Chapter 3

“They look…boring.” I pushed away the file. “For lack of a better word.”
“Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt,” Lyra suggested. She glanced at the names again. “They are all excelling in their careers. Not to mention their parents are powerful and influential people.”
She had a point. The six girls who’d made it to the shortlist all came from rich families and there was not a stain to their reputation. Clearly, Lyra was following Selene’s instructions to the letter. I made a mental note to give her a bonus if the project went as planned. 
“I appreciate your hard work. I really do,” I said gently. “You are an asset to this company, you know.” 
“But?” 
“I know Cristo,” I explained. “I’m telling you he won’t like them. They are all daddy’s girls. Not to mention…” I stretched a bit to point at the picture of the first candidate. Leah someone. “He doesn’t like blondes.”
Lyra was confused. Frankly, I wasn’t making much sense. I didn’t blame her. 
“Who would be his ideal girlfriend? Let’s start from there,” she said. 
That was easy.
“A brunette for starters. She doesn’t have to be perfect but should be hardworking and not afraid to go after what she wants. Someone who challenges him to be the best version of himself,” I explained. “Cristo values authenticity.”
Lyra’s eyes widened a little. 
“What?”
“You just described yourself, Lilith.” 
“Of course not!” I scolded. “That person could be Blair Halls.” 
My assistant wasn’t convinced. A smirk teased the ends of her mouth. 
“You don’t mean that,” she said. “We both know that the only thing Blair is good at is pushing Cristo’s buttons.”
“Maybe she has changed,” I defended, ignoring the otherwise meaning of her statement. Did I push his buttons too? Work him up? 
“You don’t mean that.” Lyra laughed. “Also, he dumped her so we are wasting our time debating this.”
“No,” I disagreed. “Selene seems to like her. Remember its Mrs. Caron we are working for, not her son.” 
“Okay.” Lyra threw her hands in the air in exasperation. “You are contradicting yourself. Maybe I should give you time to think about this some more.”
“Of course not,” I cried. “And what do you mean I’m contradicting myself?”
“One minute you are talking about Cristo and what he wants, the next you are siding with Selene. It’s complicating my job,” she grumbled. “Honestly.” 
She had a point. My thoughts were all over the place. Did I need time to reevaluate Selene’s request? No, doing that wouldn’t end well. 
“Sorry,” I muttered. 
“I can imagine how hard it must be for you to hook your ex up with someone else,” she said. “But you’ve got to decide which side you are on.” 
“Selene,” I clarified. “We are working for Selene.” 
Lyra smiled sympathetically. “Then we don’t have a problem with these names, do we?”
“No ma’am,” I said a bit reluctantly this time. “Now, shoo. Get back to work.” 

I had spent exactly seven minutes with Emory Wyatt and I could already tell she wasn’t the candidate I was looking for. 
Perhaps it was a little too soon to conclude but I had been in the matchmaking business for almost a decade and I prided myself in being a good judge of character. Experience had sharpened my intuition and I was seldom wrong about my clients.
Emory was too soft. I could go as far as to say she was fragile. The future Mrs. Carson had to have thick skin. She had to be capable of fighting her own battles without debasing the Carson clan in the process. In the world of the rich, scandals were not uncommon. If someone pulled a Blair Halls on her, she had to be able to hold her own. 
On the matter of socioeconomic status, she scored above the benchmark. The Wyatts owned a chain of hotels in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. While full control hadn’t yet transferred to the Wyatt siblings, Emory was the Chief Financial Officer in the New York hotel. So far, she was doing a stellar job and I had to confess, it was a strength that had really stood out to us during the pre screening stage. 
At only twenty six, her biological clock was ticking. She wanted a life partner. Someone to settle down with and have kids because her parents were too involved in her love life. To her, dating wasn’t just an adventure which was a good sign. It wasn’t unusual for me to come across clients who approached me purely for the thrill of meeting new people. As a firm believer of two people having to like each other beyond the usual unbridled love that we often see in movies, I always had to turn them down. Standing firmly by the core purpose of which my business was founded on was more important than money. 
“You said that your last relationship was over two years ago,” I said. “Why did you guys break up?”
I wasn’t really interested in the ‘why’ but rather, how she narrated it to me. Bitterness towards an ex and shifting the blame tells a lot about a person’s inability to take responsibility. 
“He cheated on me.” Emory laughed. “With someone I knew.” 
“How did you take it?” 
Emory didn’t answer immediately. She wet her bottom lip and let her eyes do a quick sweep of the coffee shop. I was hunting for a reaction but as soon as she gave me one, I regretted it. Seeing someone blame herself for her partner’s philandering ways stirred anger in me. Why is this generation so fucked up? Are men really aware of the damage they can do to women's self-esteem? 
“Not very well,” she said in a low voice, still not making eye contact. “But I decided to stay single until I was ready to trust someone again. Of course I won’t open up on the first few dates but I can say I have attained some emotional freedom by this point.” 
I nodded in understanding. For the next hour, I asked questions around her interests, work, spirituality and the like. She was fully cooperative and answered all questions honestly. There were no filters and her expressions were unrestrained and raw.  I painfully noted that I could never measure up to her candor, not even in a million years. 
At the end of the interview, I concluded that Emory was a sweet girl. In other circumstances, she and Cristo would have been good for each other. Although it would take some time, when she loved someone, she gave him all her heart. It was only fair that her love interest was someone who didn’t take advantage of that. That person was Cristo. However, the world of the Carons was too toxic and she could do without the drama, for the sake of her sanity.
“Thank you for your time,” I said. It was time for me to go back to the office and prepare for my next interview. But first, I had to break the bad news to her. It was the worst part of my job because there was no gentler way of saying it. 
“Emory, you are a good person. Unfortunately, you and my other client are not a good match.” 
“It’s okay,” Emory said, trying to put on a brave face but failing miserably. Despondency layered her tone. “I was prepared for any outcome.”
“But I will be in touch,” I promised. “Perhaps sooner than you might expect.” 
“Thank you.” She shook my hand. 

The next two days, I interviewed four more candidates. 
 I was disappointed to find out that I was right about them being daddy’s little princesses. Well, except for one, Kendra Philips. Her and Cristo would have been a match made in heaven and for that reason alone, I was crossing her name from the list. They had too much in common, her rebellious nature being one of them. Her parents had forced her to study law and after graduation, she became a partner in their firm. 
As a lawyer, she was erudite and ruthless, which made her one of the most sought after attorneys in New York. However, like Cristo, her true passion was music. As a matter of fact, she was handing in her resignation letter first thing the following morning. If she married Cristo, Alexakis Enterprises would need a new heir. 
 Leah was a bit of an airhead and the whole time, she’d prattled on about her trips to the Caribbean, how everywhere she went, men hit on her. She said it was ‘distressing’ and she needed to get a ring on her finger to stop men from lusting after her.
Her only saving grace was her money. She was the only heir to their family’s oil companies. Like Emory, her parents were pressuring her to get married. But in her case, the Grahams wanted a brilliant son-in-law to manage their company. Left in Leah’s fumbling hands, it was bound to collapse. 
Kimberly Park was an ‘It girl’. While she might have bonded with Selene over their love for dressing up for fashionable social gatherings, her love life was a bit catastrophic. In her teenage years, she’d dated older, married men. At some point in college, she decided to redeem herself and for a few years now, the public seemed to have forgotten about it. References to her past were rarely made. 
Lyra thought the Carons wouldn’t mind, seeing that she had proven to everyone that she was mature and as a result, less likely to go back to her old ways. However, when I interviewed her, she confessed to being in love with her ex. Her former boyfriend had moved on and was engaged to a high fashion model. That itself was another simmering scandal. With a lack of chemistry between Cristo and his future wife, at least for the first couple of months, Kimberly would be tempted to contact her ex. 
Amberly Browne and I got off on the wrong foot. First, she arrived thirty minutes late to our meeting and didn’t apologize. Second, she dodged my questions and instead, interviewed me. The entitled brat got on my nerves and I left without so much of a good bye. 
I still had Suzan Abrams and my arch enemy, Blair Halls. Suzan was dropping by my office in the afternoon. I was saving the best for last. 
“What do you look for in a partner?” I asked her when she arrived. 
 This question had already been asked before, during the pre screening stage but I had come to learn that clients were seldom truthful when submitting their applications. If they contradicted themselves, it meant that they weren’t ready. 
“Someone who loves me for who I am,” Suzan answered truthfully. “A man who isn’t intimidated by my success. He has to respect me, defend me and protect me at all times. I value communication and it’s important that my man is someone who knows what he wants.” 
“What do you like most about your job?” I had a feeling I knew the answer but I still asked anyway. Switching gears was healthy when trying to understand someone’s personality. 
Suzan’s eyes lit up. “I like that I get to be creative with ideas and opinions and on a daily basis, I get to make a difference in the consumer market.”
“Do you have female friends?” 
“Yes. Charlie and Nikki. We have been friends since college.”
“How is your relationship with your parents?”
“We get along, most of the time.” She smiled. “They are perfectionists and can be pretty strict with me. Now that I’m older, I understand that it’s because they have always wanted the best for me.”
“When was the last time you spoke to your ex?”
“Six months ago?” She seemed genuinely unsure. “I don’t know. Aaron wasn’t so fond of ‘staying friends with exes'.” 
“Do you work out?” 
“Yeah. Three times a week at the gym. Yoga at home when I’m stressed.” 
“That’s all,” I said, wrapping up the interview. “You should expect a call from my office in the next few days.” 
Suzan rose from her seat. “You made this a pretty painless process, thank you.” 
When she left, I looked at my notes again. So far, Suzan checked all the boxes that Selene wanted in a daughter-in-law. Her family, career and personality. She was beautiful, headstrong and a genuinely nice person. Unlike most twenty seven year olds, she had found her purpose in life and kept her face to the sunshine. 
I should have been glad that my search was coming to an end but for some reason, I felt unsettled and I didn’t like it. Almost as if I felt threatened by her. She was everything I wasn’t and it scared me. Terrified me, even. It was ten times worse than setting up Cristo with Blair and helping them work out their differences. At least with that bitch, I was sure Cristo had seen her true colors. There was no hope of them ever rekindling the spark they had before. Cheating was a deal breaker for Cristo. They would pose as a perfect couple to appease their parents but that would be it. 
But with Suzan, it was…different. 
Blair and I combined couldn’t even compete. She was perfect. Too perfect. I almost believed Cristo was wrong for her. Suzan wanted a man who was upfront with what he wanted in life so that they could build each other up. Cristo was yet to find the guts to quit his job. Surely that had to be a red flag. 
As soon as the stray thought formed in my mind, I pushed it away. I shouldn’t have hoped for something that likely wouldn’t even happen. A break up. I, of all people, knew that men tended to change for the right woman. Hadn’t I witnessed it several times? Who knew, maybe Cristo would cross oceans for her. Maybe she would be the one to challenge him to go after his heart's desire. 
Cristo falling for Suzan Abrams wasn’t something I was prepared to deal with. It was why I hadn’t found the courage to dial Selene’s number ten minutes later. A part of me wanted to put it off and dig up more information about Suzan. Something that Lyra had perhaps missed. Anything that pointed a finger at the real deep, dark, Suzan Abrams. Anything to convince the rational part of me that I wasn’t denying Cristo a chance to meet his soul mate. I needed proof that she wasn’t always a ray of sunshine. That was she was deeply flawed, just like the rest of us. 
Get your act together, I commanded myself, finally coming to my senses. 
Counting to twenty, I called Selene. 
“I found someone,” I said, ignoring the ache in my heart and the thoughts racing through my mind. “She is perfect. Her name is Suzan Abrams.”
“Abrams?” Selene asked. “Who exactly are they?”
“She is the daughter of Simon Abrams,” I said. “Used to be a congressman. He vied for Senator in the last election and lost.”
“Of course! The Abrams. I feel so stupid,” Selene said in a rapturous voice. “I’m impressed. Good job, Lilith.”
“Thank you,” I muttered. Clearing my throat, I continued to give her a summary of the interview.
“I would like to meet her,” Selene said. “When the time is right, of course.”