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Billionaire's Matchmaker
By: Sierra Cartwright
“I’ve told you, Hope…” He caught her shoulders and drew her close. “I’m not intimidated. Not by you or the creature that shares your home.”
He was going to kiss her. He leaned toward her, and she steeled herself. More than ever, she had to keep her emotions walled off to him.
But instead of kissing her, he released her and stroked her cheekbone. “How long do you need?”
Confounded man. He knew how to play her. Now that he’d refused the affection, she wanted it. Damn her. And her freaking topsy-turvy reactions.
Annoyed, she said, “As long as it takes.”
“Sweet, sweet Hope. I’ll still spank the attitude out you if you need it.”
She didn’t. “No.” Worse, she did. Somehow, she managed to avoid the confession. “There’s a coffeemaker in the kitchen.” He couldn’t hear the warble in her voice, right? “Make yourself comfortable.” Hope hurried to the bedroom and closed the door. Then her conscience prevailed, forcing her to issue a warning. Yanking open the door, she called out, “Stay on your guard around the Colonel.”
“Again—”
She slammed the door. And he laughed.
Frustration, with herself as much as with him, still poured through her as she stripped off her clothes and took a hot shower, expecting him to walk in on her. She reminded herself to be grateful when he didn’t. Unwanted disappointment tasted bitter.
After she shut off the water and wrapped a towel around her, the sounds of his rich baritone reached her. Then, more than a minute of silence was followed by a singsong crooning.
Freezing in place as she was slipping into a pair of panties, she tilted her head to listen.
“We might as well be friends, Samantha.”
He was talking to her cat? And he’d remembered her real name from last night? Hope shook her head. The man was certifiable.
The Colonel hissed. Hope grinned. Some things were consistent.
Even though he was waiting for her, she didn’t hurry through her morning routine. She’d told him he didn’t need to drive her.
When she exited the bedroom, wearing a long-sleeved shirt, a skirt, heels, and a blazer—her form of armor against the rigors of the day, including Rafe’s marriage mixer—he was holding a framed picture.
“Your father?” he asked.
“Right before his last deployment.” She nodded. “It was the last one my mother had of him.”
“It must be hard.” He slid the photo back onto the shelf.
“I don’t know anything else.” At times, school had been difficult—father-daughter dances, when her class had made Father’s Day gifts.
“This was his also?”
He pointed to a triangular-shaped shadowbox that displayed an American flag.
“Yes. He was buried with full military honors. This one draped his casket.” Why she displayed it, she didn’t know. When she’d cleaned out her mother’s apartment, Hope had taken her father’s smiling picture and the flag and displayed them on her shelves, in the exact same position her mother had. It hadn’t occurred to Hope to do anything else, not even pack them away in the trunk that she used as a coffee table.
She’d brought that too, from her Mom’s. It was a time machine of sorts, filled with the memorabilia that Cynthia had carried with her everywhere she went. The box contained her husband’s effects, photos, love letters, a wind-up watch, ribbons, mementos, his army-issued dog tags.
Each year on the anniversary of his death, Cynthia would open a bottle of wine and the trunk. She’d hold each item, one at a time, and the tracks of a thousand tears would stain her cheeks.
“Sorry to bring up something so painful.”
Hope tried for a brave smile. On some level, her mother’s ghosts had become her own. Hope, too, had her own grief ritual, commemorating her mother’s birthday. “Let me get the Colonel her breakfast. Then I’ll be ready to go.”
“I’ll do it.”
She frowned. How could he be so damn likable?
“She’ll have to like me after that, right?”
“About that…” The cat still glared from her perch. “It didn’t work for my neighbor.”
