Free The Matchmaker Meets Her Match by Jenny Jacobs Page B

it.”
    Jeremy grinned at her. “I’m wounded. Don’t you feel the niceness radiating from me?” He batted his lashes soulfully.
    “Uh-huh,” Rilka said, walking toward the kitchen. “My last appointment ran late, and then there was the shower, so I haven’t had lunch. Want a snack?”
    “Of course I do. Chasing silly little dogs works up an appetite.”
    “I was going to nuke some frozen pizza.”
    “That sounds like my kind of cooking.”
    “I used to cook,” Rilka said. “But now that it’s just me — ”
    “The microwave seems easier,” Jeremy finished.
    “Yeah.” Rilka busied herself with plates and the pizza box and microwave. She was aware of Jeremy watching her but he didn’t say anything. When the microwave dinged, she got the pizza out and served it at the table.
    “So how’s it going?” she asked around a bite of pepperoni, and realized she wasn’t asking because she was his matchmaker, she was asking out of personal curiosity. So that was weird.
    “Food first,” he said, reaching for a slice. “Story of my so-called life second.”
    “Fair enough. I’m tired of talking anyway.”
    “Difficult clients?”
    “Could anyone be more difficult than you?” She grinned and added, “In fact, I think one was. He wants a trophy wife. The disgusting thing is I have just the right woman for him.”
    “That sucks. You can’t just say ‘men are pigs,’” he said sympathetically.
    “Well, you can,” Rilka allowed, “but then you have to stipulate that women are pigs, too.” She bit into the pizza again. Not bad for something heated in the microwave.
    “So how’d you get into this business?” Jeremy asked. Apparently the story of her life was fair game even though they were eating. “Forgive my saying but it doesn’t seem like your kind of thing. So there must be a story.”
    If she were Gran the adventuress there would be a story. Or even if she’d been a businessperson with a plan. She shrugged, swallowed, and said, “It’s not much of a story. I got laid off from my job — I was an analyst for a brokerage firm — and Gran had just died and left me the business or whatever the hell you’d call it.”
    “Gran?”
    “She was this Hungarian resistance fighter, or so the story goes, and escaped communist Hungary just in the nick of time. Took lovers until she was a very satisfied ninety-three-year-old and then died.”
    “What about your parents?”
    “I’ve never known my father. My mother is in Bangkok. Or at least she was. She’s a bit of a gypsy.”
    “Trying to take after your grandmother?” Jeremy asked.
    Rilka stopped, holding the next slice of pizza in midair. “Huh. I never really thought of that. But maybe she is trying to take after Gran. Gran the adventuress.”
    “The way you say that. Let me guess. Are you feeling as if your life is lacking in adventure?”
    “Yes,” she said vehemently and took a huge bite of her pizza.
    “I went looking for adventure once,” he said.
    Rilka swallowed her bite of pizza. It felt the size of a fist in her mouth.
Not just a job
, she thought, chasing the dry pizza down with a long swallow of Diet Coke.
An adventure
.
    She didn’t know what to say.
I’m sorry
wasn’t it. She figured shutting up was probably an okay strategy.
    After a long moment, he said, “Didn’t mean to stop the conversation like that.”
    “I know,” Rilka said. “You’re just sayin’. Adventure: not all it’s cracked up to be.”
    “Exactly. Just sayin’.”
    The silence was not as awful as it would have been with someone else. He didn’t seem to think she should say anything. He finished his pizza although she had sort of lost her appetite.
    “You appear to be done with your lunch,” she said after a while, getting to her feet and holding out her hand for the empty plate. “Can we talk about your so-called life now?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” he said, but though his tone was light his expression was serious.
    “What happened?”
    He