Taking a seat at Indigo’s most secluded corner booth, I ignore the surprised looks coming from my business partners. Theo’s got a pile of financial documents stacked in front of him, pen in hand. Nate looks self-satisfied, as usual. Becker just frowns, studying me intently.
"What did you fuck up?" he prods. “Is it that bad? Wait…are you quitting?”
“Like we could be so lucky,” Theo jokes.
“You look tense,” Nate tells me, rather unhelpfully.
“I’m not quitting. I just didn’t want to miss seeing all your ugly faces at the team meeting,” I joke, gesturing to one of the wait staff for a drink.
“That’s what FaceTime is for,” Theo says.
Had I known my early arrival from the island back to home base would cause such a damn problem, I would have called first. Since when do I have to tell my partners every move I make? Operations at the resort are running smoothly, so there’s no reason I need to physically be there every waking moment.
Becker’s mouth purses and I realize he’s not buying my feigned nonchalance. He’s worried I really screwed something up and had to come running home with my tail between my legs.
If only he knew the truth.
A tumbler of much-needed scotch appears in front of me. I nod in thanks to the waiter and then take a hard swallow. When I set the glass back on the table, I look up to find my colleagues all staring at me expectantly. Like they’re waiting for the hammer to fall.
"It’s nothing. I'm peopled-out and I needed a break if you really must know,” I tell them.
Nate nods knowingly. “Junkanoo was too much for you. No surprise there, old man.”
Becker still isn't appeased, though. I can tell by the look he’s giving me that we’ll be discussing my early arrival later. And I’d bet anything he plans to interrogate me until I crack. Unfortunately, I have no ammunition to fend him off with. In all the guilty pleasure of having a torrid affair with one of the matches, I never managed to pry any of Beck’s secrets out of Daisy. Assuming she even has any.
I’m fucked.
“If we can get back to the meeting now?” Nate reminds us imperiously, rapping his knuckles on the table. Eagerness shines in his eyes and my interest is piqued. I wonder which big client he’s closed in on this time. I’d recognize that smug look anywhere.
“We never left it,” Becker says, his tone cool. “Go ahead.”
Nate flips a leather portfolio open, then opens his laptop and pulls up a spreadsheet with which we’re all very familiar. It’s Nate’s client list. It includes leads he’s currently researching and/or pursuing, clients he’s already signed who still have contracts to be fulfilled, and countless others who have workedwith us in the past. The sheet is so full of data, it almost looks like static as Nate scrolls down to his most recent entry.
The leads section of the spreadsheet, highlighted in yellow, looks even more dense than usual. We rarely have difficulty finding clients, but I'm surprised to see just how busy we are right now. It just goes to show how indispensable Nate is to our business. I assume he’ll be asking Becker to hire him an assistant one of these days. Maybe I can pawn Daisy off on him.
The thought brings a smirk to my lips, but it quickly fades when I realize that I might actually need to get Daisy reassigned within the company. She’s been pissed off at me ever since I kissed her last night. There was no confusion on her part, either; she knew exactly what I was doing when I used her to send a message to Blair. The only thing that kept her from reporting me to HR was my promise to never make a pass at her again, and I still feel like a dick about it.
Nate slides the laptop over to Becker as he announces, “I amthiscloseto locking down the Barclays. They said they’re ready to review one of our standard contracts.”
Beck raises his brows, studying the notes in Nate’s spreadsheet.
“No shit.” I sit straighter in my seat. "The finance Barclays?"
"The same. Their daughter is Piper Lily Barclay, socialite and bona fide smokeshow. She's twenty years old and the sole heir. She’s going toprintmoney for us."
Theo says exactly what I'm thinking. "Don’t count your chickens. When it comes to matchmaking, I’d bet on a wildcard over an established socialite any day. Not all men want a high-profile match, and this girl has social media darling written all over her."
“We’ll just have to see then, won’t we?” Nate says, his confidence unshaken. “I see a nasty bidding war in her future, though. The good kind of nasty.”
That has us all laughing. All of us except for me. Because now I’m wondering how high Blair’s auction will go. Polansky has it bad for her, Sir Alec is still hassling me about rescheduling his introductory meet-up, and Mason Sharp, the pharmaceutical CEO, is convinced he made such a good first impression that he’s already checking out wedding venues.
“You know I’m right,” Nate goes on. “Who doesn’t want to marry into generational wealth? If you’ve already got your own, it means you get to maintain status quo with someone of your ilk. If you’re nouveau-riche, you get to legitimize yourself. Become classy by association. In fact, that’s who I’d put my bet on. One of these tech guys or electric vehicle makers who’s looking for instant prestige.”
Nate’s got some good points—and if anyone has a clear grasp on human nature, it’s him.
Not only that, but no matter how much the Barclay girl goes for, auctioning matches with prominent surnames is always a win-win for us. Our commissions are substantial, and a successful pairing boosts our clout even more, which sends fresh droves of clients our way.
The downside is that the more famous and high-profile these young women are, the more likely they are to elope with some prince charming before their auction date or turn down a marriage proposal when the time comes. The agency never forces anyone into a match, so at that point, all we can do is return the bachelor’s auction bid and commence finding them another bachelorette. It’s a rare occurrence, however. In all our years doing this, the agency has only had to deal with one elopement, two refusals, and one broken engagement. Each time, I was able to find an even better match for the rejected party.
