Chapter One
“Yourealizethisis insane, right?” Sofia said as she stared at her best friend’s computer while filling out a dating profile.
Hattie laughed.
“Insane or genius?”
“I can’t believe I am so desperate for a date that I am stooping to a dating website.”
“I already told you, it’s not a dating website. It’s Just Coffee.”
“Whatever. I get the premise, but I’m supposed to meet a complete stranger out for coffee somewhere and not get murdered?”
“You will not get murdered. Besides, aren’t we jumping the gun a bit here? You haven’t even clicked submit on your profile page.”
Sofia moved the mouse and hovered over the dreaded button. This last year had been a whirlwind, and now she was desperate for a date to take to her new brother’s wedding. Desperate enough that she clicked the button.
“Yay!! You did it!” Hattie cheered and jumped up from the couch to go for the bottle of wine they had abandoned in the kitchen, “First coffee, then a wedding date, and before you know it, you will be falling in love.”
“You watch too many romance movies.”
“Maybe, but it could happen, right?”
“I guess, but I’m not keeping my hopes up. What I need is someone who won’t murder me and is willing to pay their way to New York City for the wedding. I wish I was rich and I could just hire a fancy escort, like in all those movies you watch.”
“Um... you are rich.”
“No. My brothers are, and it’s disgusting.”
Sofia watched as Hattie emptied what they had left of the wine into both of their glasses and crossed the room, handing her one.
“Listen, I know this is all new for you, but if someone offers you tons of money, you take it.”
“I already told you: I explained to Micah there was no way I’d take money from his firm. Money has been the root of so much evil in my life and I don’t want him or Luca to be spiteful towards me over it.”
“They are the ones offering it to you. It’s not like you are asking. Besides, think of it this way; if your dad had stayed with your mom all those years ago, then the firm would have been left to you too.”
“But he didn’t, did he?”
Sofia had grown up in foster care until she was eighteen and finally able to get out on her own. She’d only recently learned that both of her biological parents were dead. Her mother died from complications at her birth, but her father had been alive and never once looked for her. When her cousin Dante showed up at her doorstep explaining he thought they were related, she nearly lost it. Now, after about a year, she’d learned not only did she have a cousin, but she also had two brothers. Her mother was her father’s mistress, and the boys were his from his marriage. He died of cancer long before she met them, but from what Luca and Micah told her, she was better off not knowing the man.
Looking for a change in subject, she picked up the remote and went to turn the television on, only to be interrupted by a notification on Hattie’s laptop. “Oh, my gosh! You already have a match!”
“That’s impossible. It’s ten o’clock at night.”
“It says here you can request a virtual meeting with your matchmaker for tomorrow morning to learn more about him, or download his file now.”
“Download it,” Sofia said, as her knee bounced with the excitement that was hard to ignore.
Hattie clicked a bunch of boxes, agreeing to disclosures she didn’t take the time to read, and began downloading the file.
“We need more wine for this.” Hattie went to the kitchen and opened another bottle while Sofia nearly bounced out of her seat waiting for the little spinning circle to finish so she could open the file. Once it finally finished, she clicked on it, and the first thing that popped up was a picture of the most gorgeous man she had ever seen. He had long wavy blonde hair and green eyes, but the thing that drew her attention in was the tattoos that ran up his arms and under his sleeves. They were colorful and unlike anything she had seen before. He was dressed like some surfer dude that had just stumbled off the beach. With swim trunks and tank top on, so she could tell the ink ran up the side of his neck in the one spot she couldn’t view from the angle he was standing in. She desperately wanted to see what was there.
“He’s... he’s actually hot.”
“What? Wait for me.”
Hattie nearly tripped, making her way back over to the small living room of Sofia’s apartment. She turned the laptop to see and her mouth dropped open.