Failure to Match: Chapter 22

WHAT?!

Stunned silent seconds turned into minutes, then hours, probably. Was he joking? He had to be joking.

He was so sarcastic, his humor so dry, that I genuinely couldn’t tell. But Jackson Sinclair was not proposing to me right now. Even the notion was laughable. So I opened my mouth to laugh.

What came out was: “Is this a joke?”

“No,” he said. “It is, however, the most clear-headed conclusion I’ve come to in years. It makes so much sense.”

My heart was hammering inside my mouth. “What?”

“You process this however you need to.”

What the actual fuck was he even talking about?

“What the actual fuck are you even talking about?”

“Think about it.” And then he just stopped speaking. As though the reasoning was so abundantly clear, it didn’t require an explanation.

“We can’t get married, Jackson.” It was unbelievable to me that it even needed to be said. “We barely even know each other.”

“We’ve got three weeks left in the Immersive. That’s plenty of time.”

My head was spinning. “What the hell type of mental gymnastics… How the hell do you imagine you and I could fall in love in the span of three weeks? Or ever?”

His features pinched in confusion. “What does love have to do with it?”

I took a deep breath, centering myself. “I swear, if this is your idea of a joke⁠—”

“It’s not.”

My arms were deadweight at my sides as I stared up at him, failing to fit the pieces together. I’d spent the better half of a year trying to find this man a wife. Two matches per week for eight months, all of whom checked off every single item on his long list of requirements.

Me? I didn’t even check off one.

Not one.

I was too short. Too young. Too blonde.

I didn’t have a master’s degree from an Ivy League school, didn’t own my own seven-figure business, had never competitively played any of the sports on his list, didn’t speak a second language. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. I wasn’t even close to what he wanted in a wife.

“Explain this to me like I’m a child,” I tried. “Break it down to a molecular level.”

Jackson slipped his hands into his pockets and considered me for a moment. “I have to get married,” he said. “If I want to keep my position as CEO, which I do, then it’s no longer optional. Minerva isn’t giving me a choice in the matter.”

“Okay.” So far, I was with him.

“Problem is, I very much don’t want to get married, and being cornered into it isn’t exactly helping.”

I huffed a breath through my nose. “Why don’t you just… I don’t know, hire someone to marry you? Aren’t contractual marriages a thing in your tax bracket?”

I didn’t need to ask because they definitely were. Charmed had a package to cater to those clients, but it was all very discreet. I wasn’t senior enough to take on any of those cases, so I had no idea what they actually entailed.

He cocked his head. “If I offered you fifty million in exchange for one contractual year of marriage, would you do it?”

“Absolutely not.”

His face split into a heart-stuttering grin. “A hundred million.”

“No.”

“Two hundred.”

“No.”

A low chuckle rumbled out of the depths of his chest. “Then that idea doesn’t work. What else do you have?”

The back of my neck was growing increasingly damp. “I didn’t mean me. Find someone willing. It shouldn’t be very hard.” Not with a dollar amount that hefty. “Better yet, why don’t you make that offer to one of the sixty-seven women we’d set you up with before this?”

I knew his deal with Minerva had changed after the whole pool incident; back then he’d only been required to attend the dates. But it wasn’t too late. He could probably arrange something with one of them now.

“Finding someone willing may not be difficult,” he said carefully, “but finding someone I could stand to spend that much time with is damn near impossible.”

“You hate having me around.”

I didn’t understand why this conversation was so amusing to him. His stupid grin kept twitching.

“You’ve grown on me.” Twitch. “We are friends after all, are we not? They do say that the happiest marriages stem from solid friendships.”

Valid point, minus the part where, “We’ve been friends for one day.”

“And yet it’s felt like a lifetime, no?”

My teeth sunk into my bottom lip. Punishment for smiling. “I hate you.”

“So you claim.” His eyes dropped to my mouth.

The wicked temptation to lick my lips and add fuel to whatever fire was burning in his gaze struck me like lightning. Then came the stark realization that I very much wanted him to kiss me again.

I didn’t even notice we’d moved until my back hit the wall. Didn’t notice how close we were until the tips of his shoes nudged mine. His hand was braced beside my neck, my head was slanting ever-so-slightly to one side, and I could feel the heat of his breath on my skin, but I couldn’t remember how we got here.

I needed to push him away.

“Then there’s… this,” Jackson murmured. He tipped my chin up, and my breath hitched. “I definitely think we should explore this.”

“You’re full of horrible ideas today,” I breathed.

He was caressing my skin again. It was so confusing.

“You’re not curious about this?” His thumb brushed my lip and fuck me. I was drowning in butterflies. “That was a damn good kiss, Jamie.”

Shut it down.

SHUT IT DOWN.

“I’ve had better,” I said as evenly as I could manage. That was a blatant lie, meant to discourage further flirtation. It failed spectacularly.

“Mean.” He was positively beaming. “I don’t believe it for a second, but still mean.”

“God, you’re arrogant.” And damn it, the breathiness of my voice made it sound like I was fawning. I glared up at him defiantly, hating the way his eyes thawed with warm amusement.

“This could be fun, don’t you think?” he teased. “You, me, the blistering sexual tension, and twelve months of a marriage neither of us wants.”

“Blistering is a bit of a stretch,” I said as the fire reached the tips of my fingers, consuming me whole. “I’m not going to marry you, Jackson. We’d make a horrible fake married couple and you know it.”

“I know no such thing. We’d be great together. I’m even starting to like you, and I don’t like anyone save for my household staff.”

“You don’t like me,” I said firmly.

“Oh, but I do. I might even like like you.”

Incorrect.

“Jackson, listen to me. You don’t like me. You just think you do because I don’t want your money and I’m a little mean.”

“That’s not all of it.”

“If I flipped the switch and started kissing your ass and showing interest in your money, you’d revert right back to hating my guts.”

“Shall we test it out?” His smirk was so cocky, it was almost lewd. “Say something nice to me.”

“Well now it won’t work. Not if you know what we’re doing.”

He shrugged. “Try it.”

“You just want me to pay you a compliment.”

“Perhaps.” His smile grazed his eyes. “But if your theory is correct, then at least some of the attraction should dwindle. On my end, I mean. You’ll continue to find me irresistible.”

I almost took the bait. The mean little quip made it all the way to the tip of my tongue before I caught it. Being outwardly unimpressed by him was what’d gotten us into this mess in the first place. Reining in my desire to sass his ego back in check, I batted my eyelashes up at him instead.

This already felt stupid.

“I’ll admit you aren’t… unattractive.”

His throat worked to suppress a chuckle. “That’s significantly more generous than I thought you were going to get, to be quite honest.”

“Did it work? Are you disgusted by me yet?”

“You’re marginally less desirable than I found you a minute ago, so yes.”

Only marginally? “How many compliments before my face makes you want to wretch, do you think?”

Jackson stepped around me and leaned a muscular shoulder against the wall. Even covered in a three-piece suit, you could tell the man was ripped.

“Let’s try four more,” he said. “See how we feel.”

Four?

“I don’t think I can come up with—” I cut off when his eyes got all lusty, blowing out a breath. “All right, fine. You have… a somewhat pleasing voice.”

“Really?” Jackson teased lightly. “How revolting.”

I sucked on my cheek, my hands folding delicately behind me as I leaned against the wall. My shoulder inadvertently brushed his chest, and he took it as an invitation to move closer.

“And don’t even get me started on your eyes,” I said. “Because I wouldn’t know what to say. They’re blue, which I guess is better than, like, beige.”

“You’re being far too kind, Miss Paquin. It’s making me ill.”

My mouth expanded into a smile against my direct orders. I felt light; fluttery.

“You smell adequately clean,” I told him.

“You disgust me.”

I giggled as the lightness spread, bubbling under my skin. “There is one very particular thing about you that I find exceptionally sexy, though. Should I tell you what it is?”

His pupils flared. “I may vomit if you do.”

Having fully forgotten about the purpose of this exercise, I rose to my toes and whispered, “I’m sorry to say, Mr. Sinclair, that you look like the type of man who’d be packing a remarkably impressive set of forearms.”

He didn’t even try to hold back his grin.

“Makes my toes curl just thinkin’ about it.” I dropped back to my normal height. “How was that?”

“Perfect,” he said. “I may never experience another erection ever again.”

I burst into a laugh.

“You’ve likely rendered me well and truly flaccid for the rest of my sexless days, Miss Paquin. Well done.”

My hands came up to cover my face. I was dying.

“You know what will make it even worse? If you demand that I take you shopping for our third date. I’d positively detest buying you things while you talk about how sexy my forearms are.”

“Shut up,” I laughed.

“Theory successfully confirmed. Now we just need to properly execute. I’ll have Savannah set up an appointment with my shoppers tomorrow.”

I wiped at the wetness trailing down my cheeks. “That’s not happening. We’re going back to my original plan. You go talk to Mabel and Molly, I’ll go prep for our interview, and we’ll forever pretend like this never happened.”

“No.”

“Why the hell not? You said you wanted to talk about it, and we did.”

He shrugged. “You can pretend all you want, but I’m not doing it.”

I wasn’t laughing anymore. “Are you… going to tell people?”

He frowned. “I wasn’t planning on it. Not until you and I come to an agreement, at least.”

So, if we never came to an agreement, he wouldn’t tell anyone? That could work.

“But you will talk to the Harrison sisters, right?” I asked. I’d also have to pull them aside at some point and ask for their discretion.

What a mess.

“Yes. I suspect I’ll have no choice.”

My eyes slimmed. “And what are you going to tell them?”

“The truth,” he deadpanned. “That I very much wanted to kiss you, so I did, and that you did not react violently like I thought you might.”

“To be fair, I thought about it.”

He chuckled. “If you’d like, I can also let them know that you’re not interested. That this attraction is strictly one-sided.” He waited for a beat before adding, “Would that be an accurate assessment?”

There was only one correct answer to that question. I didn’t need to hesitate or pause or think about my response.

Yet I stood there, holding his gaze while he patiently waited for my rejection.

“I… I’m never going to marry you.”

With that, I made my swift exit out of the cardboard palace Jackson Sinclair had built for my cat.