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“Gerri, is this another one of your jokes?” Rhiannon sounded exasperated. Rising from her chair, she gathered the folders and promptly returned some of them to the cabinets they came from. “It’s not the best time for one of those, you know that.”
“I’m not joking about anything.”
“I’m up to my eyebrows with stress about this situation, so I really …”
Slamming her palm on the desk, Gerri caught her attention with a bang.
“I want to match Mars with you.”
Rhiannon blinked. Somehow, the words weren’t processing correctly. “Match us … like how? Is this a donor kind of situation?”
“No, silly. Like in a romantic sort of way. You can go out on dates with him, woo him, win him over …” Gerri made motions with her hands, but Rhiannon wasn’t following along.
“Gerri, do you realize how crazy you sound?” Rhiannon haphazardly shoved the last of her folders somewhere in her cabinet and returned to her desk. “Why would a billionaire like Mars Casey ever be interested in a person like me?”
“What? How could you say that about yourself? You’re beautiful. Any man would love to spend time with you.”
“He’s abillionaire,” Rhiannon repeated. “I’m sure he has a lot of options available. I can’t see how or why I would compete with any of them.”
Rolling her eyes, Gerri laughed. “Now you’re just being ridiculous.”
“I’m being honest and practical.”
“No, you’re not. Sit down before you give yourself a heart attack.”
Doing as instructed, Rhiannon pressed her lips into a thin line as she plopped into her office chair. Gerri rested her chin on her hand.
“I think it’s about time you know the truth about me. You see, I’m a matchmaker for shifters, and when an opportunity lands in my lap, you better believe that I’m going for it.”
Rhiannon frowned. “And what does this have to do with me?”
“I have reasons to believe that you’re Mars’s mate.”
“What the hell does that even mean?”
“We don’t have to get into the nitty-gritty about it right now, but to cut to the chase, it means that you’re the one for him. That’s a very big deal for shifters. It’s something they take seriously.”
“But I don’t understand. How could I be the one for him if I’ve never met him before? He doesn’t know about me.”
“Yet.” Gerri grinned. “And that’s something I can fix.”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand what’s going on.” Rhiannon turned away. “Are you sure this isn’t some plot to take money from the poor guy? If it is, I’m not interested.”
“No, no, not at all. Look, I have a brilliant plan that’ll make everything work perfectly. I’ll let Mars know I’ve found his mate, but we won’t tell him that you’re the one who needs help finding a location for the shelter. Do you understand?”
“You want me to deceive this man?” Rhiannon crossed her arms over her chest, sending Gerri a bewildered look. “I hate this idea; I really do.”
“It’s not deception, it’s just …” Gerri pulled a face, doing her best to make this sound better than it was. “Omitting information until the time is right. That’s all.”
Closing her eyes, Rhiannon wondered what she did wrong in her past life to deserve what she was going through at that moment.
“Don’t worry about the shelter location negotiations,” Gerri held a hand up. “I’ll deal with those talks. The only thing you have to focus on is getting to know Mars. You have the easy part.”
“I still don’t know a thing about this whole mate situation.” Rhiannon glanced at the woman, who was already collecting her purse to leave. “And how do you know he’s going to like me in the first place?”
“What’s not to love about you? You’re fabulous. Divine.” Gerri kissed her fingers and sent the smooch Rhiannon’s way. “I’ve got to get going. I have a meeting in ten minutes that I’ll be horribly late to. I’ll be in touch with the details about your date with Mars.”
Rhiannon was still doubtful that this billionaire would be interested in going out with her, and that shook her faith in the negotiations for her new location. This whole thing sounded like a mess.
