Catherine Mann - Desired By The Boss

Hugh: What’s your current success rate with your matching algorithm?

Ryan wouldn’t need time to look this up—he knew his company inside out.

Ryan: Almost one hundred per cent. We rarely have a customer receive no matches.

That wasn’t what Hugh had meant.

Hugh: So one hundred per cent go on at least one date?

Ryan: Yes. And over ninety per cent of users rate their first date experience with a score of eight or above. We’re very proud of that stat.

Hugh: Second date?

Ryan: We don’t track activity beyond the first date.

Hugh: Long-term relationships? Engagements? Marriages?

Ryan: Lots. There are many testimonials available.

He pasted a link, but Hugh didn’t click on it.

Hugh: Percentages?

Ryan: We don’t have that data.

Hugh: Could you guess?

He could just imagine Ryan sighing at his laptop screen.

Ryan: Low. Easily under ten per cent. Under five per cent, probably. Which makes sense when you consider that each user gets matched with multiple people. But anyway our job is the introduction. The rest is up to the couple. But, mate, why the interest? Do we need to update your profile to ‘Seeking a long-term relationship’?

Hugh: No. Just—

He stopped typing.

Just what?

Why was he suddenly questioning the method he’d been following for ten years? Especially when he’d contacted Ryan today to follow that exact method again. Nothing different. No changes.

He finished the sentence:

Hugh: No. Just wondering.

If Ryan had been a close friend—the kind of mate who knew when you were talking out of your backside—he would’ve questioned that. But he wasn’t a close friend. Hugh didn’t have close friends. The habits of his childhood—of keeping people at a distance, and certainly away from his home—had never abated.

Hugh asked Ryan a few more questions—just being social now. About his new house, his new baby...

After several baby photos, Ryan wrote: We should catch up for a beer. Somewhere quiet, of course.

Hugh: Sure.

And maybe they would organise it. But, in reality, ninety-five per cent of their friendship was conducted via video-conference or instant message. And that suited Hugh just fine.

Later, he answered the new compatibility questions.

He hesitated before submitting them.

Why?

Because his subconscious was cluttered with thoughts of April Spencer.

Particularly the way she’d looked at him that afternoon in the kitchen. Particularly the way her lips had parted when she’d closed her eyes.

But Ryan’s algorithm would never match him with April.

April was vivacious and definitely sociable. She had an easy sunniness to her—he found it difficult to imagine that many people would dislike April. He imagined her surrounded by an ever-expanding horde of friends and family, living somewhere eclectic and noisy.

While he— Well, he had a handful of friends like Ryan. A handful he felt no need to expand. No family.

She was a traveller...an adventurer. She must be to be her age and working at this job in London. Meanwhile, he’d lived nowhere but North London. And he rarely travelled—save for those essential meetings when he’d first expanded his company internationally. Now he insisted all such meetings took place via video-conference.

He was intensely private, and unused to having his decisions questioned.

She questioned him boldly, and she’d told him about her family and her absent father without the slightest hesitation.

And somehow he’d revealed more to her than to anyone he could remember.

So, no, they wouldn’t have been matched.

Apart from the added complication of her working for him, their obvious incompatibility could not be ignored.

He was attracted to her—that was inarguably apparent. She was beautiful. It was natural, but it didn’t mean anything. April Spencer was all complications. He didn’t do complicated.

What he needed was a date with a woman who knew exactly what he was offering and vice versa. And who was like him: quiet, private, solitary. No ambiguity. No confusion. Just harmless, uncomplicated fun.

He clicked ‘Submit’.

A minute later he received an email confirmation that his responses had been received.

Now he just needed to wait to be matched.

APRIL SAT CROSS-LEGGED in bed. It was Sunday, and her roommate had headed out for brunch, taking advantage of an unseasonably warm winter’s day.

Loving my new nails! So pretty. What’s your go-to shade for summer? #diymanicure #mint #glam #THEnailpolish

April studied her nails after she’d scheduled her post to appear at about this time the next day, Perth time—eight hours away. She’d painted them the lovely minty green that THE had supplied, along with their generous Molyneux Foundation donation. Her assistant, Carly, had priority-mailed the bottle overnight all the way to London—at a ridiculous cost that April planned to pay back to the Molyneux Foundation. But it had had to be done.

It was getting increasingly complicated as each week went by to be both April Molyneux and April Spencer. To be truthful, she hadn’t really planned this far ahead, and while her absences at social events had so far been attributed to her marriage breakdown, that excuse wouldn’t last for ever.

So far her Instagram account had supported the narrative of a fragile divorcee-to-be with carefully curated images. Yesterday she’d posted one of the photos she’d taken with Carly just before she’d flown to London. In that image—despite her blow-dried hair and designer-sponsored dress, apparently going for dinner with her sisters—she fitted the brief well.

She had looked fragile. Because she had been.

When that photo had been taken she’d been barely a month on from that devastating evening at the beach.

At the time, April hadn’t seen it. Maybe because she’d become used to seeing herself like that in the mirror: her gaze flat, her smile not quite convincing.

She’d been wearing heaps of make-up to hide the shadows beneath her eyes, to give colour to her cheeks. Without it she’d looked like death. And not in an edgy, model-like way. But really crap. Like, my husband has just left me crap.

She didn’t, she realised, look like that now.

When had that happened?

She dismissed the thought. It was more important that it had—that Evan and all he represented no longer dominated her psyche.

She wiggled her nails, liking the way the sun that poured through the windows made them sparkle. She’d flung open the curtains both for better light for her photos and to revel in experiencing actual sun in London.

Her sponsors were also tricky. But Carly was doing well: scheduling long into the future, where possible, and being creative with everything else. After all, it wasn’t essential that April appeared in every photo. She’d even roped Mila into one—with her sister admirably hamming up her mock-serious pose as she’d modelled long strands of stunning Broome pearls. This nail polish was the first product that had definitely required April to model it. It had been specified by the company, and her hands had featured in too many photos to risk that an eagle-eyed follower wouldn’t notice a substitution. Not that she would have considered it anyway...

But April knew that this couldn’t continue for ever.

The thing was, she’d assumed she’d have everything worked out already.

She’d imagined writing an inspirational post—maybe at her desk at her Fabulous Job In London. She’d talk about overcoming life’s challenges. About realising that she needed to stand on her own two feet and chase her dreams.

And she’d write that she’d done it all by herself, without using her family name to leap to the front of the queue.