Judith McWilliams - The Matchmaking Machine

He’d been intrigued by her from the moment he’d first seen her. And she really did think he was the plumber, which meant the interest he could see in her eyes was for him and not his money. The knowledge sent a fizz of anticipation zinging through his bloodstream—an anticipation vaguely tinged with worry as he remembered her very unflattering opinion of him. Would that spark of interest die when she found out who he really was? And she would have to find out. Once he showed up at the office on Monday, everyone would be jostling for a glimpse of their new boss. But that was Monday, and this was Friday.

Richard wanted the chance to get to know Maggie better. Much better.

Dear Reader,

Icy winds and fierce snowstorms have nothing on this month’s heroines who all seem to have a score to settle. And you know the old line about hell having no fury like a woman scorned—well, grab a hot drink and a comfortable chair and watch what happens when these women dole out their best shots!

Alice Sharpe leads off the month with the final installment in the PERPETUALLY YOURS trilogy. In A Tail of Love (#1806), it takes one determined wire fox terrier to convince his stubborn mistress to stay with the man she left two years ago. Ever since the big man on campus jilted her in high school, a former plain Jane has wanted revenge…and now his return, her transformation and a bachelor auction provide the perfect opportunity in Teresa Southwick’s In Good Company (#1807)—the second book in her BUY-A-GUY miniseries. Realizing her groom will always put his work first, a runaway bride heads for the mountains and lands on the doorstep of a man who could give her the storybook ending she craves, in Carol Grace’s Snow White Bride(#1808), part of her charming FAIRY-TALE BRIDES series. Finally, a computer programmer devises the perfect matchmaking program to exact revenge on her new boss, but she quickly finds that even the best-laid computer program can’t account for human attraction, in Judith McWilliams’s scintillating romance, The Matchmaking Machine(#1809).

Happy reading.

Ann Leslie Tuttle

Associate Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Silhouette Romance

Gift of the Gods #479

The Summer Proposal #1562

Her Secret Children #1648

Did You Say…Wife? #1681

Dr. Charming #1721

The Matchmaking Machine #1809

Silhouette Desire

Reluctant Partners #441

A Perfect Season #545

That’s My Baby #597

Anything’s Possible! #911

The Man from Atlantis #954

Instant Husband #1001

Practice Husband #1062

Another Man’s Baby #1095

The Boss, the Beauty and the Bargain #1122

The Sheik’s Secret #1228

began to enjoy romances while in search of the proverbial “happily-ever-after.” But she always found herself rewriting the endings, and eventually the beginnings of the books she read. Then her husband finally suggested that she write novels of her own, and she’s been doing it ever since.

An ex-teacher with four children, Judith has traveled the country extensively with her husband and has been greatly influenced by those experiences. While not tending the garden or caring for her family, Judith does what she enjoys most—writing. She has also written under the name of Charlotte Hines.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

She was going to teach John Worthington a long-overdue lesson in humility if it was the last thing she ever did, Maggie Romer told herself as she nervously tightened her grip on the thick manila envelope she was carrying. Taking a deep breath, she punched in the security code she’d been given to get into Worthington’s apartment building. The oversized glass doors obediently slid open.

Maggie stepped into the spacious lobby and looked around, trying to ignore her feeling of inferiority in the face of such opulent luxury. She was no longer an unwanted foster kid on the outside looking in, she reminded herself. These days, she was a well-paid, highly trained computer professional.

She was also a woman on a mission. Her soft pink lips tightened as an image of Sam Moore’s haggard features popped into her mind. According to his wife, he was so depressed that he just sat around all day, staring at the wall.

Sam might be powerless, but she wasn’t, and she was determined to get revenge for him. No, not revenge. Justice.

Justice was everyone’s right. Worthington might be the company’s new owner, but that didn’t give him the right to summarily fire Sam and then refuse to give him a reference. What Worthington had done was unconscionable. Sam was great at what he did. Not only that, but he was super to work for. She didn’t know a single person in the entire company who had a bad word to say about him—man or woman. Yet Worthington had dismissed him without even so much as a reference. And without a reference and an explanation for the firing, potential employers would assume that Sam was incompetent and had only held his job as president because he was the old owner’s son-in-law. The entire office was in agreement that Worthington deserved to be called to account for his actions.

In fact, Emily, Sam’s former secretary, hated John Worthington so much she hadn’t even been willing to deliver an important report to his empty apartment, despite the fact that he wasn’t due to arrive from California until later tonight.

When Maggie had heard Emily vilifying Worthington in the lunchroom, she immediately volunteered to drop the document off for her. As far as Maggie was concerned, getting access to his apartment was a heaven-sent opportunity to check the place out for clues about his personal likes and dislikes.

Trying to act as if she belonged in this kind of setting, Maggie walked across the lobby toward the sour-faced guard sitting behind a desk near the elevators. He straightened slightly as she approached, and the furtive gleam of sexual desire that lightened his eyes sent a chill of revulsion down her spine. She bit the inside of her lip as she fought her instinctive urge to hunch her shoulders in an attempt to hide her breasts.

“I’m Maggie Romer delivering a package for John Worthington. Emily Adams from Computer Solutions should have already called to tell you I’d be coming,” she told the guard.

“She did. And I told her that I was the only one on and couldn’t leave the desk to go up with you. She said you didn’t need an escort.” He shrugged. “That’s fine by me, but tell her I said if there’s a problem not to come to me about it.”

Maggie nodded and walked into one of the open elevators. Taking out the plastic card Emily had given her that provided access to the penthouse level, Maggie inserted it into the slot in the control panel.

Nothing will go wrong, she told herself, trying to ignore the feeling of impending doom that engulfed her as the elevator doors snapped shut. She’d leave the envelope on his desk in the study as Emily had instructed and then take a quick look around for any information about his personal habits that she could enter into the program she had written about John Worthington.

A sense of satisfaction filled her at the thought of the novel computer application she had come up with in her quest to teach Worthington a lesson. She’d been listening to a couple of her friends talk about their experiences with Internet dating when she suddenly realized that it should be possible to create a program that would tell her exactly what kind of woman John Worthington found attractive. After all, those Internet dating sites found potentially compatible mates all the time. And if she could do that, there was the possibility—even if it was a slim one—that she could turn herself into something close to his idea of perfection and get him to fall for her. Then, once he’d committed himself, she could laugh in his face and walk out, letting him find out what it felt like to be rejected. To be treated as if he were a thing of absolutely no value. Job, be darned.