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.Anderson, whatever makes your comfortable Mr.Anderson’.I’m not blind, girl.It must have been good too, to have you all nervous,” Mel insisted, catching my hand as I headed for my office door.“There’s something else you aren’t saying.When did you sleep with him?”I rolled my eyes, pulling away from her grasp.“I didn’t!”Melanie gave a quiet gasp.“Why are you such a liar, and how are you doing it with such a straight face?”“I don’t have time for this conversation right now Mel.”“Oh don’t you dare try to drop this! I want the whole story!”I lifted my hands to massage my temples, gritting my teeth as I spoke.“There is no story.He was a jerk to me, then he gave me a half-assed apology.”“The flowers?”“How did you know about the flowers?”She raised her eyebrows.“Duh, I’m the one who signed for them.They were nice flowers.”“Not nice enough.”“So why are you working with him?”Heaving out a sigh, I placed my hands on my hips.“Because Des asked.She’s a good friend, and doesn’t ask for much, so… I’m going to do this for her.Now can I get to it, please? So I can get it over with?” Not waiting for an answer, I sidestepped Mel and pushed open the door to my office.Collapsing into my chair, I threw my head against the back.I felt a little bad that I hadn’t given Mel the complete truth, but I knew if she thought there was anything there, she would bug the hell out of me, and I certainly didn’t need that.If I was lucky, I would get Avery matched quickly and could go back to never seeing him.As I sat down at my computer, I noticed the query I’d started before showing Avery out had finished.I clicked the button that would show the results I needed — the top five women that were qualified matches.I got excited when I saw that one of them was a 98.24% match.Anything over 97%, in my experience, was a sure thing, unless, of course, it didn’t ‘feel’ right.I picked up the phone to call her, to make sure she was still indeed single.Something about her number… seemed strange, but whatever.It wasn’t until my cell phone began ringing that I really looked at the name and photo attached to the profile.The phone dropped from my hand, making a loud clatter against the sleek, polished surface of my desk.No.No, no, no, no.The person who had a nearly 100% compatibility match with Avery… was me.Shit! I’d put myself in the system initially to assist in the creating my database.I needed real people, real answers to my questions to build software that actually worked, and it made sense to use myself.My profile, as was the intention for them all, was me, stripped down, no walls, no lies, and no cover-ups.It was the basis of who I was, and I rarely showed up as a match in anyone’s top fifteen.I had shown up as someone’s top match exactly twice.Rafael, and now Avery.If I thought about it too hard, it was a little disheartening that what I needed, and could offer, was so atypical that it was shocking that I had a match.This little discovery confirmed that maybe I wasn’t crazy for feeling a strong sense of connection with him, but that still didn’t matter.Avery had come to my office to be matched, but it certainly wasn’t going to be with me.— 5 —— Tori —I sank back into my pillows, waiting on my friend Renee to respond to the drama-bomb I’d launched into our chat.Renee and I had been friends for years after meeting and bonding via social media, and every year, I made a trip to the West Coast to see her.She and I ran very similar services, but Renee lived with her husband in California.ReNasty: “So… wow.What are you going to do? Are you gonna keep him as a client?”T.K.Oh: “Well yeah, it’s not his fault we’re a match.This is my issue, I’m not gonna take it out on him.”Dropping my tablet, I picked up my bowl of gelato with both hands, and contemplated sinking my whole face into it.The spoon wasn’t working nearly fast enough to help me drown my feelings.The LED light that indicated I had a new message lit up as I was shoving a huge spoonful of caramel cookie crunch into my mouth, and I grimaced against the brain freeze I had given myself as I turned the screen back on.ReNasty: “I get that, but… I don’t know, from what you told me about this Avery guy, it seems like there may be something a little more than just sexual chemistry there.And then finding out you guys are actually a match… this doesn’t seem like a good idea.”That’s because it was a terrible idea.I passed ‘not a good idea’ back when I agreed to take Avery as a client, knowing I had slept with him.T.K.Oh: “What do you mean more than sexual chemistry? There hasn’t been a chance for much of anything else.”ReNasty: “…you told me you spent 6 or 7 hours with this man.Yeah, you screwed each other’s brains out, but are you trying to tell me that was all? You already said you talked for a while before you decided to hop on his dick, so you can’t convince me there wasn’t more.”T.K.Oh “I mean, of course there was some pillow talk… maybe a bit of cuddling.He’s interesting, intelligent, charming, and he’s fine as hell.So yeah… we kicked it
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