Page 5 of Stupid Matchmaking Love
“How’d you end up as part owner of this hotel?”
“Let’s just say it was the right bet at the right time.”
“No fair—I told you all about the Collinses.”
“Gotta keep some mystery.”
She stares at me a moment, and her face softens. She’s not looking at me like I’m just another Maddox. Instead, her expression suggests she sees past all the fuss. Not the family name, and not the money.
It shouldn’t matter, but it hits me anyway—that someone is looking and trying to see.
Another surprise. And damn if I don’t want to keep this one. “But tell me about you. What do you do for fun?”
“You’ll laugh.”
“Now you’re just trying to turn the tables on me.”
“I’m not, I swear.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die, I won’t laugh. What is it?”
She shakes her head as if she’s not willing to reveal her secret, but then she surprises me with “I make figurines.”
“Do you really? I’d love to see one sometime. Are they small?”
“They don’t fit in my bra. I’ve tried.”
I chuckle. “I wasn’t gonna ask, but if you’re offering . . .”
She rolls up a napkin and tosses it at me. I pluck it from the sky, fold it, and when I hand it back to her, our fingers brush. An electric pulse shoots through me, and her breath catches.
She felt it, too.
For a moment, neither of us moves.
Then she clears her throat. “So, why were you here in the kitchen? Are you afraid of unicorns?”
“No, actually . . . No, never mind.”
“What?”
“It’s nothing.”
She growls playfully, and I like that sound even more than her laugh. “That’s no fair. You’ve got to tell me.”
“You don’t want to guess?”
“I’m done guessing.”
“Fair enough. All right, then.” She leans in and I whisper, “I was hiding.”
She gasps. “No. From who? An ex-lover hell-bent on proving she’s the one? Plans to propose by the unicorn ice sculpture?”
“Not even close.”
She taps her chin, eyes sparkling. “Current girlfriend who’s on the outs wants your baby.”
That gets a belly laugh out of me. “Why is it I only date women who are either crazy or crazier?”
