Mister Match (The Match Series Book 1) (7 page)

“That’s agedashi tofu,” Adam said. “Have you had it before?”

“Never,” Lisa said. She hadn’t tried half the things the waiters were setting out.

Once it was all laid out, the waiter pointed to each item and named it for them.

Lisa had never had a meal like this. There was just so much of everything. The bill was going to be enormous.

“So this is how the other one-percent lives,” she joked as the waiter moved away from their table, and then instantly wished she hadn’t. The joke wasn’t funny. It was crass, rude. It wasn’t her business what Adam Masters chose to order for lunch, or how much he might pay for it.

Adam laughed, and she relaxed a degree. At least he didn’t look offended. “This definitely isn’t how I normally eat,” he admitted. “Although I wish it were. But it’s nice to treat yourself sometimes, right?”

“Cheers to that,” she agreed, holding up her small sake cup.

For the next few minutes, she found herself nearly moaning as she sampled everything, and then went back for more.

“I’m so glad you like it all,” Adam said, watching her select another piece of sushi from the serving board. “You have such a big appetite. I love it.”

Instantly, she stopped chewing as the bite of fish and rice turned into a wad of rubber in her mouth. After a beat, she did her best to swallow it, and grabbed the glass of water the waiter had brought to chase it down.

“Adam,” she said, once she’d managed to swallow without coughing, or choking. “I know we don’t know each other very well. And I know between the two of us, you’re probably the expert on dating. What am I saying? You’re Mister Match. You’re the expert, by definition.” She held up a finger. “But I’m going to give you a little bit of wisdom about women—a little word to the wise.”

“All right,” he said, looking amused. “Lay it on me.”

“Okay,” she said. “You might want to write this down, for the next time you invite some random woman out for a meal. Here it is: Telling a woman she has a big appetite...” She shrugged. “It’s kind of a no-no.”

Adam stared at her for a moment, and then he laughed, that big, rich sound that inexplicably made Lisa feel all warm and gooey inside, right down to her toes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, still laughing. “You’re right. That sounded...kind of bad. Potentially offensive. But you have to understand—I love a woman with an appetite. I love seeing you enjoy this food. I used to date a woman who—well.” He stopped talking, picked up his napkin, folded it and set it down again.

So Lisa wasn’t the only one making comparisons to past relationships, she thought. Which was actually kind of a comfort.

“I take it your ex-girlfriend was the type of woman who was always on a diet,” she said. “Let me guess. You’d bring her chocolate-covered strawberries for Valentine’s Day, and she wouldn’t eat any because she was watching her weight.”

Adam blinked. “Ex-wife, actually. We were married, for a few years. And...then we weren’t anymore. And how did you know that, about the strawberries?”

Lisa smiled. “It’s pretty common. It’s hard not to get sucked into that way of thinking. Next time you’re at the grocery store, take a look at the cover of any women’s magazine. Every single headline is about losing weight, eating less, subsisting on air and water alone, blah, blah, blah. It’s ridiculous.”

“So you don’t buy into that kind of thing?”

She considered before answering. “I’m not going to pretend I don’t wish I were a little less, shall we say, curvy. And I won’t pretend I don’t have moments when I wish I had a lot more self-control around dark chocolate. But life’s too short. And I like food too much.” She grinned. “Especially when someone else is picking up the tab for an incredible spread of exotic deliciousness.”

“Cheers to that,” Adam said, grinning at her as he poured the last of the sake into their cups and raised his to clink.

Their eyes met, and Lisa felt something shift inside her—some little click, like something she hadn’t even realized had been out of alignment snapping into place. She felt a pleasurable little bump of awareness, an instantaneous epiphany of some kind—
Oh
—

And just as quickly, the moment was broken. Adam glanced away, over her shoulder, and suddenly that distant, distracted look was on his face again.

Lisa set her chopsticks down. “Okay, you’re going to have to tell me what you’re looking at. That’s the third time you’ve stared past my right ear. And whatever you’re seeing, you don’t look very happy about it.”

Adam focused on her again. “I’m sorry. I should have—well. I don’t know, I’m not used to this situation. I mean, on a date. I don’t date. Last time I went out with a woman, there were definitely not any cameras around—”

“Cameras?” Lisa twisted around in her chair, trying to see whatever he was talking about.

And then she saw them. How had she missed them before? They hovered just outside the restaurant’s wide front window that looked out onto Congress Avenue. There were three of them. No, four—four people out on the sidewalk, under the restaurant’s awning, holding up cameras, their large, black, bulbous lenses pointed into the restaurant’s interior.

Lisa frowned. “What are they doing?”

“Smile, don’t frown,” Adam said, quickly. Lisa glanced at him and saw he’d plastered a false-looking grin to his face.

Was that why he’d been so cheery this whole time? And here she’d been thinking he was smiling because he enjoyed her company. Disappointment settled in the pit of her stomach.

“If you frown,” Adam said, “they’ll sell that shot to the tabloids, with some ridiculous headline about a fight or a breakup or a trip to rehab.”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

He heaved a sigh. “Welcome to my world, Lisa. Those are paparazzi photographers. They’re shooting photographs of me...and because you’re with me, they’re shooting you, too.” He shook his head. “Yet another reason I haven’t been on a date in longer than I can remember,” he muttered. “I’m sorry. I never wanted to expose you to this. I don’t know why I thought we could—” He broke off and shook his head again.

Lisa was too mystified to answer. She’d mostly been kidding when she’d called him a celebrity. But apparently the man was the real deal, with paparazzi after him and everything.

“I guess we should go,” Adam was saying. She managed to tear her gaze away from the photographers long enough to see him hand a credit card to the waiter.

“Feel free to use our back exit,” the waiter was saying in a low, confidential voice. “It opens onto the alley.”

Lisa blinked. Had she somehow slipped into an alternate dimension? They’d just eaten more than she made in two hours in sushi, and now Adam was calmly discussing back-alley exits with the waiter, as if they were characters in an action film. This whole scene was unreal.

“I appreciate that,” Adam said, with a wry smile. “Unfortunately, trying to duck out never seems to work out for me. Those guys are like sharks with GPS built right into their brains. Soon as they spot us heading toward the back, they’ll just run around to meet us.”

The waiter made a sympathetic noise and moved away to process Adam’s credit card.

“What should we do?” Lisa asked. She was completely out of her depth. She’d never been in a situation remotely like this before.

“I think the damage is already done, as far as photos go,” Adam said slowly. He accepted the credit card slip from the waiter and paused long enough to sign. “Those guys have been out there since we got here. They must have followed us from the hotel. But maybe we can still take some kind of control of the situation.”

Lisa sat up straighter. “What do you mean?”

He looked at her assessingly. There was warmth in his eyes, and humor, and a sly little spark of mischief. Suddenly, Lisa felt certain he hadn’t been acting, this whole time—that his smiles had been genuine, and just for her.

She felt the oddest sense of trust in this man. She didn’t know him at all, and she knew better than to trust a man as good-looking as he was. And yet, there it was: She simply felt it, a sense of calm certainty that he was one of the good ones. That he had her best interests at heart. That he wouldn’t do anything to hurt her, or take advantage of her.

“You go first,” she said, pushing back her chair to stand. “I’ll follow your lead.”

Adam looked relieved, and delighted. He held out a hand and helped her to her feet, and then placed a palm at the small of her back.

“Ready to smile for the cameras?” he asked. There was laughter in his eyes, and Lisa found herself grinning up at him.

“Ready whenever you are.”

He took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze, and then, together, they walked toward the front of the restaurant.

Chapter
7

____________________________________

“T
hat was kind of insane,” Lisa said, an hour later. She was back at the spa, sitting in the reception area with Clare during a break before her next appointment.

“You were chased by actual paparazzi photographers?” Clare shook her head, sighing with envy. “I can’t believe that happened to you and not me.”

Lisa snorted. “First of all, they didn’t chase us. We walked out of the restaurant, gave them a smile and let them snap a few photos, and then Adam asked them not to follow us back to the hotel. And they didn’t.”

Clare frowned. “They just...let you go?”

Lisa shrugged. “It’s not like we’re the Kardashians,” she pointed out. “As far as celebrity gossip goes, Adam must be pretty small fry.”

“I don’t know.” Clare riffled through the pile of magazines on the counter above her reception desk, and pulled a copy of
Rag
from the pile. “Seems like he’s a man about town these days. And I mean ‘man about town’ in the global sense. Or at least national.” She flipped pages in the magazine and then stopped at one.

“Here he is.” She held it out for Lisa to see.

Lisa took the open magazine and perused the page. “Is He or Isn’t He?” she read aloud. “Who’s this woman he’s with?”

“Who knows? It says she’s his ‘secret bride.’” Clare snorted.

“Bride?” Lisa frowned. “They’re saying he’s married? I don’t think that’s right. He mentioned an ex-wife.”

“Ex?” Clare shrugged. “He’s pretty famous for keeping quiet about his love life. Then those photos showed up a couple months ago, of him with that woman and the little boy, and...” She shrugged. “Who knows,” she repeated. “If he is married, they probably have some kind of arrangement, or something. An open marriage. That’s what all the celebrities do.”

Lisa didn’t know or care what famous people did. But for reasons she didn’t understand and wasn’t yet willing to inspect, she apparently did care what Adam Masters did. And if he’d taken her out to lunch while a wife and child waited for him back at home... Well, that wasn’t something she could put up with, or forgive.

And yet, it didn’t ring true.

“So when are you going to see him again?” Clare asked.

“I don’t know.” Lisa set the magazine down on the table beside her. “We didn’t really talk about that.”

“You didn’t talk about it?” Clare repeated incredulously. “What, you just shook hands and said ‘Goodbye, see you never’?”

Lisa laughed. “Sort of.” Then she fell quiet. They hadn’t discussed meeting up again. There hadn’t seemed to be any point. Adam was just passing through Austin on his way to the next Dream Date city, wherever that was. It wasn’t as if one lunch date would lead to a long-distance relationship. And long distance was the last thing Lisa would be interested in, anyway.

It was better that they’d simply said goodbye, and left it at that.

Maybe if she kept telling herself that, she would start to believe it was true.

“Well, I’ve got good news,” Clare said briskly, clearly picking up on Lisa’s pensive mood. “You’ve got your first date through Mister-Match.com!”

That startled Lisa out of her reveries. “What?” A date? With a man?

“Yep.” Clare smiled gleefully. “His name is Reese. Kind of classy, don’t you think? You’re meeting him for breakfast tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow?” Her stomach dropped. “I can’t. I’m scheduled to be here tomorrow morning at eight.”

Clare arched an eyebrow. “Good thing the person who sets your work schedule is the very same person coordinating your love life. I gave your first appointment to Willow. You don’t need to be in till eleven.”

“Love life,” Lisa repeated flatly. “Right. A breakfast date? Is that even a thing? Like, is that allowed?”

Clare snorted. “If you’re asking whether it’s legal, yes, it’s legal.”

“No, you know what I mean.” Lisa frowned. “And I don’t know if I like the name Reese. It sounds sort of stuck-up. Don’t you think it sounds stuck-up? Kind of WASP-y?”

“Maybe it bothers you because it starts with an R,” Clare suggested. “Too similar to the Rod. Anyway, you’re just having cold feet. Willow and I chose this guy together, and we think you’re really going to like him. You’ll have fun, I promise.”

“A breakfast date,” Lisa said again. “Tomorrow.”

“Oh, stop thinking so hard,” Clare said dismissively, turning toward her computer. “I told you we’d do all the work behind the scenes, and all you have to do is show up and fall in love. So show up at Sweetish Hill tomorrow morning at nine, and fall in love with Reese.”

Lisa did her best to smile, although the truth was, she felt a bit sick. The idea of a breakfast date with Reese—or any date, with any man—didn’t sound exciting in the least.

And it wasn’t just that she wasn’t ready to plunge back into the dating world. That was part of it—this was all happening so fast. But it was also that, whoever it was she was going to meet, and however nice and interesting he might be... He wouldn’t be Adam Masters.

L
ater, looking back, Adam could see the interview with Kiki James had been destined to be a travesty from the start.

He arrived at the
Access Austin
studio twenty minutes early, and then sat around for fifteen, waiting and getting more and more nervous by the moment.

He was surprised by the nerves. He told himself they were a good thing—it was good not to be cocky. He should’ve known they were a sign of how awry everything was about to go.

Five minutes before the interview was scheduled to begin, the production assistant seated him in a black canvas director’s chair across from where Kiki James, the show’s hostess, would sit. A small live audience was already assembled in the studio, and Adam scanned the crowd with his best, most dazzling smile, making eye contact with a few people and giving out a few friendly waves before consciously tuning them out.

He needed to concentrate. He’d done his research. Kiki James was relatively new to the show and network, but not to the industry. Everything Adam had read said she was making a name for herself, and she was poised for big things in her career. Having grown his startup from the ground up in the past few years, he knew how that could be. It meant he had to draw her in as quickly as possible, to make sure she was in his corner.

No sense repeating what had happened back in February, when that reporter had thrown him under the bus and called his entire website, matchmaking method and livelihood into question.

Just then, Kiki James walked into the studio, her stiletto heels clicking smartly on the wooden floor.

Adam watched her work the room from the moment she entered. Unconsciously, he sat up a little straighter. The woman was like a politician. She had that star charisma that just beamed out of her, and she knew just how to work the audience, who had turned toward her like flowers toward the sun as soon as she’d walked in. She was grinning and engaging with them now, giving out high-fives and bantering lightly with them.

And then, suddenly, she was standing two feet from Adam, staring at him with dark, brilliant eyes.

Yep, he thought. Texas definitely had the most attractive women. With hair that fell down her back in perfect dark waves and skin the color of caramel, Kiki James looked fierce, like an Amazon warrior princess.

He was definitely going to have to tread carefully in this interview.

“Adam Match. I’m Kiki James. You can call me Kiki.”

She held out a hand to shake. Adam couldn’t help but notice she’d extended it just slightly palm-down, giving it a hint of kiss-my-ring regality.

He did his best not to chuckle as he shook her hand. “Thanks so much for having me,” he said, consciously allowing just a hint of his old Texas drawl back into his voice. It never hurt to speak like the locals, and his high school years spent in Dallas had to count for something.

“Are you ready for this?” Kiki inquired briskly as she settled herself into her own chair. The production assistant buzzed around her, arranging her hair around her face and giving her last-minute notes.

“Always.” Adam gave her his warmest grin. “As long as you go easy on me,” he added, winking to show he was joking.

It only took a moment to recognize he’d miscalculated with that one. Kiki James’s left eyebrow raised just a fraction of an inch and her gaze narrowed by an even smaller margin, but in that instant, it was clear: In asking her to go easy, he’d activated her predatory instincts.

A soft little boom of shock exploded in his abdomen.

Oops,
he thought. Dan was going to be pissed if this interview went off track.

He didn’t have much time to worry about that. Within what felt like a heartbeat, the audience had been shushed, the makeup artist had come to give Adam a last once-over with his powdered brush, and then the cameras were rolling.

Kiki James gave a quick introduction of her guest and then jumped right in. She crossed her legs and leaned closer to Adam. “Tell me about The Questionnaire.”

Adam grinned. “The Questionnaire. Yep. It’s become kind of an enigma at this point.” The audience laughed. “It’s—”

“I mean, there are so many matchmaker sites,” Kiki cut in. “What makes yours unique?”

“Well, let’s see,” Adam said. “My breathtaking smile?” He laughed along with the audience.

“You make a good point,” Kiki said. “The founder of a dating website becoming a celebrity—it hasn’t really been done before. You’ve definitely got that star quality.”

“Thank you.” Adam grinned and waved as the audience hooted. He didn’t have to fake embarrassment. He appreciated the attention, but it was a little discombobulating.

“No, but really,” he said, when the audience died down, “to answer your question, other dating sites are all based on commonality. You know,
I like paddle boarding and rock climbing, how about you?
But, after all, variety is the spice of life. It’s okay if one person likes paddle boarding and the other likes—” He shrugged. “I don’t know, riding roller coasters. Doing macramé. Whatever. The point is, two people can appreciate and accommodate each other’s various hobbies. In fact, having different interests actually helps keep the relationship fresh, and helps make sure it’s a union of two independent people, not a merging of two personalities into one.”

Kiki narrowed her eyes. “But I thought a good relationship was all about finding someone just like you.”

“Like me?” Adam pressed a hand to his chest. “Wow, I’m flattered.”

The audience laughed, Kiki raised a suggestive eyebrow, and Adam felt like cheering. Nothing wrong with a little harmless flirtation to reel the interviewer in. He could turn this ship around, yet.

He leaned in with a little smile. “I’m kidding, of course. But really, doesn’t that sound just a little bit boring—finding someone who’s just like you, nothing surprising or unexpected to look forward to, no challenges? I know I think so. That’s why I developed a matchmaking theory that allows for differences in personality while ensuring that two very different people will be able to get along long-term. My whole philosophy is based on the more mundane, everyday things that most people don’t even consider, but they’re things that will either mesh seamlessly or drive you absolutely nuts about your partner.”

Kiki nodded and smiled as if he’d just complimented her on her hair. “Wow. How many questions is The Questionnaire?”

“Seventy-five,” Adam answered. “It does take a little time to fill out, but if you’re looking for your mate, your true love...” He shrugged. “I think it’s well worth the half-hour.”

Kiki was leaning closer to Adam again, dangling her high-heeled shoe off her pantyhose-clad toe. “So what’s on The Questionnaire? Interests, likes and dislikes, musical preferences—”

Adam chuckled. “The whole I-love-long-walks-on-the-beach-and-candlelit-dinners bit, right?” The audience laughed knowingly along with him, then quieted when he shook his head. “Actually, no. At Mister Match, we get past the old athletic-type-seeking-same method of matchmaking, and get down to the nitty-gritty. The stuff that really matters, that can make or break a relationship.”

Kiki raised her eyebrows. “So, you mean the big stuff, then.”

Adam nodded. “Definitely.”

“Religion, kids or no kids, career ambitions—”

He tilted his head from side to side, waggling his fingers in the air. “No... More like, do you leave the toilet seat up or down? When you spit out your toothpaste, do you rinse out the sink afterward, or do you assume it’ll get washed down when the next person uses it?” He grinned. “I guess it covers a lot of issues of bathroom etiquette. Like I said, the truly important things.”

The audience broke out in laughter again.

Kiki was pinning him with a look of disbelief. “Are you kidding me? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No, I’m not. Not at all.” Adam shifted in his chair. “That’s the genius of the Mister Match system: It really works, because it cuts through the bull to get to the real deal.”

“Right.” Kiki tossed her hair over shoulder, seeming to warm to her own flirtatious sarcasm. “Whether you hang up your coat or toss it over the arm of the couch is more important than issues such as whether to raise your children Catholic or Protestant, whether to have kids at all—”