I know, he mouthed, sympathy imbuing his expression as some complicated sign language finally clued Kayla in to the fact that her peach cardigan knit jacket was on inside out.
She flipped it with rushed, jerky movements and then Bradley waved Kayla through with a significant nod toward her waistband. She looked down and realized the button at the top of the zipper on her peach damask-on-denim skirt was undone.
With a harried smile of thanks, she quickly fastened it as she opened the door to the big man’s office. “Sorry I’m late, Andreas, I was supervising tests on Dolphin.” She preferred to name all their projects after marine life, and Andreas indulged her whimsy.
Kayla stopped abruptly as she realized her boss wasn’t in his usual spot behind his big chrome-and-glass desk, but sitting at one end of the eight-person smoky-glass-topped meeting table.
A woman was with him. Blond hair piled in a sleek, professional updo and wearing a stylish white suit, she gave Kayla an assessing look.
“This is your business partner?” she asked Andreas, her tone tinged with disbelief.
“Yes.” Andreas frowned at Kayla. “I told you this meeting was high priority.”
“Technically, my smartphone told me. You flagged it.” Who was this woman and what kind of meeting were they having?
Andreas gave her that look, the one that said Kayla was being a tad too literal again. She stifled the urge to apologize. She’d been working on that.
Not apologizing for being herself.
“Well, she’s here now,” the woman pointed out. “I presume we can get started now?” Her words were take-charge, but her expression toward Andreas was nothing but deferential.
“Get started on what?” Kayla asked as she settled into one of the leather high-backed chairs on Andreas’s left, across from the stranger.
Apparently, he wasn’t done glowering about Kayla’s tardiness, because he did not answer.
Kayla rolled her eyes, absolutely refusing to utter the “I’m sorry” on the tip of her tongue. While he had marked the meeting as a priority, he’d had Bradley insert it into Kayla’s schedule when she’d already blocked off the time prior for the Dolphin tests. She could wait out Andreas’s snit. She’d done it before.
With a sound of impatience, the woman spoke. “We are here to discuss how Andreas’s search for a wife will impact his business.”
Everything around Kayla came into sharp focus. The sound each of them made as they breathed in the quiet of the room. The floral musk of the other woman’s perfume that smelled out of place. The fingerprint smudges on the glass in front of the blonde that indicated she’d pressed her hands on the table for some reason. Kayla wanted to wipe them away, erase the evidence of the woman’s presence, even as she sat there.
Kayla shook her head. Denial a scream inside her. That could not be right.
Andreas was no help. He still sat there with his stony “you were late” expression on his handsome, angular face, his green eyes snapping with disapproval.
“Search for a wife?” Kayla’s breath ran out on the final word, her entire body going cold and then hot with the implications.
Andreas finally deigned to nod, not one strand of his dark hair going out of place with the short movement. “It’s time.”
“It is?” Kayla hadn’t noticed Andreas being any less focused on business. Any more open to interpersonal relationships.
She would have noticed. She’d been watching for just such a change in him for the past six years.
In fact, lately, he’d been more driven and working even longer hours than usual and expecting her to do the same, wanting Dolphin’s launch on time and without a single hiccup.
“I’ve exceeded my father’s net worth. A wife and family are next on the list.” He didn’t shrug, his perfectly tailored suit-clad shoulders remaining ramrod straight, but the sense of dismissal was there in his voice.
Like this decision wasn’t something life changing, monumental and the one thing Kayla had been hoping for since they broke up to become business partners.
Kayla looked at the woman who had informed her of Andreas’s plans. Who was she? And why did she know Andreas’s personal plans when Kayla, a friend, had not?
A truly horrifying prospect popped into Kayla’s mind. Was this woman a matchmaker? It would be just like Andreas to hire a professional to find him a wife.
Not that he needed one.
While Kayla had been practically celibate the past few years, the same could not be said of Andreas. He’d taken many beautiful women to his bed, each and every one a risk to Kayla’s hopes for the future. But he’d never gotten serious, his heart and Kayla’s deepest desires remaining unchanged.
“That’s what I’m here for,” the sleek blonde said confidently, clearly thrilled to have a client of Andreas’s stature on her roster.
“You’re a matchmaker?” Kayla asked for confirmation, still trying to come to terms with that possible reality.
The woman nodded. “I own the Patterson Group.”
It sounded like a firm of lawyers, not a service designed to bring people together in wedded bliss.
“She specializes in millionaires,” Andreas added, like that was important.
“You’re a billionaire.” On paper anyway.
KJ Software was obscenely successful, just like Andreas had said it would be. The company, of which he owned 95 percent, was valued at over a billion dollars. Not bad for six years of blood, sweat and sleepless nights working.
The matchmaker nodded, her expression showing how much she appreciated the distinction and the fact Andreas was her client. Kayla knew being a billionaire rather than just worth millions mattered to Andreas too. A lot. That valuation was what had spurred this particular move toward domestic harmony, after all. He was finally worth more than his father, but still had more to prove.
Andreas was giving Kayla that look again. “Don’t be so literal. The point is Miss Patterson—”
“Genevieve, please.” The blonde’s smile was all polish, no substance.
“Genevieve...”
Kayla wondered if Genevieve noticed the short pause and the way Andreas’s square jaw tightened when using the more personal address. “...specializes in matching wealthy men with women who will make them the ideal wife.”
Kayla was appalled and made no effort to hide it. “I don’t think it works like that.”
She wasn’t opposed to matchmakers, was sure that there were plenty in the business who really believed in matching two people meant to be together, but this woman? She was every bit as predatory in her way as Andreas. Kayla had learned to read people very young.
If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have survived her childhood.
Genevieve of the Patterson Group did not read as caring about long-term happiness or emotional harmony by any stretch of the imagination.
“My track record speaks for itself,” the woman said now, superiority in her tone and the tilt of her head. So, impressed and happy to have Andreas as a client, but arrogant and utterly sure of herself, as well.
“If it didn’t, I wouldn’t consider your twenty-five-thousand-dollar retainer.”
Kayla gasped. “I’m pretty sure you can buy a bride who looks like a supermodel for that kind of money.”
Or, you know, marry