Failure to Match: Chapter 23

“Everything all right?”

My shoulders scrunched even tighter, reaching for my ears.

Jackson took a seat beside me at the small conference table. Within seconds, the masculine notes of his cologne swirled into my lungs, making me lightheaded.

I clicked my pen and flipped the interview booklet open. “Everything’s fine. Why?” I’d been perfectly amicable with him all morning.

Warmth trickled over my skin as he eyed my profile. I kept my attention bolted to the questions in front of me.

“Well,” he started gently, “It’s almost noon, we’ve been attached at the hip since five a.m., and you haven’t looked at me once.”

He only knew that because he’d been doing enough staring for the both of us. I didn’t say this out loud though, knowing my irritation was misdirected.

I was mad at myself, not him.

“I’m just tired,” I said. “Didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

He shifted in his chair like he was going to probe further, but after a short pause, he picked up his phone and began typing away.

“Are you ready to get started?” I continued to scan the papers, even though it wasn’t necessary. I had the questions all but memorized at this point. “And just a reminder that, per your aunt’s request, this session will be recorded and subject to review by⁠—”

“Since when?”

“Since you signed the contract and agreed to it.”

“Your interview is not the standardized one I signed off on being recorded,” he argued. “You’ve got questions in there about my past relationships and sexual preferences.”

“Because that information wasn’t provided to us by your team, and we require the data to do our jobs.” I kept my tone calm and neutral, sticking to the facts. To be honest, I agreed with him. I couldn’t imagine my answers to some of these questions being shared with a member of my family.

In fact, the more time I had to digest Jackson’s situation, the ickier I felt about it. This whole process must have been incredibly invasive for someone who’d been thrust into it against their will.

Consent was the key thing here. All our other Immersive clients agreed to have someone follow them around for fourteen hours a day and observe their every routine, habit, and interaction. Not only did Jackson not want that, but he was also being forced into the end result.

And I was playing a major part in it.

My inability to sleep last night had given me a lot of time to think. And thinking had led to a whole lot of guilt.

“I don’t agree to this interview being recorded,” he said simply.

I knew he expected me to ignore his request because when I reached for my phone and hit Pause, his posture stuttered, and he blinked.

Which, in turn, made me feel even worse.

“Any other concerns?” I asked.

He let out a breath. “Yeah, you still won’t look at me, Jamie. Is it because of yesterday? Were you⁠—”

He was interrupted by Savannah poking her head into the room. “Your order has arrived, sir.”

He’d ordered more food? But we’d just had lunch—oh.

The seductive aroma of fresh coffee filled the room when Savannah walked in. She placed a steaming cup of heaven in front of Jackson, along with a side of cream, honey, and macarons.

Caffeine and sugar. My sleep-deprived brain drooled at the sight, and I cursed myself for not having thought to grab a cup before we’d sat down. The small Americano I’d had early this morning was on its last legs.

“Thank you,” Jackson said. “That’ll be all.”

She disappeared with another smile, and I shifted my attention back to the booklet, my mouth watering. “If you don’t have any other immediate concerns, we can get started.”

Instead of answering, Jackson slid the hot cup of temptation toward me. “For you.”

My gaze flew up to his, my heart stammering when I met their piercing blue. How was he more attractive every time I looked at him? Where was his ceiling?

“Thank you,” I half-croaked as my fingers wrapped around the warm, inviting cup. It was delicious. Rich and dark with a slight hint of cocoa.

His thoughtfulness didn’t help the guilt I was drowning in.

Jackson snatched up a purple macaron and bit into it, waiting as I took my time, savoring the first few sips of my coffee. The sharp edges of my mood were already starting to soften.

“All right, so… because there was so much pertinent info missing from our original dataset, I want to start by filling in some of those gaps,” I eventually said, placing my cup down. “I’ll need to combine your answers with my own observations—which we’ll also go over—in order to create a new, more accurate profile for you. After that, we can move on to the standard check-in. Any questions?”

He shook his head.

Fiddling with my pen, I decided to go off-script for a second. “I realize that your current situation isn’t exactly ideal, but I think… if you can give me some honest answers, I could really help you. Getting married might not be so bad if I can find you someone you like—someone you’re really compatible with, you know?”

I risked a glance up at him but couldn’t decipher his expression.

“How does that sound?” I tried. It was my way of letting him know I was on his side; but I wasn’t sure it translated.

Unsure of what else to do or say, I chose to interpret his unblinking silence as a yes.

“Great.” My eyes scanned the first question on the first page… three times.

I placed my pen down, picked it back up, sipped my coffee.

“Are we going to get started?” Jackson asked.

No. Yeah. Of course. My first meeting with Minerva was tomorrow, so this needed to get done.

I opened my mouth, meaning to voice the question I’d been staring at. Instead, I accidentally went off-script again. “You mentioned earlier this week that some of these topics felt invasive to you. If that’s the case—if I ask you a question that makes you uncomfortable—then you don’t have to answer it.”

He didn’t need to be in my direct line of sight for me to feel the shift in his demeanor, the curious tilt of his head.

I cleared my throat.

“I thought my compliance was mandatory,” he said.

Yes, well, “I’ve been given creative control over the process and I’m saying you don’t have to answer any question you’re not comfortable with. I’ll just work with the data I have.”

After a short pause, Jackson leaned in. Again.

I sighed. “We really need to work on your aversion to respecting personal bubbles.”

“Tell you what. I’ll provide an honest answer to whatever question you ask.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “But…”

“But some of those sections were left blank for a reason. So how about I give you all the answers, and we keep the private ones just between us.”

Damn Jackson Sinclair and his sultry voice. I swear I could get tipsy just by listening to him talk. Especially on zero sleep.

“And what am I supposed to do with the information if I can’t use it to find you a wife?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” He winked and my whole chest exploded into a tornado of butterflies.

My eyes snapped back to the questionnaire. Permanently, this time.

“Okay, last question for this section. You didn’t list any instruments on your original form, but you own multiple grand pianos. Do you play?”

Jackson tapped the strawberry macaron I’d placed in front of him. That was our system—green for the record, red for my knowledge only.

“I do,” he said. “I’ve played since I was six.”

I frowned. “Are you sure you don’t want that included? I still don’t have much to work with regarding your hobbies and interests.”

Jackson liked to make money. And then he liked to spend it.

That was basically all I had.

“It’s not relevant. I don’t play for other people.”

“All right. Fine.” I flipped the page, only to flip it right back and make sure I hadn’t skipped forward. We were already at the Past Relationships section? That was fast.

Jackson reached for the red macaron as soon as he saw the header.

I sighed. “Any chance there’s a single question on here I can use?”

“I doubt it.”

Tossing my pen onto the table, I stretched my arms above my head. We’d been sitting here for over five hours. My whole body was stiff.

“Let’s just skip it, then,” I offered.

Only because I didn’t want to waste any time. Not because talking about Jackson’s long line of impressively accomplished exes was about as appealing to me as chewing on a handful of thumbtacks.

My stomach clamped when he reached over me to peek at the booklet. With his attention on the pages, my rebellious eyes decided they were free to roam over his features and shamelessly drink him in.

He was undeniably perfect. Even with the afternoon stubble covering his sharp jaw and the light shadows etched underneath his eyes, he was devastating. I understood why so many tears had been shed over him. Now that the anger had ebbed and the burnout wasn’t so overwhelming, I could understand how he could be so easily destructive.

The urge to push myself away warred with the one begging for touch. I wanted to run my fingers over his cheekbone, his jaw… wrap his tie around my fist and force him to look at me.

I did neither—just lingered in the in-between like an indecisive coward.

An indecisive coward who loved her career and couldn’t justify risking it for a kiss.

“I don’t want any of these on the record,” Jackson muttered in his smooth accent, blissfully unaware of the havoc he was wreaking on my insides. “This section or the next two.”

“Then we just have the check-in… left…”

My words died when he met my gaze. It was like my brain shut off and I couldn’t find the switch to bring it back online.

Alarming.

On so many fundamental levels, this was alarming.

“I still think we should go over it.” He said it quietly. Like that, too, was only meant for me.

“Why?”

“You can still use it. When you’re… picking my next match, you can still keep this stuff in mind. I just don’t want it fed to a machine.”

I couldn’t even tell if that made sense, I was so distracted. As soon as he mentioned being set up with someone else, my fingers balled into fists and my gut clenched again as something in the deepest depths of my soul snarled possessively.

Extremely alarming.

“All right,” my mouth said as the snarling Thing grew bigger, developed claws, fangs, and the ability to spit fire. “I’ll just… you share whatever you want me to keep in mind for your next match. Since, um, you’ve already read over the questions.”

My voice lost the last bit of professionalism I’d tried so hard to maintain when it quivered. Then again, the proximity of our faces wasn’t exactly respecting any professional boundaries. Neither was the way he was looking at me. Like I was something to be devoured.

“And what about you?” he asked gently. “Are you comfortable getting into all this?”

“It’s my job.” I’d spent years discussing these topics with clients. This shouldn’t have been any different.

“How about this.” His head tilted to where the red and green macarons were sitting on the table, though his gaze never left mine. “If at any point you want to stop, just say ‘strawberry.’”

A whole lot of the muscles south of my professionalism clenched. “You’re assigning me a safeword?”

More clenching.

“I don’t care if it’s your job. You want to stop, we stop.”

“Okay,” I whispered back.

And that was the moment my brain chose to remind me that it’d been a year since I’d had sex. I slipped my hands underneath my thighs and cleared my throat, indicating that he should go ahead instead of staring at me. He took the hint.

“As far as my relationship history is concerned, blank is accurate.” He paused. I blinked. “I’ve never been in one.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised.

Maybe that should have made sense, given what I knew about his distaste for romantic love.

Still, it caught me off guard and, for a single deer-in-the-headlights moment, my face went slack. I’d dealt with other clients who’d been single all their lives, of course. It really wasn’t as uncommon as you’d think. However, that information was disclosed at a very early stage in the process.

And also, none of those other clients had been Jackson fucking Sinclair.

“Okay.” I managed to school my expression with impressive reaction speed, considering how close he was still sitting.

His stupidly handsome face split into a stupidly handsome grin. “Come on. I know you have questions.”

So. Many.

I didn’t even know where to start.

“You think romantic love is emotional snake oil. This checks out.”

At some point over the last little while, my chair had swiveled in his direction and his chair had swiveled in mine. We were face to face, our legs all but tangled.

“What about you?” His knee gently nudged mine. “When was your last relationship?”

“This interview isn’t about me.”

“I’d still like to know,” he said. “If you’re willing to share.”

Was I willing to share? It felt like we were dangerously close to crossing yet another professional boundary and I wasn’t sure how many more we could get away with before this whole thing blew up.

“It’s been just over two years,” I said.

Unsatisfied with my lack of detail, Jackson said nothing.

“He wasn’t ready to be in a committed relationship, so we decided to part ways.” Simple, standard stuff. Nothing too exciting. Oh, except, “He did get engaged to someone else like six months later, so…”

“You haven’t dated since?” He seemed genuinely surprised by that.

“I haven’t exactly had a lot of spare time over the last eight, nine months. And before that… I don’t know. There was no one I was into, I guess.”

“What was his name? The ex?”

“Lee.”

“Lee’s an idiot.”

“Oh please.” I huffed a humourless laugh.

“I’m being genuine.” His shoulders straightened, mildly offended by my reaction.

I rolled my eyes. “Right. The man who thinks my entire profession is a joke and doesn’t believe in relationships also thinks my ex is an idiot for breaking things off with me.”

“Because he is.”

The look I gave him was so dry, it made him visibly bristle.

“All right, look.” He ran a hand through his hair, nudging closer to me. “I apologize for what I said about your job. Truly, it was impolite and out of line. I regret it. To be clear, I do not actually think your profession is a joke.”

I snorted.

It only added fuel to his fire. “Jamie, I asked you to marry me yesterday.”

My pulse jolted. “That doesn’t count.”

“How?”

“Because one, you definitely didn’t mean it. And two, it was for convenience, not love.”

His features contorted as he grew increasingly insulted by my accurate judgment of the situation. “I did mean it,” he insisted. “And, again, I’m not quite sure what love has to do with us getting married.”

I threw my hands up. “It has everything to do with it, are you kidding? Do you have any fucking idea how horrible it is to be trapped in a loveless marriage? Honestly, I’d kind of rather die.”

His brows slammed into each other. “You’d rather die than marry me.”

“Not, like, literally. I just mean… You know what I mean.”

“I do not know what you mean.”

I sighed. “You and I don’t want the same things. We don’t view relationships the same way. I love love, Jackson. So much so that I’ve made it my whole career. If I ever get married, it’ll be because I love that person enough to want to share my life with them. That’s it.”

It was the one thing I’d wanted for myself since I was old enough to know what it meant. He still didn’t get it, though, judging by the way he was frowning at me.

“Let’s just move on,” I tried.

There was a stubborn edge to his posture I’d come to learn meant he was going to see the battle through to the end. “I’m not sure you understand what a marriage between us would entail.”

“Off the top of my head? I’m thinking loneliness, regret, boredom, discontentment, lack of fulfillment.” Loss of career. “What am I missing?”

The pointed lack of enthusiasm in my voice was meant to deter him. It had the opposite effect.

Amusement shimmered in his eyes, toyed with his mouth. “Let’s paint you a slightly more accurate picture, shall we? Just so you’re able to make a more informed decision.”

“If I tell you that nothing you say will make a difference, will you listen?”

“Not likely.”

“Then I’ll make you a deal.” I tossed my pen onto the table, crossed my arms, and leaned back in my chair. “I’ll listen to your offer, so long as you listen to my answer.”

“Fine, but let’s make it more interesting, shall we? I get to pursue this until you use your safe word. If you say ‘strawberry,’ I stop. Anything else I take as a green light.”

“Why can’t I just say ‘no’?”

The unsubtle glint in his eyes told me everything I needed to know. “The former can be much more fun.”

He was a dom, then. Figured.

“Fine.” It made no difference to me what word I had to use to get him to stop, just as long as he stopped. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

Famous last words.