Kat Cantrell - Matched To Mr Right

Maybe he should up his workout regimen from forty-five minutes a day to an hour. Eat a little better instead of shoveling takeout into his mouth while he hunched over his desk at the office.

Gentle hands on his shoulders woke him.

“Leo,” Daniella murmured as she pressed against his arm. “You fell asleep at your desk.”

He bolted upright. Blearily, he glanced up at Daniella and then at his watch. Six-thirty. Normally he was already at work by now.

“Thanks for waking me up,” he croaked and cleared his throat. “I don’t know how that happened.”

She lifted a brow. “Because you were tired?”

Her stylish dress was flowery and flirty, but clearly altered to fit perfectly, and her hair hung loose down her back. Flawlessly applied makeup accentuated her face and plumped her lips and he tore his gaze away from them.

“Besides that.” He shuffled the Miles Bennett proposal back into some semblance of order without another glance at his wife. Though he wanted to soak in the sight of her. How did she look so amazing this early in the morning?

“Let me make you a cup of coffee,” she offered and perched a hip on his desk as if she planned to stay awhile.

“I have to go. I’m late.”

She stopped him with a warm hand on his bare forearm, below his rolled-up sleeve. “It’s Saturday. Take ten minutes for coffee. I’d like to make it for you. Indulge me.”

The plea in her eyes unhitched something inside. After he’d thrown up barrier upon barrier, she still wanted to make him coffee. How could he gracefully refuse? “Thanks. Let me take a quick a shower and I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

The shower cleared the mist of sleep from his mind. He dressed in freshly pressed khakis and a button-down shirt instead of a suit since it was Saturday. A concession he couldn’t recall making before. What had possessed him to do it today?

When he walked into the kitchen, the rich, roasted smell of coffee greeted him only a moment before his wife did.

She smiled and handed him a steaming mug. “Perfect timing.”

He took a seat at the inlaid bistro table off the kitchen and sipped. Liquid heaven slid down his throat. He wasn’t surprised she’d somehow mastered brewing a cup of coffee to his tastes. “You even got the half-and-half right.”

“Practice makes perfect.” She slid into the opposite seat and folded her hands into her lap serenely.

Something in her tone piqued his interest. “How long have you been practicing?”

“Since the wedding.” She shrugged, and her smile made light of the admission. “I’ve been trying to get up before you every morning so I could make you coffee. Today’s the first day I succeeded.”

The coffee didn’t go down as smoothly on the next sip. Why had she put so much effort into something so meaningless? “That wasn’t part of our agreement. You should sleep as late as you want.”

“Our agreement includes making sure your life runs fluidly, especially at home. If you want coffee in the morning, it’s my job to ensure you get it.”

My job.

Daniella was in the employee box in his head, but he’d never expected her to view herself that way. Of course, why would she view herself any differently when all he talked about was their arrangement?

The cup of coffee—and the ironed clothes, ready at a moment’s notice—took on implications of vast proportions. Everything EA International promised, he’d received. Daniella had slipped into her role as if she’d always been his wife. The staff liked her and already deferred to her judgment, which freed him from having to deal with the cook’s grocery account or the gardener’s questions about seasonal plants.

She was incredible.

If only he’d gotten the wife he really meant for EA International to match him with—one he could ignore—his life would be perfect.

It wasn’t Daniella’s fault he suffered from all-or-nothing syndrome. Intensity was the major backbone of his temperament. That’s why he didn’t draw anymore. Once he started, he could fill an entire notebook with landscapes, people’s faces—Carmen’s beautiful form—and then scout around for a blank book to begin filling that one, too.

If it hadn’t been for his calculus teacher’s timely intervention, Leo would probably be a starving artist right now, doodling in the margins of take-out menus and cursing the woman who’d been his first model. And his first lover. He’d been infatuated with capturing her shape on the paper, infatuated with her. His teacher had opened his eyes to his slipping grades, the upcoming SATs and a potentially bleak future mirroring his parents’ if he didn’t stop skipping school to draw Carmen. Fortunately, he’d listened and turned his intensity toward his education, then Reynolds Capital Management, vowing to never again let his obsessive personality loose on anything other than success.

He knew it the way he knew the sky was blue: the second he let himself taste Daniella again, that would be it. He wouldn’t stop until he’d filled them both. And once wouldn’t be enough. He’d be too weak to focus on anything except her.

“Thanks for the coffee. I should go.” Leo shoved away from the table.

Her warm almond-colored eyes sought his. “Before you do, I have a couple of questions about the party for Tommy Garrett.”

He settled back into the uncomfortable wrought-iron chair. “Sure.”

It was the only subject that could have gotten him to stay. The party was critically important since Garrett had narrowed down the field to two firms. Leo didn’t intend to lose out to the other guy.

She leaned forward on her forearms with all the attentiveness of someone about to leap into a negotiation. “What does Garrett Engineering make?”

Not What china should I use? or What hors d’oeuvres should I serve? “Why does that matter?”

“I’m curious. But also because I’d like to know more about the guest of honor. From you. I’ll call his admin but I want your opinion. It will help me plan the menu and the decorations.”

There was something hypnotic about Daniella’s voice that pulled at him. He could listen to her recite the phone book. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

Her mouth tipped up in a smile that was so sweet, it pulled one from him. “That’s why I’m here. Tell me.”

“Tommy’s a bit of a whiz kid.” Leo pursed his lips as he contemplated the most relevant facets of the man—and he used the term man in the loosest sense—he wanted to do business with. “One of those geniuses who wears Converse sneakers and hoodies to work. He’s just as likely to spout Xbox stats as engineering principles and no one cares because he graduated summa cum laude from Yale. He designed a modification to the way gasoline is consumed in a car that will increase gas mileage by almost double. It’s revolutionary.”

“You like him.”

“Yes.” The admission surprised him.

He hadn’t thought one way or another about whether he liked Tommy Garrett. Leo liked the instant profitability of Garrett’s design. He liked the idea of orchestrating the financing and letting Tommy be the face of the venture. Tommy had a lot of spirit, a quick wit and, despite the hoodies, he also had a work ethic Leo respected. It wasn’t unusual to have a conversation at eleven o’clock on a Saturday night to brainstorm ideas.

Impressed, he cocked his head at his wife. “How did you ferret that out from what I said?”

“Because I listened with my eyes.” Her smile widened as he snorted. “I could see it in your expression.”

Leo tried to scowl but he was enjoying the back-and-forth just as much as the sound of Daniella’s voice.

“It doesn’t matter whether I like him. We stand to make a lot of money together and that’s the key to our association. The party is paramount. He’s got another potential partner on the hook and I need to convince him to go with Reynolds.”