The Magnate's Marriage Merger. Joanne Rock

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       One

      “You found her?” Ensconced in his office at the McNeill Resorts headquarters in New York’s Financial District, Ian McNeill glanced up from the file folder on his desk at the private investigator standing before him.

      Ian had been back stateside for less than twenty-four hours when he’d gotten the message that the PI he’d hired two months ago had news for him. Ian’s older brother, Quinn, had asked for his help to locate an anonymous Manhattan matchmaker who’d tried to pair their younger brother, Cameron, with a renowned ballerina. While that sounded harmless enough on the surface, the potential “bride” had had no knowledge she was supposed to meet Cameron, and it had caused a public scandal.

      Bad enough in itself.

      Except then the next day, the matchmaker responsible had closed up shop. Ian discovered within the week that the woman had been using a fake name and an assistant as a front to do most of her work. But despite a few leads, he hadn’t had any luck finding the woman.

      Until now.

      “That’s her.” The investigator, Bentley, pointed to the closed file folder on Ian’s desk. The guy was a former college roommate and someone he trusted. Bentley’s specialty was digital forensics, but he took the occasional job outside the office if the case was interesting enough or, as in Ian’s case, if the work was for a friend. With his clean-shaven face, wire-rimmed glasses and a faded pair of camo pants, Bentley looked more like a teenage gamer geek than a successful entrepreneur. “It’s no wonder she used an alias for her matchmaking business. She’s certainly well-known in Manhattan by her real name.”

      Ian slid the file closer, tapping a finger on the cover.

      “The New York tabloids sold plenty of papers trying to guess her identity last winter after she paired up one of the Brooklyn Nets with that fashion blogger,” Bentley explained. The mystery matchmaker had been responsible for a string of high-profile matches between celebrity clients and wealthy movers and shakers, and her success under an assumed name had the New York social scene all trying to guess who she was.

      Curious, Ian leaned back in the cherry-red leather executive chair, manila folder in hand. The late-morning sun slanted in through the huge windows with a view of the river. Taking a deep breath, he flipped open the file to the papers inside.

      Only to see an eight-by-ten glossy photo of his ex-lover’s face on the top page.

      Lydia Whitney smiled back at him with that Mona Lisa grin he’d fallen hard for a year ago—before she’d disappeared from his life after a huge argument.

      Ian’s blood chilled.

      He sat up straight and waved the photo at his friend.

      “What kind of sick joke is this?” He hadn’t told Bentley about his brief affair with Lydia, but the guy specialized in unearthing digital trails. He must have stumbled across some link between them in his investigation.

      “What do you mean?” Bentley frowned. Shifting positions, he leaned forward to peer at the folder as if to double-check what Ian was looking at. He shoved the wire-rimmed glasses up into his shaggy dark hair. “That’s her. Lydia Whitney. She’s the illegitimate daughter of that billionaire art collector and the sexpot nurse he hired before he died. Lydia’s mother sued the family for years for part of the inheritance.”

      Tension kinked Ian’s shoulders. A tic started below his right eye.

      “I know who she is.” Damn. It. Just looking at the picture of Lydia—the Cupid’s bow mouth, the dimples, the pin-straight dark hair that shone like a silk sheet flowing over one shoulder—brought the past roaring back to life. The best weeks of his entire life had been spent with those jade-green eyes staring back into his. “I’m asking why the hell there’s a photo of her here.”

      “Ian.” Bentley straightened. When his glasses shifted on his head, he raked them off and jammed them in the front pocket of his olive-green work shirt. “You asked me to find the matchmaker who used the name of Mallory West. The woman who hid behind an alias when she worked for Mates, Manhattan’s elite dating service. That’s her.”

      The news sank into Ian’s brain slowly. Or maybe it was Bentley’s expression that made him take a second look at the file in his lap. His former college roommate was a literal guy, and he wasn’t prone to pulling pranks. And he appeared serious about this.

      Gaze falling back on Lydia’s flawless skin, Ian flipped past the photo to see what else the file contained. The first sheet was a timeline of the events of last February when “Mallory West” had paired Cameron McNeill with ballerina Sofia Koslov. There were notes about Mallory’s assistant, Kinley, who’d admitted that Mallory was an alias but refused to identify her boss. Then there were pages of notes about Kinley’s whereabouts, including photos of Kinley meeting with Lydia at various places on the Upper East Side—where Ian knew Lydia lived.

      “Lydia Whitney is the mystery matchmaker?” As he said the words aloud, they made a kind of poetic sense.

      Lydia had ended the most passionate affair of his life when she’d discovered Ian’s photo and profile were on a dating website while they were seeing each other. He’d understood her anger, but mistakenly assumed she would listen to his very reasonable explanation. He had not posted the profile or created the account. He’d given cursory permission to his grandfather’s personal aide to do so after a heated argument with the old man, but had heard no more about it after that day.

      Grandpa Malcolm McNeill was so determined his grandsons should marry that he’d since written the condition into his will. None of his grandsons would inherit their one-third share of the global corporation he’d built until they’d been married for at least twelve months. That stipulation had come last winter, prompting Cameron to find a bride with a matchmaker, leading to the fiasco with Sofia Koslov. But the pressure to wed had started long before that. And it had resulted in Ian’s offhanded agreement to allow his profile to be listed on a dating website.

      But Lydia didn’t care about his explanation. She’d been furious and had cut off all contact, accusing him of betrayal. What if she’d gone into the matchmaking business—at the very same agency his grandfather had used—to spite Ian? In the months after that, Ian had indeed received some odd suggestions for dates that he’d ignored. Could Lydia have been behind those, too? Anger rolled hot through his veins. Along with it, another kind of heat flared, as well.

      “I was surprised, too,” Bentley observed, moving closer to the window overlooking the river and Battery Park. “I thought Mallory West would be someone with more Park Avenue pedigree. An older, well-accepted socialite with more connections among her clientele.” The investigator rested a shoulder on the window frame near Ian’s bookcase full of travel guides.

      It didn’t matter that he could get maps of every country on his phone when he traveled for work. Ian liked seeing the big picture of a foldout map, orienting himself on the plane ride to wherever it was he headed to oversee renovations or development work on resorts all over the globe.

      “She used to work as an interior designer,” Ian observed lightly, tossing aside the file before he gave any more away about the relationship he hadn’t shared with anyone. “Do you know if she still does?”

      He needed to think through his response to this problem. He had planned to hand over Mallory СКАЧАТЬ