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“And are only accurate half the time,” I say. “Still, say something. What do you know?”
Rowan still won’t meet my eye. He shakes his head. The British are a tight-lipped bunch. Gossip is rude. Rudeness is death to them. “Nothing. Not for sure. Like you said, rumors.”
“Rowan.” I give him the look I give the younger brothers when they’re getting too lost in one of my meetings. When they think my spreadsheets are boring. My spreadsheets are never boring. “Speak.”
Finally, he says one word, but it carries with it a lot of weight. “Tess.”
“Tess?” The redheaded vixen of the family. Wife to Rockland, the head of the Village, our New York headquarters. Head accountant for the entirety of the Bachman operations. “What about her?”
Rowan reaches for the back of his neck, running a hand up and down over the snake tattoo that twists up his spine.
He’s clearly uncomfortable.
British tight-ass.
“Spill it,” I demand.
“There’s been some whispers around the Village. You know how she gets when she thinks she’s found a match,” he says.
No. I don’t. I tend to ignore anything that has to do with whispers around the Village. “A match? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Tess, she’s sort of named herself the unofficial matchmaker of the Bachman family.”
My stomach drops. “You mean match, like—relationship match?”
“Yeah.” He drags another sip of whiskey from his glass. “Damian’s bird Lindy says Tess’s like ten and oh for happy couples that she’s fixed up. Or something like that.” He shoots me a pointed look.
Lindy is a type-A, no-nonsense woman, the wife of our mutual friend, Damian. We both respect Lindy. She’s not one to gossip and is usually right.
Numbers are my thing. I like playing with them. The odds swirl around in my mind. “Ten out of ten couples. Damn. That’s pretty good odds. Blind dates probably only work out one in a hundred at most. For those people to then move on to relationships? It’s near impossible.”
He gives me the same look my friend Damian gives me when he calls me the human calculator. “Stop your number crunching for a second. I gotta tell you something.”
“Okay, but?—”
“Look, you wanna stop and make one of your pie charts over this? You’re going to want to hear this, mate.” He nods at my glass. “Drink.”
“What can Tess and her matchmaking possibly have to do with me?” I ask. “Everyone in the family knows what I’ve been through and why I choose to avoid this kind of thing.”
Nonsense. Waste of time. Relationships.
“So—” He goes to answer but his gaze leaves mine, traveling over my shoulder.
I glance over to where he’s looking. “What?”
Whatever he wanted to tell me, he swallows it down with a nod. “Ten o’clock. Bronson.”
I turn my attention. Bronson is heading straight toward me, Paige on his arm. They cruise over, saying their hellos to Rowan and me, then Bronson looks to me. “Can we grab you for that talk now?”
“Of course.” I hold out my arm, gesturing for them to walk ahead of me. “After you.”
Rowan and I exchange glances. He holds up his left hand, tapping his ring finger, like he’s trying to tell me something. No idea what on earth he’s talking about with Tess and this whole matchmaking thing and his strange hand gesture, but it’s making me fucking nervous.
I give Rowan a shrug as I follow the power couple to Bronson’s library, my heart lunging further into my throat with each step. Heaviness weighs on my shoulders as we enter the dark wood-paneled room, the faint smell of cigar smoke lingering in the air. I have no idea what they want to talk to me about, but there’s a discernable sense in my gut I’m not going to leave this room without my life being changed.
Paige and Bronson sit in the wingback chairs on either side of the fireplace. Paige gestures to an open leather chair across from them. “Please, Paolo, take a seat. Wait, the guys call you Savage, don’t they?”
I clear my throat. “Yeah—it’s a nickname. Call me what you want.”
