Matched to Her Rival. Kat Cantrell

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СКАЧАТЬ Then I can text you if I’m going to be late to the next one.”

      “Really?”

      He shrugged, not certain why the derision in her tone raised his hackles. “Most women think it’s considerate to let them know if you’re held up. My apologies for assuming you fell into the category of females who appreciate a considerate man.”

      “Apology accepted. Now you know I’m in the category of woman who thinks texting is a cop-out. Try an actual phone call sometime.” She smiled, baring her teeth, which softened the message not at all. “Better yet, just be punctual. Period.”

      She’d accepted his quasi-apology, as if he’d meant to really convey regret instead of sarcasm.

      “Personal questions and punctuality?” He tsked to cover what he suspected might be another laugh trying to get out. When was the last time he’d been taken to task so expertly? Like never. “You drive a hard bargain, Ms. Arundel.”

      And she’d managed to evade giving out her digits. Slick. Not that he really wanted to call her. But still. It was kind of an amusing turnabout to be refused an attractive woman’s phone number.

      “You can call me Elise.”

      “Really?” It was petty repetition of her earlier succinct response. But in his shock, he’d let it slip.

      “We’re going to be working together. I’d like it if you were more comfortable with me. Hopefully it’ll help you be more honest when answering the profile questions.”

      What was it about her and the truth? Did he look that much like a guy who skated the edge between black and white? “I told you I’m not a liar, whether I call you Elise, Ms. Arundel or sweetheart.”

      The hardness in her gaze melted, turning her irises a gooey shade of chocolate, and she sighed. “My turn to apologize. I can tell you don’t want to be here and I’m a little touchy about it.”

      It was a rare woman who saw something other than what he meant for her to, and he did not want Elise to know anything about him, let alone against his will. Time for a little damage control.

      “My turn to be confused. I do want to be here or I wouldn’t have agreed to our deal. Why would you think otherwise?”

      She evaluated his expression for a moment and tucked the straight fall of dark hair behind her ear, revealing a pale column of neck he had an unexplainable urge to explore. See if he could melt those hard eyes a little more. Unadulterated need coiled in his belly.

      Down, boy.

      Elise hated him. He didn’t like her or anything she stood for. He was here to be matched with a woman who would be the next in a long line of ex-girlfriends and then declare EA International fraudulent. Because there was no way he’d lose this wager.

      “Usually when someone is late, it’s psychological,” she said with a small tilt of her head, as if she’d found a puzzle to solve but couldn’t quite get the right angle to view it.

      “Are you trying to analyze me?”

      She scowled. “It’s not bargain-basement analysis. I have a degree in psychology.”

      “Yeah? Me, too.”

      They stared at each other for a moment, long enough for the intense spike in his abdomen to kick-start his perverse gene.

      What was it about a smart woman that never failed to intrigue the hell out of him?

      She broke eye contact and scribbled furiously in her notebook, color in her cheeks heightened.

      She’d been affected by the heat, too.

      He wanted to know more about Elise Arundel without divulging anything about himself that wasn’t surface-level inanity.

      “The information about my major was a freebie,” he said. “Anything else personal you want to know is going to cost you.”

      If they were talking about Elise—and didn’t every woman on the planet prefer to talk about herself?—Dax wouldn’t inadvertently reveal privileged information. That curtain was closed, and no one got to see backstage.

      * * *

      Elise was almost afraid to ask. “Cost me what?”

      When Dax’s smoke-colored eyes zeroed in on her, she was positive she should be both afraid and sorry. His irises weren’t the black smoke of an angry forest fire, but the wispy gray of a late November hearth fire that had just begun to blaze. The kind of fire that promised many delicious, warm things to come. And could easily burn down the entire block if left unchecked.

      “It’ll cost you a response in kind. Whatever you ask me, you have to answer, too.”

      “That’s not how this works. I’m not trying to match myself.”

      Though she’d been in the system for seven years.

      She’d entered her profile first, building the code around the questions and answers. On the off chance a match came through, well, there was nothing wrong with finding her soul mate with her own process, was there?

      “Come on. Be a sport. It’ll help me be more comfortable with baring my soul to you.”

      She shook her head hard enough to flip the ends of her hair into her mouth. “The questions are not all that soul-baring.”

      Scrambling wasn’t her forte any more than thinking on her feet, because that was a total misrepresentation. The questions were designed to strip away surface-level BS and find the real person underneath. If that wasn’t soul-baring, she didn’t know what was. How else could the algorithm find a perfect match? The devil was in the details, and she had a feeling Dax’s details could upstage Satan himself.

      “Let’s find out,” he said easily. “What’s the first one?”

      “Name,” she croaked.

      “Daxton Ryan Wakefield. Daxton is my grandmother’s maiden name. Ryan is my father’s name.” He shuddered in mock terror. “I feel exposed sharing my history with a virtual stranger. Help a guy out. Your turn.”

      This was so not a good idea. But he’d threatened her business, her livelihood. To prove her skills, his profile had to be right. Otherwise, he might be matched with an almost–soul mate or worse, someone completely incompatible. Dax wasn’t a typical paying client, and she couldn’t treat him like one. What was the harm in throwing him one bone? It wasn’t as if she had to answer all of the questions, just enough to get him talking.

      “Shannon Elise Arundel.”

      How in the world had that slipped out? She hadn’t told anyone that her real first name was Shannon in years. Her shudder of terror wasn’t faked.

      Shannon, put down that cake. Shannon, have you weighed yourself today? Shannon, you might be vertically challenged but you don’t have to be horizontally challenged too.

      The words were always delivered with the disapproving frown her mother saved for occasions of great disappointment. Frowning caused wrinkles and СКАЧАТЬ