The Right Swipe - Alisha Rai Page 0,91

bringing her to his home, sharing why he’d been so distant. Fear and worry trembled awake under her contentment, but his arm flexed and she fell right back into the warmth of his grip.

It’s okay. Tonight, she’d let him hold her and protect her.

And then tomorrow, she would win. All by herself.

Chapter Twenty-Four

RHIANNON WASN’T going to win Matchmaker.

She could see it in the slightly bored look in Annabelle’s eyes, in every doodle William made on his notepad. She had scrapped the PowerPoint, but she still had to give Annabelle her numbers and projections, didn’t she? Speaking from the heart sounded cute, but it couldn’t tell the woman cold hard facts about the terms of her deal.

Rhiannon crossed her legs. They were doing their pitches in the library. Unlike the rest of the house, which was light and airy and open, the library was darker, with navy walls and heavy furnishings. She’d been in more masculine, stuffy enclaves than this, but that didn’t mean she liked them.

Rhiannon sat in a wing chair facing the big windows, open to the lovely garden on the side of the home. Annabelle and William sat opposite her, behind a desk. Annabelle’s chair was larger than William’s, almost thronelike, so the man appeared smaller than his boss.

Rhiannon wondered how he felt about that. It was a power move, one Rhi might copy one day. But then again, odds were low that she’d ever hire someone like William.

“As far as employee retention goes—” Rhiannon broke off midsentence when William covered his mouth to hide his yawn. She couldn’t blame him, she was boring herself, and this was her presentation.

She rethought her entire presentation and decided to go with her gut.

This is another performance, another show. Imagine you’re up on that CREATE stage again, and kill it.

Only this time, the stakes were so high. She had to be successful. “Annabelle, may I go off script? Why don’t you ask me what you’d like to know about me? Get to know me better.”

The older woman straightened. “I love going off script.” She picked up a piece of paper in front of her and ripped it in two, tossing the scraps in the air. “Scripts are for fools.”

Ah, jeez. Rhiannon wondered what important section of her proposal the woman had just destroyed. She forced herself not to dwell on that and refocused when Annabelle spoke. “Tell me about yourself. From the beginning.”

An open-ended question Rhiannon often asked her prospective employees. “I was born and raised in western New York. My mother was a housekeeper, my father was a groundskeeper. He died when I was young.”

“Do you have any siblings?”

She softened. “Yes. A brother. Gabe. He’s perfect.”

Annabelle grinned. “I loved my sister dearly, but I never would have called her perfect.”

“Gabe’s perfect,” Rhiannon insisted. “He’s kind and sweet and everyone likes him. He’s getting married later this year.”

“You’re close to your family.”

She thought about how her mother badgered her to call and winced. “Yes. Though my mother might say I don’t call her enough.”

“I used to go weeks without contacting my loved ones when I got busy or distracted. Luckily, the people I loved, I chose wisely. When I did reach out, they were right there.” Annabelle squinted. “I regret that now, a little. Seems like I can’t remember some of the things that made me busy, but I remember most conversations I had with my family and friends.”

Rhi shifted. That didn’t sound like it needed a response, so she settled for a noncommittal “Hmm.”

Annabelle consulted the tablet in front of her. “You have an impressive educational background.”

“My parents were employed by a wealthy family. They sent my brother and me to an expensive private school.” She left out how she’d been tormented at that school, how she’d thrown herself into every activity so she could prove she was better at everything than everyone, no matter how much money her family had or didn’t have. Sure, she’d had friends, those who had had her back. In that sea of rich, privileged snobs, her skin color and working class background had still made her a prime target for the assholes.

“How kind of them.”

“Very kind,” she echoed.

“And then you went to Harvard?”

“I’m a Yale man myself,” William interjected.

“I got into Yale as well.” She’d picked Harvard because she’d had a photo of her father visiting the campus. She’d liked to imagine, when she walked across the grounds, that she was retracing steps her dad had once taken. A silly, sentimental reason to choose