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“Chances are good we’ll run out of candidates before we find him a partner. It’s not us, it’s him,” Alice reiterated. “Jackson Sinclair doesn’t need a matchmaker, he needs a miracle worker. And a really good therapist, if I’m being honest.”
Why else would she assign three junior consultants to a client this important instead of taking it on herself?” “Because we’re young, ambitious, and willing to put in the long hours it requires?” Mitch tried. “No. Because we’re young, naive, and disposable.”
Jackson Sinclair’s head tilted mockingly to one side. “I’m not sure,” he drawled, “her features weren’t exactly memorable.” My anger flared, a rush of buzzing warmth sprinting through my body. “Says the man with the personality of a hardboiled egg.” You could hear a fucking pin drop. In my defense, I hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Okay, that was a lie. I’d definitely meant to say it out loud.
This is exactly why we needed to do your personality evaluation in person. Cynical wasn’t even on your list.” “I’m not cynical, I’m a realist.” “Oh please.” I rolled my eyes, taking a half-step forward. “That’s what assholes say to justify being assholes. You’re also rude, obnoxious, arrogant, and entitled as all hell.
“I plan on getting my sexual needs met outside of the marriage,” he explained, just in case I hadn’t gotten the full picture yet. “With her knowledge and consent, of course. I’m sure she’ll also have her own arrangement.”
“Only if it’s relevant to helping me find you a suitable match.” I had very little interest in learning anything about him otherwise. I swear his eyes were twinkling as they slid between mine, his smile jerking. “I kind of like it when you’re mean to me.”
“Sixty-seven matches,” he said, hooded eyes locked on my mouth. “Every single one of them wanted something from me—wealth, status, connections—but none of them wanted me.”
Jackson was not going to be happy with someone who believed in fairy tale endings, soulmates, or any of the more idealistic notions of romance and relationships. Forcing him to fall in love was never going to work. He would be much better off with a great friend, a partner in crime that he enjoyed spending time with—someone who shared his beliefs and didn’t hold any long-term expectations that wouldn’t be met.
Jackson marrying someone who did believe in those things would be nothing short of a living nightmare. He was charming, attractive, funny, caring, and so many other secret, wonderful things. It would be so easy for his wife to fall in love with him, and to develop a foolish, desperate hope that one day, if she tried really hard and showed him just how good she could be to him, he’d maybe love her back.
“Tell her that if you’d agreed to marry me, you’d have woken up with my head buried between your thighs every single fucking morning. Let her know that while she has to beg for me to touch her, you had to beg for me to stop. That’s how maddeningly attracted to you I am, how much I fucking loved eating you out, and I want to make sure she knows it.”
“Do you think she’ll understand, Jamie? That the reason I won’t lick her pussy is because I know she won’t taste like you?”
Foolishly, I wanted to believe him. Selfishly, I wanted to be the only one he desired. Logically, I knew how incompatible we were.
“Every single one of my kinks—all the ones we’ve talked about—are exclusive to you. I don’t want to do any of this with anyone else; never have. Why is that, Jamie? What the fuck did you do to me?”
I thought I had it. I thought that if I just gave the lust what it wanted, it would eventually subside and leave me alone. That wasn’t what happened.
It was official. Going to dinner with Daniel would be a good thing for me—it was exactly what I needed. If nothing else, it would be a much needed reminder that there were men out there that wanted the same things I did.
Richard would’ve had our heads otherwise. He was convinced that music and art would make the boy “soft” as he put it.
Omg how sad
The reason why Jackson kept so many members of staff—the reason why he had “a person” for everything—wasn’t because he was useless and incapable of self-sufficiency. It was because they were his people. His family. He kept them around out of love, not necessity.
Everything was wrong. He’d made us handmade sushi and it was adorable, and his dad had forced him into homeschooling when he was eight and he wasn’t allowed to have birthday parties with kids his own age and I was a wreck over all of it.
“I can make you sushi all the time.” “You just said you don’t enjoy cooking.” “Hate it. It’s a complete waste of time.” He tossed the towel he’d used to dry his hands and wedged himself between my dangling knees again. “But if it made you happy, I’d do it.”
My heart threatened to burst at that, expanding to four times its normal size. Then he said, “We can add it to the contract,” and it deflated like a cartoon balloon, puddling lamely in the pit of my stomach.
“I care about you, okay?” I said, my voice wobbly. “Very much. And I want you to be happy and fulfilled and... honestly, I think you’re really awesome. Like you’re funny, and you’re charming, and kind. You try to hide it but you’re all of those things, and I’m sorry I misjudged you at the beginning. I’m sorry for how mean I was, which—oh, and for the whole disguise thing. That was really unprofessional and not nice, and I completely understand why you acted the way you did on the date. I also never thanked you for saving my life even though, like, you could have pushed me into the pool, and I
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“I really think, like, if she has your sense of humor and a compatible lifestyle, it might not be so bad. But she’d also have to be on the same page as you about the whole romance thing, because otherwise it really wouldn’t be fair to her, and would probably create a big emotional mess for you by the year-end mark because, honestly, I think you’re a lot easier to fall in love with than you realize, and we really just need to make sure that we do our best to avoid any hearts being broken... and... you know…”
“You think I’m easy to fall in love with?” His voice was husky, quiet.
“Very,” I said. “You’d be insanely easy to fall in love with, Jackson. For all the reasons I said and so much more. Just look at how thoughtful you are. Look at this.” I pointed at the sushi. They were messy, unevenly cut, and slowly falling apart, and it was killing me. “Do you understand how adorable this is?”
“Listen to me so carefully right now.” I grabbed his face and pulled it closer, pressing my forehead to his. I needed him to pay extra close attention to everything I was about to say. “You are about as loveable as it gets, Jackson Sinclair. You’re perfect exactly as you are right now, in this moment. I. Was. Wrong. I admit it with my whole heart. I was so wrong about you that it’s fucking embarrassing. And you want to know what else? If you ever end up changing your mind about this whole romance thing, I think it’s really important that you understand how stupidly easy it would be for you to
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“I like you too much, Jackson. Our marriage would be a disaster. I’d become so invested and emotional. You’d be so annoyed with me.”
“Jackson, listen to me, I will not enter into a contractual marriage with you. We can continue being friends after the Immersive is over, but that’s it.” “I don’t accept.” “Then you’re going to be wasting your own time.”
I was dangerously close to falling for the most unattainable man in the world, getting my heart shattered, and never recovering from it. I’d never get over this man if I allowed myself to fall in love with him. I knew that to be a fundamental, irrefutable truth. Water was wet, the Earth was round, and if I, Jamie Paquin, fell in love with Jackson Sinclair, I’d never get over him. Daniel was officially my best-case scenario, and since my meeting with him was in less than twelve hours, all I really had to do was not fall in love with Jackson before then. Totally doable. I had this. Everything
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“It’s not him,” he whispered against my lips. “It’s not him. Come back to me, Jamie.”
“Because if we keep this up, I’m going to fall in love with you, Jackson.”
“Jackson, if we keep sleeping together—if I marry you and you don’t stop with all the affection—I’m going to fall in love with you.”
“I do. I’m going to fall stupidly, madly, head over heels in love with you, and you’re going to end up resenting me for it.”
“I’ll start to hope, Jackson.” The path ahead was clear as day, and it was drenched in a whole lot of darkness, heartbreak, and despair. “Every time you kiss me, I’ll hope it means to you what it does to me. Every time you show me affection, I’ll hope it means that you’re starting to love me back. And I won’t be able to help it. So, unless…” My fingers pressed into my palms as my stupid heart skipped and stuttered. “Unless there’s like a chance you’ll… We should stop, if not.”
“Is there a chance that if… if we kept going and I fell in love with you... is there even a small chance that you could ever… feel that way about me, do you think?” I didn’t know how many times I needed to hear it for the truth to sink in, but I promised myself this would be the last. I held my breath, waiting. It didn’t take long. “No.”
“No, it’s okay, don’t worry about it, you really don’t have to explain. Thank you for your honesty, seriously. I just… misinterpreted our chemistry and you kissed my hand and it—not that it’s your fault. You couldn’t have been more clear with me from the beginning. So it’s fine. I’ll be fine.”
I wished I’d never met him. I wished I’d never met him, but I was so fucking glad I had, you know?
Maybe it’s just you he can’t love. Maybe with Lola or Abi or Parisa it would be different. If you don’t stop this, you’ll have to watch him fall in love with someone else.
“I hate to break it to you, Jamie Paquin, the prettiest little matchmaker with the prettiest smile and the prettiest heart he’s ever seen, but this idiot is your man.”
I tried to convince myself that this was all for the best; that I should’ve been happy for him. He’d finally found someone he liked. Their compatibility scores were solid. They had similar lifestyles, wanted similar things, shared agreeable views on core issues, and Miray was beautiful, successful, and highly intelligent.
Selfishly, I didn’t want him to be with anyone else. Illogically, I hated her. Unreasonably, I wanted to march up to their table and politely ask Miray to take her hands off my man. But I couldn’t do any of that. Because I’d still wake up tomorrow morning wanting love; and he’d still wake up tomorrow morning not believing in it. The best thing I could do for myself was to let him go. My heart was bleeding, and my stomach was twisting, but the pain was temporary. It wasn’t like I’d still be pining after him in fifteen years. Not like I was going to regret not listening to my gut.
“That’s... too bad,” I said quietly. “I thought you guys were really hitting it off. In my professional opinion—” “Stop. Just... stop.” His voice was gruff with exasperation as he stepped forward. “Does this feel right to you? Does seeing me with someone else feel right? Because I’m losing my fucking mind over here, Jamie. It’s fucking horrible.”
“How can you stand it?” His voice was raw, anguished. “How is it fair that you’re only halfway there, but I can’t fucking breathe anymore, Jamie?”
“I know exactly what I’m fucking saying. I know exactly how much I fucking miss you. I know exactly how fucking wrong it feels with these other women, and what just happened out there was the last fucking straw. I don’t care about the—”
I’d made one poor decision after another, and now it was time to pay the piper.
Okay, so her plan was to talk about me like I wasn’t in the room—got it.
“I’m done. Eight billion people in the world and my Jamie’s the best fucking one. It’s her, or it’s no one. I won’t be blackmailed and manipulated into making the single biggest mistake of my life, so fuck you, fuck the shares, and fuck the family legacy. I choose Jamie.”
“I informed Miray that if she shared her picture, I’d share my audio. Turns out she’s not keen on people knowing that her displays of affection made me feel ill, nor does she want to enter into any sort of arrangement with a man who’s publicly known to be desperately in love with someone else.”
“I don’t remember how or when it happened, exactly, but I’ve developed an unacceptable amount of love for you and I very much plan on holding you accountable for it.”
