reese was still standing there, outside her car door, his shoulders slightly slumped as he smiled forlornly at her through the window. Which was ever so slightly creepy.
“Okay,” she said, brightly, and quickly—she didn’t want to give her feelings time to bounce back toward finding him endearing—“bye, now.” She put Betty in gear and jammed on the accelerator. She needed to get out of there quickly, before she went and did something stupid like making a second date with the man purely out of pity.
Her stomach didn’t begin to unknot until Reese was just a lanky blip in her rearview mirror.
“Damn,” Lisa muttered, turning left onto Fifth Street to head toward the Keiko. Either Adam Match’s matchmaker methods were a total flop, or it was just as she had suspected, and just as she’d told Clare and Willow days ago, when they’d brought up this whole, ridiculous enterprise: She was abjectly, irrevocably awful at dating, and she was destined to end up alone.
Mister Match (The Match Series Book 1) Page 8
