Matchmaker and the Manhattan Millionaire

by Cara Colter

  He could step back into the night and let her deal with it. But he had important business with her boss—satisfaction guaranteed, indeed—that could not wait. It was June already. The long weekend in July was looming large.

  He stepped up to the box and lifted the panel on it. No code, and surprise, surprise, no off button. Beside the alarm panel was the electrical box for the office. It might be a better bet. He opened it, found the main power switch.

  He glanced at her, and she nodded. He flicked the switch.

  They were plunged into instant darkness, but the silence was blessed.

  He took a step back and gazed at her in the faint glow of a streetlight coming in the window. He could see the rich shine of her thick chestnut hair, piled up carelessly on top of her head.

  He had a shocking sense of wanting to slip those glasses from her face, a shocking desire to know what her hair would feel like beneath his fingers if he freed it to cascade around her shoulders.

  Where had that thought come from? Jonas frowned. He was not a man given to that kind of wayward thought, nor was she the kind of woman who inspired them.

  In fact, her look leaned toward a comfy Saturday-at-home-with-the-cat.

  Still, there was a certain voluptuousness to her, a plumpness to a full bottom lip, a spark in those eyes that hinted at passion for a man patient enough to coax it to the surface.

  What she wasn’t, was any kind of a—

  “Bimbo,” Madame Cosmos had told him with a sigh, after having just met him, scanning him with shrewd eyes that had felt as if they stripped him to his soul. “You have a long history of dating exactly the wrong kind of woman.”

  Despite the fact Jane had come so highly recommended, Jonas should have cut and run right then. It was a measure of his desperation—or maybe his obsession with winning—that he had not.

  What the young woman in front of him wasn’t, Jonas reminded himself sternly in an effort to stay on track, was Jane Clark. In fact, she was the antithesis of the highly recommended matchmaker who had the flair and panache of a carnival fortune-teller.

  He had a sudden, exceedingly uncomfortable thought. What if he was meeting his match? Right now? What if this was who Madame Cosmos had picked for him? Not just the antithesis of herself, but the antithesis of the kind of women he normally dated?

  It seemed like the kind of stunt the old gal might pull. Just throw them together, surprise them with each other and see what happens. See if they sink, or see if they swim.

  It made him look at the woman in front of him in a different light. An exceedingly uncomfortable one. She was definitely not the kind he had ever gone for. Something bookish and girl-next-door about her.

  “I have an appointment,” he said, “with Madame...er... I mean, Mrs. Clark.”

  “Canceled,” she said abruptly. “You’ll be called.” She nodded toward the door, dismissing him.

  Jonas absorbed the shock of being addressed like that, but had to admit he was reluctantly intrigued. There was that spunkiness again, that warning not to mistake her for an idiot.

  Jonas took a deep breath. Let’s find out, he told himself. “I’m Jonas Boyden.”

  “I saw that on the card. What’s your business with Jane?”

  “I’m a client.”

  He braced himself for her to arrive at the same realization he just had, to say, shocked, But I am, too.

  Instead, she said, “A matchmaking client?” She looked very skeptical.

  “Indeed.”

  “You are not.”

  There it was again. A feistiness that belied the more muted bookworm look. She was actually calling him a liar, which should have been insulting. Instead, he was intrigued.

  Jonas cocked his head at her. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re no Alexandro Helinski.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. What would a man like you need a woman like my aunt for?”

  Her aunt. Not his match, then. He was instantly relieved. And maybe, ever so slightly, disappointed.

  “A man like me?”

  “Don’t women flounder at your feet?”

  “Maybe I don’t need that kind of woman.” Bimbos. “The floundering kind. I hired your aunt to find me a match.”

  “What kind of a match?” she asked, reluctantly curious, suddenly round-eyed, behind her glasses.

  “A match made in heaven,” he said dryly.

  “You were going to let my aunt pick a wife for you?”

  “Isn’t that what she does?”

  * * *

  Krissy felt she probably looked like a fish gasping for air. She snapped her mouth, gaping open with astonishment, closed. A man like this would be using her aunt’s services? There was no sense being curious. Her aunt’s services were no longer available.

  But curious she was. “You can’t find your own wife?”

  “I’m not exactly looking for a wife.”

  Of course he wasn’t!

  “The circumstances are unusual,” he continued. “Your aunt wouldn’t normally take my kind of request, but I needed a partner—temporarily—and she took pity on me.”

  A temporary partner? He was darned right that was the kind of request Jane would not have entertained! But she obviously had, though it was hard to imagine anyone taking pity on this self-possessed man.

  “I need a fiancée,” he said, “and I just don’t have the time to sort through profiles, to research backgrounds, to assess suitability, to gauge compatibility. Your aunt promised to do all those things for me. She guaranteed satisfaction.”

  “A temporary fiancée.” It sounded perfectly appalling. What had auntie been thinking?

  “It’s complicated. I won’t bore you with the details.”

  Krissy was pretty sure she wouldn’t be bored.

  “But I do need to see your aunt. Urgently.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Boyden, my aunt won’t be helping you.” Krissy struggled to tell him that her aunt had died, but somehow saying the words made it seem all too real all over again. She took a deep breath, needing to get the words out without crying. Why couldn’t he just leave, as she had asked him, and she could call him when she was more composed?

  His brow lowered as Krissy’s silence lengthened. Mr. Boyden was not used to people not helping him!

  “I have a contract,” he said. “Not to mention having made a small fortune of a down payment.”

  “Can you just leave me a business card?” Krissy said, suddenly weary. She was not going to be vulnerable in front of this man, announce to him bluntly her aunt was now deceased. “I’ll call you next week and we’ll arrange a refund.”

  “Next week?” he said dangerously. “Next week is too late. I don’t need a refund. I need to be engaged!”

  “That’s ridiculous. And impossible.”

  “She hasn’t done it, has she? She hasn’t made me a match.”

  “No, I don’t believe she has. I can’t—”

  He regarded her stormily for long enough that it felt as if she was going to stop breathing.

  “What about you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He stepped toward her. He didn’t reach out and he didn’t touch her, and yet Krissy felt as if he had taken her glasses off and was planning on running his hands through her hair.

  “Yes, you’ll do,” he decided, a touch too clinically. “There’s a little of that librarian look to you. Wholesome. The girl next door. Yes, you’ll do.”

  Krissy’s heart was beating madly, as if he had removed her glasses.

  “I am not going to be your temporary toy!” she said. She wanted to sound firm, but her voice had an unfortunate squeak to it. Librarian, indeed.

  He cocked his head charmingly at her, as if he was not being completely ludicrous.

  “Toy,” he said, his tone mu
lling. “No, no, I don’t think so.”

  Why on earth would she feel vaguely insulted by his dismissal?

  “That could lead to complications,” he explained gravely. “That’s in part why I turned to your aunt. No complications. Still, we would need to get to know each other first, before we made it official. It’s important to know each other.”

  “You think?” she asked. He seemed to miss her sarcasm.

  “It’s for a family reunion in the Catskills, the long weekend in July. My sister would know instantly if you didn’t know what my favorite color was. Restaurant. Movie. That kind of thing.”

  What kind of weakness was it that Krissy suddenly wanted to know what his favorite color was? Restaurant? Movie? Plus, the long weekend in July. She had always spent it with Aunt Jane, who knew, as her own parents had not, that occasions—birthdays, Christmas, Easter, the Fourth of July—were important to families.

  His invitation felt like a reprieve from the looming weekend alone, but more, it felt as if she was being invited to step into the pages of a story, a very interesting story with all kinds of twists and turns and characters she knew nothing about.

  Krissy did not like temptations. She did not appreciate her sudden awareness that the nice, safe, predictable life she had so carefully constructed for herself might be slightly... Well, boring.

  That was her aunt’s word, after Krissy had brushed off her enthusiasm about having found the perfect man for her.

  You’re too young to be so set in your ways, so allergic to adventure. Life is not meant to be such a bore, my dear.

  “Come on,” he said persuasively. “It will be fun.”

  Fun. So no matter what he said, there was an element of her being his toy in there. Temporarily.

  What do you do for fun?

  Krissy considered what she would put on that application form. She walked her dog. She planned lessons for her class. She took in the odd Broadway show. She read.

  She resented Jonas Boyden for holding out this to her, like a carrot in front of a donkey reluctant to take even one step. And she detested herself for wanting something.

  But what?

  Something just a tiny bit unexpected in her routines, she admitted slowly. For life to surprise her.

  As if it hadn’t done quite enough of that! And what she needed to remember from her past, from growing up caught between a battling mother and father, was that the surprises were rarely ever of the pleasant variety, and that there were few things in life more dangerous than hoping it would be better. Her aunt’s sudden death was a case in point about the nastiness of surprises.

  “No,” she said firmly.

  He frowned, just like the kind of brooding hero who blew in on a dark night, just like the kind of man who rarely heard the word no from anyone, let alone a member of the opposite sex, just like a man who could turn a woman’s world upside down without half trying.

  He considered her thoughtfully, then lifted an elegant shoulder. “All right,” he said, giving up with surprising ease, as if suddenly having a fiancée, or a toy, or whatever, didn’t matter to him a whit.

  Was she annoyed by that? No, she told herself firmly. She was relieved. That was all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  KRISSY’S RELIEF AT having the issue of being Jonas’s temporary toy settled was short-lived. Over the broadness of his shoulder, she watched a police car slide silently up to the curb. Two officers got out, settled their hats on their heads and turned narrowed eyes toward her aunt’s office.

  “Oh, no! They must be responding to the alarm. I’d better go tell them that—”

  Jonas stayed her with a hand on her shoulder, then turned and looked over his own shoulder. “I don’t think you want to go racing out there when they could well think a robbery is in progress.”

  His hand on her shoulder did not feel in any way domineering. His voice was deep, quiet and reassuring. She felt protected. Again, Krissy allowed herself a sense of it being okay, every now and then, to rely on someone else. As long as it didn’t become a habit! When his hand slid away from her shoulder, she realized how easily leaning on someone else could become a habit. Even an addiction!

  The policemen were eyeing the building warily. It occurred to Krissy that she and Jonas were just two shadowy figures standing in a darkened building that an alarm—that had not been turned off properly—had gone off in.

  “What should we do?” she whispered uneasily.

  “Just wait. Let them come to us. Don’t make any fast moves once they come through that door.”

  She gulped and scanned Jonas’s face. He looked perfectly calm. In fact, irritatingly, he looked as if he might actually be delighting in this.

  He glanced at her, his smile seeming to confirm he might be enjoying this just a tiny bit too much—a man who embraced the kind of adventures she was utterly allergic to!

  “You can prove you should be here, right? On your aunt’s premises?”

  Her mouth opened. Then closed. He was obviously trying to rattle her. On the other hand it was a burglar alarm. It seemed there was a fairly good chance that she and Jonas were going to be presumed to be burglars!

  “What kind of proof would they want?” she asked him, trying not to let on she felt quite nervous.

  “I don’t know. A note from your aunt? Evidence that you work here? Don’t worry, though. They’ll get it all sorted out. Probably at the station.”

  A flashlight shone through the window, bouncing off her aunt’s cluttered bookshelves and file cabinet, but it just missed catching Krissy and Jonas in its beam.

  “The police station? Am I going to get arrested?” she squeaked.

  “It seems doubtful, but not impossible. If you do—”

  “Yes?”

  He leaned toward her and smiled a rather wickedly satisfied smile. “I can give you a get-out-of-jail-for-free card.”

  She scanned his face. She knew he was kidding, and was not kidding at the same time. He oozed the confidence of that kind of man, the kind with the money and the connections and the innate sophistication that made people respect him and bend over backward to solve his difficulties.

  “Why in the Monopoly game of life do I always end up in jail?” she wondered out loud. “Instead of owning the hotel chain?”

  Jonas threw back his head and laughed when she said that. His laughter was like that get-out-of-jail-for-free card he had just offered. It seemed almost enough to erase the predicament they were in.

  Unfortunately, both policemen froze outside, alerted by the sound that someone was in the building. They looked so ready to handle whatever jumped out at them. Krissy had a new appreciation for the difficulties of the job they were doing.

  “Okay,” she said, “I’ll take that get-out-of-jail-for-free card.”

  “Well, nothing is actually free,” he said easily, his tone playful, as if he hadn’t even noticed guns. “We’d have to negotiate terms.”

  She could not help but appreciate how his lightness was distracting her from the very real intensity of what was going on—policemen advancing toward them assuming there were criminals in the building.

  “If I go to jail, I’m sure you’ll be going to jail, too!”

  He showed her the appointment card in his hand. “No, I don’t think so. This appointment card will show I had legitimate business here.”

  “Well, then, you can vouch for me.”

  “Or I could say I interrupted a burglary in progress, depending how willing you are to negotiate terms.”

  Jonas was teasing her. He was doing it on purpose, proving that Krissy was not hiding her nervousness as well as she might have hoped. The policemen had moved out of her range of vision.

  “It’s not funny,” she told him. “What are they doing out there?”

  “Calling the SWAT team.”

  She gasped.
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  “I was kidding. I think they are looking for signs of a break-in. Broken glass. A kicked in door. If you do go to jail—

  “You don’t really have a get-out-of-jail-for-free card,” she said irritably. He obviously did not get the seriousness of this situation.

  “No, but I have the next best thing. A team of lawyers on call. I’ll lend them to you.”

  She groaned.

  “For that cost we have yet to negotiate,” he said silkily.

  “What kind of man has a team of lawyers on call?”

  “One who handles a lot of real estate.”

  “You ended up with the chain of hotels!”

  “Very true.”

  She refused to be impressed. “That isn’t the right kind of lawyer!”

  “It would probably do in a pinch.”

  “What’s the cost?” she asked Jonas. He was so calm and so confident that it eased a bit of her panic. He was actually playing. Unfortunately, he was just the kind of man you would want in your corner if you were about to be arrested.

  And, she warned herself, that you could get addicted to playing with!

  “Fiancée for a weekend.”

  The door flew open. The flashlight blinded her.

  “It’s a false alarm,” Krissy cried. “I have a right to be here! I’m the owner’s niece.”

  She glanced at Jonas. He didn’t look terrified at all, but faintly amused, as if this was going to be a great story to tell at the office. She was pretty sure he winked at her.

  To be honest, if you had to find yourself in a situation like this, somehow it was a man like this one you would want at your side.

  How could she possibly know that?

  * * *

  Jonas shot his companion in crime a look, but she obviously was not seeing the humor in any of this, especially now.

  “We just have to ask a few questions and then we’ll be on our way,” one of the policemen said.

  “Perfectly understandable,” Jonas replied.

  She shot him a look that said she was relying on him to get her out of this, to be her prince, riding in on a white charger to save her. He hadn’t had anybody look at him like that since his mother and father had died.