Matched to Her Rival

Curiosity got the best of him and he shouldered the phone to his ear so he could click through his email. There it was—“Sender: Elise Arundel, Subject: Candace Waters.” He opened it and a picture of Candy popped onto the screen.

Holy hell. She was gorgeous. Like men-falling-over-themselves-to-get-her-a-drink gorgeous. Not at all what he was expecting. “Is she one of your makeover success stories?”

If so, Elise might have a bit more magic in her wand than he’d credited.

“Not everyone is in need of a makeover. Candy came to me as is.”

Nice. Not a gold digger then. He took a closer look. She was blonde-with-a-capital-B, wearing a wicked smile that promised she had the moves to back it up. He would have noticed her across the room in a heartbeat.

For the first time, he got an inkling that this whole deal might be legitimate. “She’ll do.”

Then he returned to planet earth. There was a much greater chance that Candy had something really wrong with her if she’d resorted to a matchmaker to find a date.

“I had a feeling you’d like her,” Elise said wryly. “She’s perfect for you.”

Because something was really wrong with him too?

Elise was obviously running around wielding her psychology degree like a blunt instrument. She’d probably come up with all kinds of bogus analyses about his inability to commit and his mama issues—bogus because he didn’t have a problem committing as long as the thing had Wakefield Media stamped on it. Females were a different story. He’d die before letting a woman down the way his mother had let down his father, and he’d never met someone worth making that kind of promise to.

No doubt Elise had warned Candy about what she’d gotten herself into. Maybe she’d given Candy hints about how to get under his skin. Elise certainly had figured out how to do that well enough. And of course Elise had a vested interest in making sure Candy made him happy. This woman he’d been matched with might even be a plant. Some actress Elise had paid to get him to fall in love with her.

That...schemer.

Thank God he never had to see Elise again. A paralegal sounded like a blessed reprieve from razor-sharp matchmakers with great legs.

“I’ll call her. Then I expect you’ll want a full report afterward, right?”

The line went dead silent.

“Still there, Elise?”

“Not a full report.”

“About whether she’s my soul mate. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

For some reason, that made Elise laugh and muscles he hadn’t realized were tense relaxed.

“Yeah, I do want that report. I guess we never really laid down the ground rules of how this deal was going to go. Do we need an unbiased third party to verify the results?”

A judge? Suddenly, he felt like a bug pinned to cork. “The fewer people involved in this, the better. I’ll call you afterward and we’ll go from there. How’s that?”

“Uncomplicated. I can get on board with that. Have a good time with Candy. Talk to you later.”

The line went dead for the second time and Dax immediately saved Elise’s number to his contacts. It gave him a dark little kick to have the matchmaker’s phone number when she’d been so adamantly against giving it to him.

Then he dialed Candy’s number, which Elise had included with the picture. His perverse gene wanted to find out if Candy was on the up-and-up. If Elise had hired someone to date him, he’d cry foul so fast it would make her head spin. And he’d never admit it was exactly what he’d have done.

* * *

Dax handed the valet his Audi’s key fob and strolled into the wine bar Candy had selected for their first meet. She wasn’t difficult to find—every eye in the room was on the sultry blonde perched on a bar stool.

Then every eye in the room turned to fixate on him as he moved forward to buss Candy on the cheek. “Hi. Nice place.”

They’d conversed on the phone a couple of times. She had a pleasant voice and seemed sane, so here they were.

She peered up at him out of china doll–blue eyes that were a little less electric in person than they’d been on his laptop screen. No big deal. Her sensual vibe definitely worked for his Pleasure Principle—she’d feel good, all right, and better the second time.

“You look exactly like your picture,” she said, her voice a touch breathier than it had been on the phone. “I thought you’d swiped it from a magazine and you’d turn out to be average-looking. I’m glad I was wrong.”

Dax knew what reflected back at him in the mirror; he wasn’t blind, and time had been kind to his features. It was stupid to be disappointed that she’d commented on his looks first. But why did his cheekbones have to be the first thing women noticed about him?

Most women. He could have been wearing a paper bag over his head for all the notice Elise had taken of his outward appearance. One of the first things she’d said to him was that he was lonely.

And as Candy blinked at him with a hint of coquettishness, he experienced an odd sense of what Elise meant. Until a woman ripped that curtain back and saw the man underneath the skin, it was all just going through the motions. And Dax dated women incapable of penetrating his cynical hide.

How had he just realized that?

And how dare Elise make him question his dating philosophy? If she was so smart, why hadn’t she figured out he was dating the wrong women?

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