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Oh, Lord, I’m making a mess of this, she thought frantically. She had to pull herself together before she made a complete idiot of herself!
“Okay, say I answer all the questions listed on the program,” the interviewer went on. “Then what? A woman out there looking for her perfect man decides if she likes my answers? Isn’t that the same premise of all the dating sites being advertised nowadays?”
“No—My Perfect Match is different. A woman won’t decide if she likes you—the computer will do the deciding,” Vivian attempted to correct him.
The popular television personality chuckled, and Vivian couldn’t decide whether she wanted to crawl under her chair or throw her shoe straight through the monitor.
“I’m not sure I follow,” he said. “A computer is going to tell me who my perfect mate is? Look, I’m all for new technology, but when it comes to a person’s love life, that all sounds pretty cold to me.”
She said, “Cold—hot—temperature doesn’t come up on the app’s questions.”
“Then what does come up, Vivian? A criminal background check?” he asked, then burst out laughing at his own crude joke.
How to avoid jerks like you, Vivian wanted to say. Instead, she said through tight lips, “Those types of candidates will automatically be ejected from the system.”
“That’s good to know,” Ted replied. “But I’m still looking for the flawless woman. Tell me exactly how My Perfect Match will find her?”
“I—think—” Her words trailed away in confusion and she darted a helpless glance at Wes.
Thankfully he picked up the rest of her sentence as though they’d planned it that way.
“I think what Vivian is trying to say is that My Perfect Match takes the doubt out of dating. It’s all about being compatible, rather than a person’s appearance or the chemistry between two people. Isn’t that right, Viv?”
Smiling, he looked at her, and for a moment all Vivian could do was gaze into his eyes. She’d never noticed them being so blue before or so full of warmth.
“Oh—yes,” she gushed. “Absolutely.”
“Well, I must admit this is a new concept. And you definitely sound confident about its abilities,” Ted said to Wes. “Would you be willing to trust your love life with My Perfect Match?”
“I certainly would,” Wes said without a pause. “I’m more than happy to let the app tell me who I need to be dating.”
The morning show host appeared completely amazed by Wes’s announcement. “You mean you’re telling me that you plan to use My Perfect Match?”
“I plan to start tomorrow.”
Vivian’s head jerked in Wes’s direction. Had he lost his mind? To hear him tell it, everything he’d been spouting about the app was pure hogwash. Ted Reynolds and the viewing audience might not know it, but she certainly did. Why had Wes suddenly made such a wild promise? And on national TV!
“Did you hear that, folks? Wes Robinson isn’t afraid to put himself on the dating market! He’s just vowed to use My Perfect Match to find his perfect lady. I can promise you that Hey, USA will certainly be following the outcome of this romantic venture!”
While Vivian was trying to make sense of what had just happened, the interview wrapped up. And even after a crew member removed her earpiece, she continued to sit watching dazedly as the broadcast crew carried its equipment out of Wes’s office.
Once the room was finally quiet again, Wes walked over to the wall of plate glass and let out a hefty sigh.
As Vivian watched him stare moodily out at the city, she forced herself to her feet. The past few minutes had twisted her nerves so tight she felt utterly drained, and for a moment she wondered if her legs would hold her upright.
“Well, that turned out to be a hell of a mess,” he said.
Vivian winced with regret. Of course he was disgusted. She’d let him down in a big way and made herself look like an imbecile in the process.
“I’m sorry,” she told him. “I’ve never done anything like this before. The second we went on the air, my mind went blank. And Ted Reynolds wasn’t helping matters. He was—”
She was searching for the right word when Wes found it for her.
“Being an ass,” he finished.
She took a few tentative steps forward until she was standing close enough to see his brows pull into a scowl.
“You noticed?” she asked.
“Hell yes, I noticed.”
Realizing she was twisting the frames of her eyeglasses, she eased her grip and thrust her hands behind her. “Well, I’m not going to use him as an excuse for my breakdown. Everything I wanted to say about My Perfect Match came out wrong.”
His expression a picture of frustration, he turned and closed the distance between them. “Forget about it, Vivian. It’s over and done with. And frankly, what you said or how you said it doesn’t matter now. I’m the one who came out of this looking like a fool.”
Stunned that he was being so magnanimous about the whole thing, she stared at him. “You? What are you talking about? You didn’t miss a beat. You made My Perfect Match sound like something every single person should purchase.”
He rolled his eyes. “I realize you were visiting another planet during our interview, but surely you heard me say I’d be using the app for my own personal dating agenda.”
She tried to keep the dismay she was feeling off her face. “I heard. But I don’t understand your frustration. Ted Reynolds will never know if you use My Perfect Match. I doubt we’ll hear from him or the show’s producers again.”
“If this was just a phony promise made to a jackass television host, I wouldn’t care. But I was also speaking to a national audience. Many of whom purchase and use Robinson Tech products. They expect me to be forthright about myself and my company. Not to mention all the curiosity this is going to generate with the public. Everyone is going to be watching like a hawk to see what happens with me and this—dating thing of yours.”
Vivian rubbed fingers against her furrowed brow. She should be happy that her boss had managed to get himself in such a predicament. His misery was fitting payback for all that ridicule of My Perfect Match he’d spouted to her yesterday. Yet surprisingly, seeing the harried tension on his face right now didn’t give her the slightest feeling of satisfaction.
“I see what you mean,” she said thoughtfully. “As a representative of Robinson Tech, you feel obligated to follow through on your promise.”
“It’s a relief to see your brain is working again, Ms. Blair.”
One minute he used her first name and the next he reverted back to “Ms. Blair.” His vacillation made her wonder how he thought of her. As Vivian the woman, or Ms. Blair the computer developer? Either way, she wanted to tell him she’d had enough of his insults for one day, but she’d already put her job in enough jeopardy with the interview debacle.
“Well, if that’s the way you feel—I mean, if you’re actually going through with your vow to use My Perfect Match, then it’s only right that I use it, too. After all, I’m the one who has real confidence in the app.”
With a faint smirk on his lips, he stepped closer.
“You? Use the app?”
The incredulous tone of his voice made her lift her chin to a challenging angle. “What’s the matter? Afraid I’ll prove you wrong about My Perfect Match?”
“I hope you do prove me wrong and this blasted thing turns out to be a roaring success,” he countered, then slithered a skeptical look down the length of her body. “I just wasn’t aware that you were looking for a perfect man.”
I’m certainly not looking at him now. Vivian bit down on her tongue to keep the words from leaping out of her mouth.
“In this day and age, the task of finding a perfect man seems like a hopeless quest, but I’ve not given up the search,” she said primly, then shoved her eyeglasses onto her face. “And now that I’ve created My Perfect Match, I feel much more hopeful of finding him.”
The sly grin spreading over his lips was followed by a suggestive gleam in his blue eyes. One that left Vivian feeling so uncomfortable, she wanted to run out of his plush office as fast as her legs would carry her.
“Well, you’ve just made this whole fiasco more bearable and interesting. I’m willing to bet I find my perfect woman long before you find your perfect man.”
Thrilled for the chance to prove him wrong, she stuck out her hand. “It’s a deal.”
His fingers curled firmly around hers, and Vivian tried to ignore the heat racing up her arm and stinging her cheeks with color.
“Great,” he said. “May the best man win?”
The wry taunt in his voice put enough steel in her backbone to make a metal detector blow a fuse.
“You have it all wrong, Mr. Robinson. Let’s hope love wins. For the both of us.”
* * *
Wes stared thoughtfully after Vivian as she headed out the door. Adelle passed her on the way into his office.
Since the secretary didn’t enter his private work space unless she had good reason, he knew something was up. Given the bad start to his day, he figured it wasn’t good news.
While she walked briskly into the room, her high heels clicking with every step, Wes sank into the plush chair behind his desk and wiped a hand over his face.
“Okay, what’s happened? It’s nine forty-five in the morning and you look like you already need a stiff cocktail.”
Stopping in front of his desk, she tapped the eraser of her pencil against the cherry wood. “You’ve really done it,” she quipped. “How do you expect me to get any work done when my phone is jammed with calls?”
“Adelle, you knew this interview was happening this morning. I told you to inform everyone that I’d be late returning calls.”
Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “Mr. Robinson, these aren’t your usual calls. This is coming from newspapers, television stations, radio and all sorts of media people. Everyone is buzzing with your announcement about My Perfect Match. I’ve been trying to put them off, but—”
“What do they want? If they’re interested in doing advertising for the app, then you should direct their calls to advertising and marketing.”
“Thank you for that helpful advice.” She shot him a tired look, then asked, “How long do you think I’ve been working here? A week or two?”
“Probably as long as the world has had white thread,” Wes said, not bothering to hide his impatience. He had more important things on his mind than listening to a lecture from his bossy secretary.
“That’s right. Longer than you can count. I believe I’ve gotten the hang of how to direct calls,” she informed him. “But I think you ought to know these calls are directed at your personal life. My impression is that the media plans to cover your so-called dates. You and the lucky lady will most likely be followed around like the hottest star of the week hounded by Hollywood paparazzi.”
“Oh, damn!”
She thrust her pencil into the hair above her right ear. “Oh, damn is right. What were you thinking?”
Ever since the interview had wrapped, Wes had been asking himself that very question. He’d accused Vivian of momentarily losing her senses; well, he’d admittedly committed the same crime.
“Clearly, I wasn’t,” he muttered, then rubbed his fingers over his closed eyelids. “It’s just that Ted Reynolds was doing his best to make a mockery of the app. I wanted to put him in his place.”
And surprisingly, Wes had wanted to come to Vivian’s defense. In spite of her ridiculous notions about finding everlasting love through a mobile app, he understood she’d worked long, tireless hours to get My Perfect Match to the public. She didn’t deserve to have her effort ridiculed in front of a national television audience. And yet, there was a part of him that wanted to open her eyes and show her that love wasn’t a cold, clinical pairing between a man and a woman. It was all about overwhelming attraction and desire. At least, that was how he wanted to imagine it. So far in his dating endeavors, he’d never experienced the euphoric state of mind called love.
“Hmm. I suppose if you find a woman who fits you like a glove, you’ll make Ted Reynolds look like more of a fool than he already is. Add to that, you’d prove Vivian’s theory about compatibility right. Which would be a good thing,” Adelle mused aloud. “And now that Ben is about to get married, it’s your turn to look for a wife.”
Wes grunted. “It’s not a written law that twins have to do everything alike, you know.”
The cell phone on Wes’s desk suddenly rang, preventing Adelle from flinging a disapproving remark at him. He picked up the phone to answer the call, but noticed she was already on her way out of the office.
“Just a minute, Adelle.”
Pausing at the door, she glanced back at him. For some odd reason, Wes suddenly wondered how the secretary had looked when she was Vivian’s age. Had she been madly in love with her husband? Or had the guy been like Wes’s father, Gerald? Unworthy of a good woman’s love? What if the dating app led Vivian to such a scoundrel?
“Was there something else?”
Adelle’s question had Wes mentally shaking himself. Vivian’s personal life was no concern of his. If any of her matches turned out to be cads, then that would be her problem.
“Yes, there was. Concerning my self-test of My Perfect Match, you can inform the media outlets I’ll be starting tomorrow. Oh, and you might also relay the message that Vivian will also be using the app—to find her perfect man,” he added drily.
Adelle looked at him with dismay. “Vivian? And you approve of that?”
Wes frowned. “Why would I disapprove?”
“Well, why indeed?” she asked with a smirk. “That sweet little thing thrown out there among all those wolves? I shudder to think who she might get tangled up with.”
Wes found it hard to imagine Vivian getting tangled up in the bedsheets with any man. She was too prim and calculating to have such a reckless encounter. “Believe me, Adelle, sweet little Vivian, as you call her, knows exactly what she’s doing.”
With a roll of her eyes, the secretary left the room, and Wes turned his attention to the phone in his hand. Before he could scroll through the call log, the face lit up with another call.
Seeing it was Ben, he drew in a bracing breath and took a seat. No doubt his twin had already heard about Wes’s declaration to use the dating app and was rolling on the floor with laughter. Well, Ben could do all the goading he wanted, Wes thought as he swiped to answer the call. When all was said and done, presenting his brother with a hefty sales number from My Perfect Match would shut him up.
* * *
When Vivian got back to Research and Development, George and Justine were waiting at her cubicle. From the guarded looks on their faces, she could tell they’d watched the live remote.
Holding up a hand to ward off their remarks, she said, “You don’t have to tell me. I was a complete disaster.”
George gave her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “It wasn’t all that bad.”
“Not at all,” Justine chimed in. “And you looked great with your hair like that.”
Vivian shot her a confused look, then quickly patted the top of her hair. “Like what? Is it all mussed up?”
“No,” Justine said with a giggle. “The way it’s tucked behind your ear. Gives you a really chic look.”
Just the thought of Wes’s infuriating remarks had Vivian quickly shaking her hair loose. “My hair was—just a mistake. And my mouth was even worse,” she added with a groan of misery. “Every word that passed my lips made me sound like an idiot! I’ve probably ruined any hope that My Perfect Match will be a big seller.”
“I wouldn’t think that,” George spoke up. “Uh, so what did Mr. Robinson say afterward?”
Before Vivian could answer George’s question, Justine pelted her with another.
“Probably angry, huh?”
Exhaling a long breath, Vivian moved past her coworkers and practically flopped into her desk chair. “Not exactly. I mean, Wes—uh, Mr. Robinson—isn’t the type to show much emotion. Have you two ever seen him angry?”
George and Justine both shook their heads.
Justine said, “We’re not as lucky as you, Viv. We rarely meet with the man.”
