The Dating Experiment (The Experiment, #2)(23)

“It didn’t go wrong. It was just a short date.”

“No, a short date is coffee in a lunch hour.”

“You’re really starting to get on my nerves, Chloe.”

Good. He was getting on my nerves, too. It wasn’t like I hadn’t noticed how well that white shirt hugged his upper body, stretching over his biceps whenever he bent his arms.

For crying out loud, the material was going to rip if he kept doing it.

And I wasn’t even going to go there with the rolled sleeves. Nuh-uh. No way, Jose. Not a chance, rain dance.

Maybe it was the sangria, but I kinda wanted to lick the veins on his forearm.

Yep. It was the sangria.

I propped my chin up on my hands. “Am I? I couldn’t tell.”





Chapter Nine – Dom


Not all women were sugar and spice and all things nice.

Some were just spice.

Or maybe that was just Chloe after sangria.

“Are you drunk?” I raised an eyebrow at her.

She shook her head, still keeping it propped up on her hands. “Luca makes a mean sangria, but I’ve been sipping that one so long it was basically lukewarm.” She wrinkled up her face, her make-up free skin showing a light dusting of freckles that she usually kept covered up. “Unless being drunk would make you tell me why you’re here so early…”

“It was just a short date. What else do you want me to tell you?” I got up and walked toward the kitchen.

“You’re so full of shit, Australia can smell you.”

“Well, they’re welcome. I smell good tonight.” I chuckled to myself and turned on the kitchen light.

“You’re so annoying,” Chloe muttered.

“Says the one annoying me,” I shot back over my shoulder.

God, the woman could drive a man to drink himself into a grave. There was nothing about this date I wanted to share with her. I could say that with one hundred percent certainty.

Not because Rachael and I weren’t compatible, and she’d gotten it wrong, but because I didn’t want her to go and be with Warren if I didn’t have anyone. That was the whole point of this exercise—to get over her. Maybe seeing her with someone else would work, but before it did, it’d fucking hurt.

“I just want to know what happened. We said we’d check in, so check in.”

“I don’t want to.” I turned around and met her eyes.

She stared at me, folding her arms across her chest. She was make-up free aside from a tiny lick of mascara on her eyelashes, and that was a strange sight in itself.

Not that I didn’t love it.

I did.

I thought she was fucking beautiful when she wasn’t hiding all the things that made her, her. The freckles that lightly dusted her nose. The tiny mole at the edge of her left eyebrow. The chicken-pox scar right next to her ear.

“What went wrong, then?” she demanded. “Do you just not like her? I can find you someone else if that’s—”

“She’s a great person,” I cut in before she could carry on. “I like her just fine.”

“Just fine? Are you describing your date or the dessert?”

“Chloe. Drop it.” I turned back to the coffee machine.

I didn’t want to tell her that her client had lied on her application. I didn’t want to tell her that she’d omitted a huge part of her life when she’d filled out all the information.

If she’d put it in, there was no way Chloe would have ever matched her with me.

“I just want to know. It’s not about you. If I’ve done something wrong in matching you—”

I spun on the balls of my feet and took one step to close the space between us. She drew in a deep breath, her lips parting with the sharp inhale.

“I said,” my gaze met hers, “drop it.”

There was a flash of surly defiance in her eyes. One that closed her lips and made them press into a thin line. Her brows drew together like she was plotting my death within seconds of me speaking.

She was fierce.

And it was my favorite thing about her.

“I won’t drop it,” she said stubbornly. “Not until you tell me what happened.”

“Why do you care so much?”

“I clearly made a bad match. It’s my job to match you with the person that’s best for you.”

Which was something she couldn’t do.

The bare-faced fact of the fucking matter was that it would never happen.

None of the people she could ever match me with would be good enough.

None of them would ever be her.

I gripped the door frame, one hand either side, and held her gaze steady. “She lied on her application and admitted it to me tonight. Nothing you could have done would have made a difference. On paper, she was perfect. In real life, not so much.”

Chloe ran her tongue over my bottom lip, and fuck if my eyes didn’t flick to the smooth flick of it.

“Now, will you drop it?” I asked, dipping my head down to her.

She swallowed but shook her head just the tiniest amount. “What did she lie about?”

“Jesus fuck, Chlo.” I pushed off the frame and ran my hands through my hair. “You’re killin’ me over here.”