Picture Perfect Love (Heartstring Dating Agency Book 3) Read online

  After ordering some food, I camped out in front of the television. All I wanted was to sleep off my hangover and be a vegetable for the rest of the weekend. And I was successful in that, but my brain was far from vegified. It raced through relentless thoughts about Abby—little snapshots from the night. And her parting gift… the promise of if our paths cross again.

  By Monday morning, I decided it was less of an “if” and more of a challenge. One that I intended to take on.

  For the first time, maybe ever, but definitely for as long as I could remember, I got up early Monday morning and was dressed, showered, and in the office at nine AM. I got a secret thrill from the way Camille’s mouth dropped open as I came strolling in.

  “Have you even been asleep? I can only assume you made it here so early because you came straight from the club.”

  I walked right past her, straightening my tie. “I told you I wanted to be taken more seriously. I’m just trying to help you out with that.”

  She didn’t look convinced, but I wasn’t really there for her anyway. I went straight to the tech department on a mission.

  “Let’s say there was a guy on the app that a woman didn’t want to see anymore,” I proposed to them cautiously. “And sure, under normal circumstances, that’d be her problem. But if this woman was a friend of mine, would there be anything you could do to help me out? Without my siblings knowing, preferably.”

  The guys shot each other a scrupulous look, but I knew their desire to prove they could do anything would overshadow their conscience and doubts. IT guys were like that… always up for a challenge, which made us perfect comrades for this.

  “We can send a sort of dear john message,” they explained. “Then block his accounts so he can’t contact her again.”

  It wasn’t quite enough. I mean, he could still call her. And when that happened, she’d have to know I was responsible for the message. What else would explain it? But was there any way it could be construed as romantic? Or better yet, maybe the guy would be so pissed he’d just let it be and never call her again. I liked that prospect much better.

  I watched as they searched for Abby’s profile—no easy undertaking since all I knew was her name and what she did for a living and a few of her hobbies. There were three students who were part-time waitresses and also liked yoga in a fifteen mile radius, all named Abby. Photos helped me pinpoint her specific profile out of the three, and then they had to comb through her recent matches and messages to figure out who this guy she was seeing was.

  Christopher, the doctor, who I instantly hated. She definitely deserved better.

  Then they crafted the message:

  Dear Valued Heartstring User, We regret to inform you that an issue has been reported to us regarding your most recent match with Abigail Matthews. We are not able to share the details of this complaint with you, but we can confirm that she wishes for all communication between the two of you to cease, both within the Heartstring app and outside of it. Her account will be restricted and no longer accessible to you. If you should encounter Abigail Matthews on the Heartstring site again and you fail to comply with these restrictions, you will be permanently deleted and blocked from all of our websites and apps. Please accept this code towards one month free premium membership as a token of our sympathies, and to find someone new. Replies to this message will not be read. Happy matching! -The Heartstring Team

  “This is crossing more than just a line or two,” one of the guys warned with his finger hovering over the mouse button. “You sure you want us to do this? This could be a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

  “Do it. If any trouble comes from it, I’ll make sure you guys aren’t held accountable. Tell them I threatened to fire you, if you have to. Hell, I’m already on thin ice as it is. I’ve got next to nothing to lose.”

  “Are you threatening to fire us if we don’t do this?” one of them gulped.

  “Let’s not split hairs. Just send the message.”

  They clicked the button and off it went. I stared at Christopher’s profile picture and laughed at the thought of him reading the thing. No more Abby for him, which left room for more Abby for me.

  Maybe it would end up going nowhere… or just maybe, she was everything I didn’t know I needed. There was only one way to find out.

  6

  Abby

  I straightened my clothes in the mirror, thinking to myself, Right, okay. You look great. Just like any other woman going on a perfectly innocent date with the new guy she’s seeing, and definitely not like someone who just woke up in another guy’s bed this morning...an infamous playboy’s bed at that.

  Maybe I was overcompensating, but I felt the need to play up my innocence in my appearance. I opted for a blush pink dress with a sweetheart neckline and soft tulle skirt. My mother’s pearl earrings were the perfect finishing touch and looked classic with my blue eyes and dark caramel hair. I hoped maybe I passed for the part of the doctor’s girlfriend.

  Then again… I wasn’t entirely sold on Christopher. He was nice and all. There was nothing really wrong with him. There just wasn’t anything that felt overwhelmingly right about him either. I didn’t feel the same primal pull I had felt with Joshua the night before. That sinful, powerful lust that made all the wrong about it seem so damn right.

  I stopped for a moment and sucked in a nervous breath. Those were the wrong kinds of things to be thinking as I set off to meet Christopher, and if I was being honest with myself, I knew I probably needed to go ahead and break things off with him. It would be better to get it over with sooner rather than later, and I doubted I would experience any miraculous shift in feelings over the next few dates that would make me suddenly believe he was the one.

  I faced my reflection again with an affirming nod. It was settled. I would go see Christopher one last time and let him down easy. And even more important to remember was that it had nothing to do with Joshua or any fantasy about what might happen if I ran into him again and was completely unattached.

  A short while later, I showed up to the restaurant we had agreed to meet at, a snazzy French spot that Christopher had boasted as having the best wine and desserts in the whole city. I was surprised he wasn’t waiting for me outside, since he was usually early. But I took it as a good thing. It would give me a few extra minutes to build up my nerve before seeing him face to face.

  But my brain didn’t want to cooperate. When I should have been strengthening my resolve to break it off, my thoughts were running wild instead. They kept slipping back off into memories from the night before—Joshua’s impossibly perfect manly body, sculpted and chiseled. His rippling muscles moving over me, the smoothness of his warm bare flesh and the wicked sounds he made.

  It was suddenly very hot. I started fanning myself with the menu after sliding out of my jacket and waving the waiter over for a glass of wine. The bittersweet liquid, once delivered to the table, did next to nothing to calm down my raging libido. You’d think the night before would have been enough to satisfy me, but apparently it had only awakened the beast within.

  I got so wrapped up in my dirty thoughts that I didn’t notice how much time had passed. I got frustrated when I finally thought to check my phone and realized it was twenty minutes past when Christopher and I had agreed to meet. I wasn’t going to feel the least bit guilty for thinking about another guy when he had the nerve to be so late without a single call or text!

  Then I remembered how we neglected to ever actually exchange phone numbers. We both had the Heartstring app on our phones and would message through that. I checked my inbox, but there were no messages from him. Even if he had gotten called into work last minute or something, wouldn’t he have warned me?

  The waiter started to look down on me with more pity each time he came around to ask if I wanted yet another refill.

  “Yes, please,” I sighed, even though it was already my third. Just the same as my naughty thoughts about Joshua, if Christopher didn’t want me getting drunk without him, he
should have showed up on time. At least that’s how I was choosing to justify it.

  With another glass down and still no Christopher to foot the bill, I finally accepted the humiliated defeat and asked for the check. I was still in disbelief as I stormed out of the restaurant. I had never been stood up in my life! Did he somehow know about what happened with Joshua? He certainly hadn’t seemed like he did in our messages that morning.

  Why it happened didn’t really seem so important as I called for a cab. It all had the same ending, me going home alone in a cab, and still not having had the opportunity to break things off with Christopher to ease my mind and conscience.

  After giving the driver my address, I pulled out my phone and checked the Heartstring app again. Still nothing. So, I called my friend Rachel instead.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be on a date with the hot doctor right now?” she asked immediately.

  “Ugh, yes. I was on the date, but unfortunately he wasn’t. He never showed. He stood me up.”

  “That sucks, hon. I’m sorry. But oddly enough, you don’t sound as upset as I’d expect you to be. What’s that all about?”

  A smile curled on the edge of my lips, catching me by surprise. “I am upset, but I guess it’s not the end of the world. I was actually planning on telling him I didn’t want to see him anymore.”

  “Oh! Then I guess it sounds like you both dodged a bullet. But again, why are we not upset about this?” She puzzled.

  “I might have… met someone else,” I confessed, trying not to let my giddiness show through my voice. “And it’s not like it’s a big deal. We didn’t exchange numbers… no plans to see each other again…”

  “But?”

  “But…” I cupped my hand around my mouth and dropped to a whisper. “It was some of the best sex of my entire life.”

  “What!? And who exactly is this mystery man? You’re normally not so quick to hop into bed with someone you just met.”

  “True, but it felt like I had known him a lot longer,” I defended. But really what I did know should have detoured me rather than encouraged me. Everyone knew Joshua was a no-good ladies man, always getting himself into trouble.

  “If you ask me, Christopher did you both a favor by not showing up tonight,” she replied. “I hope you have some way to see mystery man again, even if it’s only for the sex. You could use more fun like that in your life.”

  “Speaking of which, I’m going to go back to my place and eat the same number of calories I would have consumed at dinner, but through ice cream instead,” I told her. “And then call it an early night. I’m going for a run tomorrow, then yoga.”

  “Busy as always,” she teased. “Try and remember to take it a little easy at some point, okay? You need it after all that hot sex you apparently had.”

  I didn’t bother explaining that the sex left me feeling more refreshed and energized than anything else, even with my awful hangover.

  The cab pulled up in front of my place as I told Rachel goodbye and hung up the phone. Within minutes I had made it inside and stripped down to my comfiest PJs and slippers. I crashed down onto my couch with a tub of ice cream and spoon in hand and started browsing through what was streaming.

  By the time I had licked the tub clean of every last drop of ice cream, I was no closer to finding anything I was in the mood to watch. And I didn’t feel the least bit better about how the evening had gone.

  I was starting to feel foolish for wanting to break it off with Christopher over some rich playboy I knew nothing about...other than that he was funny, charming, and great in bed...which I could not say the same for Christopher, at least not yet anyway. But what was I thinking? Nothing else would ever happen with Joshua, that was if I ever even saw him again. Christopher was successful and responsible… and maybe if I had just given it more time, my feelings for him would have grown.

  Which only made me more furious with him for standing me up. I pulled out my phone again to check the Heartstring app for any messages from him. But this time, my username and password suddenly weren’t saved.

  I frowned at the screen in my hand. That was strange… I logged in just fine at the restaurant. But now not only was I logged out, every best guess I made at my username and password proved to be incorrect.

  Maybe Christopher was having the same issue! A site-wide login issue perhaps? That was why he couldn’t warn me that something came up and he wouldn’t be able to meet me for our date! There was one person who could tell me for sure, but I was not about to go stalker on Joshua Meadows, trying to find some way to contact him personally.

  There was nothing on the Heartstring website about any known issues on the site, but I was convinced my explanation had to be the case. It at least gave me enough peace of mind to crawl into bed and try to get some sleep.

  I closed my eyes and told myself that the issue would be resolved by morning. Christopher would send a message and invite me to brunch to make up for it. I’d see him and fall deeper than I meant to and forget all about this stupid one night fling with Joshua. It was just a fun little blip, and nothing more.

  But the dream version of myself seemed to have something else entirely in mind, because the moment I drifted off to sleep I found myself in a hazy dream about taking a shower. But I wasn’t alone there for long. Joshua’s perfect body found me, looking even better with the water glistening along his muscles in the bright lights of the bathroom.

  He smoothed his big rugged hands along my stomach, then down to my ass. He squeezed each cheek and slid his tongue between my lips, rolling it across my own. I lost myself in that kiss, those hands, and every wonderful thing that came after that, him dropping to his knees and sucking me in.

  I woke up in a sweaty, writhing mess, frustrated and mad with desire, more than I could ever remember being after a silly little dream. It’s like Joshua was some kind of disease I had caught, and I had yet to find a cure for the feverish sex dream symptoms.

  7

  Joshua

  It’s amazing what you can find out online with a little help from a team of tech-savvy pros. I was able to track down one of Abby’s friends on social media and strike up a conversation to find out what her favorite kinds of flowers were. A little more digging, and I was able to track down when and where her next waitressing gig would be.

  Lame doctor boyfriend from the dating website? Gone, and check. A gift to win her over? Check. A place to see her and perform winning over? Check.

  I put on one of my sharpest outfits and stopped by a florist to pick up a lush bouquet of peonies in their most gorgeous shade of blush pink. Then it was off to the country club where I knew she would be working all evening.

  The guy at the front desk looked shocked as I walked in, scanning the room for Abby.

  “Mr. Meadows, it’s so nice to see you here,” he stammered. “We’d normally be happy to welcome you as a guest at the club any time, but… I’m, uh… I’m afraid this happens to be a private event, and the veranda is reserved for guests only at this time.”

  I spotted Abby by the bar just as he finished his spiel. Her eyes locked on mine in shock before she blushed and tried to continue working.

  “Not a problem. I just came to see one person, and it should only take a moment.” I kept walking before he could object any further. I marched right over to Abby, my eyes on the prize.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, looking around bashfully.

  “I came to see you,” I smiled. “And to bring you these.”

  “Pink peonies!” she gasped, drawing the bouquet to her nose. “How did you know these were my favorite?”

  “A little birdy told me,” I winked.

  “And how did you know I would be here?”

  “Same bird,” I shrugged. “Hey, listen… I was wondering if I could see you again.”

  “You’re seeing me right now,” she teased.

  “I was hoping I could see you when you’re not working. Unless you’re in the mood to play hooky ag
ain.”

  “No, no way. I can’t do that again. That was a one-time thing. And anyway, we’re really busy here tonight. Two girls called out sick.”

  “I bet they lied so they could go out and have fun with some charming guys… though I doubt they were as good-looking as me.” I leaned against the bar, looking cocky just to make her smile.

  “You’re awfully sure of yourself,” she laughed, smelling her flowers again.

  “So, what do you say? How about I get your number this time?”

  “Oh, you mean you don’t have my number too?” Her brows raised. “You were able to track down my favorite flowers and where I work, but you couldn’t find my phone number.”

  “Even I have my limits. But… I notice you’re not saying no. Just stalling.”

  “I’m not stalling,” she insisted, playfully smacking my arm. “But you’re right, I didn’t say no either. I’m thinking.”

  “Abby! What the hell? Get back to work,” one of the other servers grumbled to her through their teeth as they passed us. “If Henry sees you standing around running your mouth like this, he’ll write you up.”

  She darkened her eyes over me. “See? You’re going to get me into trouble.”

  “Let me have a chat with your boss,” I offered. “I’ll give him a year free on Heartstring if he lets you off the hook.”

  “Or you could just save us all the trouble and leave.” Her brows rose.

  She grabbed a tray from the serving line and pranced off to serve it. I leaned back with a smile and watched her work, but I didn’t budge. I was having way too much fun and couldn’t leave without an answer from her.

  Ten minutes or so went by before she finally approached me again, hissing, “Still stalking me?”

  “I’m going to keep stalking you until you tell me when I can take you out on an official date.”