Failure to Match: Chapter 18

Ow.

I blinked against the pink fabric as a throbbing ache bloomed over the crown of my head. My arms lowered carefully, pulling the dress back down so I could see what⁠—

Bang. Bang. Bang. “Jamie?”

Two things. One, that shattering sound had been the vanity mirror. The very large, very broken-into-tiny-pieces vanity mirror. Two, Jackson’s knocks startled the shit out of me, they were so aggressively loud.

He was going to be so fucking pissed.

“Yes?” I called shakily, scanning the room for Toebeans. He wasn’t on the bed anymore.

“Are you okay? What was that sound?”

I chewed on my bottom lip, assessing the damage. There was glass everywhere. All over me, the hardwood floor, surrounding my bare feet.

“Jamie.”

I couldn’t tell if he really did sound panicked or if I was assigning him emotions as some sort of coping mechanism. Panic was better than rage in this instance.

“Um… yeah, just fine.”

A pause. “You don’t sound fine.”

“Oh.”

That was it. That was all I could come up with.

“Can I come in?”

“Wait, let me just…” What? How was I supposed to clean this all up without help? I couldn’t exactly walk over shattered glass with my bare feet to grab supplies.

Also, I didn’t know where the brooms were kept in this house, but it probably wasn’t in my suite. Either way, he was going to see the mess.

“Okay,” I eventually said. “Come in.”

The door handle was being twisted before I was done giving shaky permission. Jackson stepped into the room with purpose and promptly froze when he saw me.

“You, um, really need to stop hanging outside my suite like a stalker, w-weirdo.”

Jackson’s eyes were scanning the situation, sliding between me and the floor. “You have glass on you,” he said flatly. It was a statement. There was absolutely no emotion behind it.

“Oh yeah, that’s because it fell on my head.”

His eyes flared, shoulders tensing.

“I think your house might be trying to murder me,” I whispered.

He didn’t smile, though. He didn’t have a sense of humor.

I cleared my throat softly. “Because, you know, first the whole pool thing and now this,” I overexplained. “Or maybe the universe is trying to tell us to stop going on dates. I mean, I know you don’t believe in that stuff but like, what are the chances?”

Two not-real dates ending in almost-real deaths.

Jackson didn’t seem like he was listening. He was just walking toward me slowly, glass crunching underneath his fancy black shoes.

“You okay?” he asked gently when he reached me.

“I couldn’t get the dress off. Broke the zipper trying. I’ll compensate you for it, obviously, but we might need to arrange a payment plan if it’s made from mammoth tusks or something. Either way, you’ll eventually get your money⁠—”

“Jamie.” He tucked a gentle knuckle under my chin and tilted my face so he could scan it properly. “Are. You. Okay?”

A ball of unexpected emotion lodged itself in the pit of my throat. I couldn’t swallow it down. “I think so. I’m not bleeding or anything…”

If I was, I couldn’t feel it.

Jackson nodded but didn’t drop his hand. “I’m going to lift you now, okay?”

I thought about it, even though there was literally nothing to think about. I couldn’t move.

“Okay,” I agreed after much unneeded deliberation. “But, um, can you check on Toebeans first? He might be under the bed or hiding in the bathroom or something. I didn’t see where he ran off to.”

I could tell by the way his brows scrunched that he was about to argue, so I shook my head. “Him first.”

“You’re being unreasonable. Let me at least⁠—”

I shook my head again. “Need to make sure he’s not hurt. There’s glass on the bed.”

Jackson’s lips rolled with blatant disapproval. “All right,” he said, sounding not at all happy about it.

More glass crunched under his shoes as he made his way to the bed and peered underneath. Then to the bathroom. And finally, the walk-in closet.

“Hello again, Cat.”

I strained my neck. “He’s okay?”

Jackson cocked his head. “Physically, yes. He looks rather enraged, though. Fangs bared and all.”

Oh. Yeah. “Don’t go in there. Just… slowly shut the door so he doesn’t come out until I clean all this up.” Chances were good he was too spooked to meander out of there anytime soon anyway, but just in case.

Jackson shot me a look, his features pinched into a confused scowl.

“What?” I asked. What did I say?

He shut the closet door and stalked over to where I was uselessly waiting. “Did any of it get inside your dress?”

Great question. I felt around for sharp edges and uncomfortable pokes. “Don’t think so.”

Then, in one smooth motion, he scooped me into his arms like I weighed less than nothing.

I may have gasped.

I also may have turned a rather telling pink when said gasp drew his attention. For one breathless moment, our gazes locked.

Make that two breathless moments.

Three.

“You can just drop me off near the door,” I said. “And if you could please tell me where the brooms are kept, that would be swell.”

He was giving me that confused scowly look again, so I decided to clarify. “Toebeans gets excited when he hears a vacuum cleaner. A broom would be better until he calms down. Also, aren’t your arms tired?”

Mine would have given out by now.

Then again, Jackson was really… muscly.

“Is Cat okay to be left alone for a bit?” he asked, still peering down at me through surprisingly thick lashes.

“Yeah, he’s not gonna want to come out of there for a while, I don’t think.”

“Good.” He carried me out of the room.

“Wait, where are we going?”

“To get you that broom,” he replied dryly.

“I can just walk there.”

“You don’t even know where it is.”

My mouth twitched. “Can’t argue with that logic.”

As it turned out, the broom closet was on the second floor of the penthouse. It was also not a broom closet.

I gave Jackson the most dry, unimpressed look I could muster as he placed me down on the couch… in what could only be his bedroom.

“Stay,” he ordered.

I was on my feet the second he disappeared into the ensuite. I didn’t know what he had planned, but there was a good chance I’d regret not making my sleuthy escape when I had the chance.

Unfortunately, I didn’t even make it to the stairs.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked when I was, once again, swept off my unsteady feet.

“Ability to follow simple instructions: abysmally inadequate.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You can’t just grab women without asking permission first.”

“Haven’t heard any complaints so far.”

“I don’t know if I’ve told you this yet, but I swear sometimes you’re just one giant walking red flag.”

His throat worked with a light chuckle. Bow tie.

“You should put that in my file,” he said.

I was placed on the dark leather couch again. This time Jackson took a seat beside me, inserting himself right into my personal space.

“Do we really need to be sitting this close?”

“Where did you hit your head?” he asked, leaning in another inch. His scent was everywhere, lingering on my skin.

“Right… here.” I felt around until I found the bruised spot. A bump was already starting to form and there was a bunch of glass stuck in my curls, but at least there was no blood.

“Does it hurt?”

My fingers went still. “Why?” What was his angle?

His mouth slanted into a half-smile. “You really don’t trust me.”

Not even a little. “We’ve already gone over this.”

“And you’re not… impressed by me. At all.”

I scrunched my brows as my fingers started to prod at my bump again. It hurt when I touched it. So why did I keep touching it?

“Do you hear yourself when you say stuff like that?” I asked. “Like, do you hear how arrogant you sound?”

His half-smile widened. “And you don’t like that, either. The arrogance.”

My hand dropped. Why was he acting so weird? “Is this part of the making-my-life-miserable thing?” Or was he still trying to disarm me?

He chuckled, then reached up and plucked a shiny piece of glass out of my hair. “And how did you think our date went?” he asked, completely ignoring my question.

I shrugged, a little distracted by all the strange sensations swirling in my chest as he picked out another little shard, carefully placing it on the coffee table to his right.

“You need to wait until tomorrow for the evaluation results.” I fiddled with my skirt as Jackson continued to delicately remove the glass from my loose updo. “How did you think it went?”

I wasn’t asking for me, obviously. It didn’t matter what he thought of me as a date. But he was a client, and client feedback was, um, important.

Ah, yes, because you’ve been soooo professional during this whole Immersive process. And you’ve tried soooo hard to listen to his feedback.

I had to stop myself from visibly cringing. There was a slight chance some of my behavior was starting to catch up with me.

Jackson’s gaze snagged on mine, his mouth twisting into a wry smirk. “Like I said, I miscalculated.”

“I really don’t know what that means.”

His lips—okay, you know what, I really needed to stop paying so much attention to his mouth before it made things weird.

“It means, Miss Paquin, that I’m not exactly accustomed to competing for my date’s attention.” Another small piece of the shattered mirror was discarded onto the table. “It didn’t even occur to me that you may be more interested in conversing with Damien than me. Not until we got there, at least.”

“His name is Daniel.” My throat was starting to dry up.

Another twitch of his lips. I was looking at them a lot. It was super inappropriate.

“Right.”

His fingers found one of the pins holding my updo in place, lingered there for a moment, then pulled. A small batch of my curls tumbled free, falling over my shoulder. I watched his gaze trace them, his hand frozen in the air.

I shifted on the couch, feeling oddly warm. “If you’re unhappy with the level of engagement we had during the evaluation, I’ll take that into consideration.”

Not that I needed to. He’d definitely passed.

“Or…” Another section of my hair fell loose, and I swear his pupils briefly flared. “We could try it again.”

I blinked. “You want to do another evaluation?”

Again with the mouth twitch. “A third date, yes.”

My pulse kicked. Evaluation was the more correct term; he didn’t need to keep saying date.

They weren’t dates. Charmed had a very strict, zero-tolerance policy against dates with clients. It was a huge conflict of interest.

“Something a little more intimate this time,” Jackson went on. “So we can actually talk. That way, you’ll have even more accurate data to work with.”

The last pin was discarded. All of my hair tumbled free.

His lips parted, his eyelids lowering ever-so-slightly. I reached up self-consciously, wanting to soothe and fluff them into proper shape, but he grabbed a hold of my wrist before I could touch even a strand. His grip wasn’t hard or rough, but it was definitely… authoritative.

“Let me get all the glass out first. I don’t want you cutting yourself.”

“Since when do you care if I’m hurt?”

He could probably feel my pulse thundering through my wrist. Maybe that’s why he was frowning.

“I’m an asshole, not a monster.” He said it softly, no venom in his tone. Then he placed my hand on my lap and returned his attention to the task at hand.

Jackson Sinclair was tenderly running his fingers through my hair so I wouldn’t cut myself on broken glass. What was going on? The date was over. There was no need for him to keep up the act.

“Jamie.” My eyes accidentally darted down to his lips again. “Have a drink with me tomorrow night. After work.”

The oxygen levels in this room had reduced significantly since we’d walked in.

“Shouldn’t you wait until you get the results? If you pass, there’s no point in another evaluation.”

He clicked his tongue. “We barely talked. Your results would be based on incomplete data, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

“Yes, but I’ve gone on two fake dates with you so far and they’ve both ended in some sort of physical disaster for me. The universe is definitely trying to tell us something, and I’m pretty tempted to listen.”

He chuckled again. “All right, so let’s say this one’s a real date instead. You know, just so we can appease the almighty universe.”

My eyes narrowed. “You’re mocking me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Miss Paquin. I firmly believe that the cosmos is conspiring against the two of us going on fake dates and is communicating its grievances via gruesome murder attempts. That makes total logical sense to me, which is why I’m saying we should just go on a real one, instead—see if it likes that better.”

I crossed my arms. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you wanted to go on a date with me.”

“Nonsense.” He continued to tease his fingers through my hair, even though they kept coming back empty. “I just want to ensure you have all the data you need to do your job.”

“You don’t want me to do my job,” I pointed out. “In fact, you’ve done everything you can over the last nine months to make it as difficult as possible for me to do my job.”

“Another miscalculation.”

What did that even mean? “What does a miscalculation have anything to do with you not taking our personality tests?”

He sighed. “How would you like it if someone was blackmailing you into going on blind dates? How easy would you make things for them?”

My teeth clamped together. He had a point.

“I wasn’t trying to make life difficult for you. I was just—” He cut off, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “I apologize for my behavior that night, but just know I had my reasons. And I’m willing to take some of the responsibility for making your professional life difficult, but your employer was also at fault. I didn’t force you to work all that overtime, Jamie.”

Again, he had a point.

I dragged my teeth over my bottom lip, thinking. “I’m sorry too,” I eventually said. It was only fair. “I’ve been… burnt out and frustrated, and I think I’ve put a little more blame on you than is maybe warranted.”

He nodded. “I appreciate that.”

Look at us, being all mature and civil.

“Cool.” And, for whatever reason, Molly’s request chose that exact moment to ring through my head.

“He could really use a friend, you know. Someone closer to his own age. Someone not on his payroll.”

So, after a strangely dense silence, during which our eyes were locked in another breathless staring contest, I said, “Hey, do you… do you maybe want to tone down some of the, um, animosity we’ve got going on, and maybe… maybe we could try to be friends or something?”

That was about as eloquently as I could put an idea that had an extremely high chance of being immediately shut down.

Sure enough, Jackson’s brow gave a surprised little tick. “You want to be my friend.”

I didn’t understand the emphasis he put on the word, or why his eyes narrowed when he said it, but “I don’t know. Maybe.”

He didn’t respond. Not a good sign.

“I mean, to be honest, this whole hating each other thing is already becoming kind of tiring, don’t you think?” As it turned out, my personality was not all that suited for revenge. Being at emotional war with another human was exhausting.

I wasn’t convinced I could do a full month of it.

“And so, you’d like for us to be… friends.”

He clearly hated the idea.

“Well, maybe we could start with just being more civil.”

His eyes were razor-thin at this point. “Did Molly put you up to this?”

My head tugged back. “What? No. Of course not. Why would you… even…”

He knew. He was looking at me like he definitely knew.

“Maybe…” I admitted with a sigh.

Jackson pinched the bridge of his nose in clear exasperation. Although it did kind of look like he was also trying to bite back a smile. Before I could talk myself out of it, I took the shot.

“It’s okay, no one is surprised that you don’t have any friends.”

A chuckle burst out of him, though his eyes remained closed. “Fuck me. What am I going to do with those two?”

I grinned. “They care about you a lot. It’s honestly sweet.”

When he finally dropped his hand and opened his eyes, they were sparkling. “I have friends, Jamie,” he claimed, a subtle hint of color spreading over his cheeks.

“Of course you do, buddy.”

“I do,” he insisted.

My smile widened, digging into my cheeks. “Is that a no, then, to being my friend?”

He studied me for a beat. “What would it entail, exactly?”

I raised a brow, but before I could settle on an appropriately clever quip, he said, “I lied, I don’t have any friends. You’re going to have to hold my hand through the whole thing.”

A giggle spilled out of me before I could stop it. Damn it. Jackson’s eyes crinkled in their corners as he watched me laugh.

“I think I can do that,” I eventually agreed. “I’m already your dating coach, so why not?”

“Then I guess we have a deal.”

My heart was doing a lot of stuttering over the prospect of earning Jackson Sinclair’s friendship. It was excessive. “Cool.”

He cleared his throat lightly and sat up straight, palms sliding over his knees. “So, what now? Do you want to hang out, or…”

“Sure, okay. But first thing’s first,” I said. “As my friend, I officially need you to make good on your earlier promise and get me out of my clothes.”

He stiffened. Blinked.

“No, seriously,” I said. “I’m stuck.”