The Matchmaker’s Choice: A Lesbian Romance, page 1
THE MATCHMAKER’S CHOICE
Alexa Woods
© 2020 Alexa Woods
All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may
not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without
the express permission of the publisher except for the use of
brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to
persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely
coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s
imagination.
Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the
age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Also by Alexa Woods
Description
Adley matches people for a living, but what happens
when her client thinks she’s her perfect match?
Stephanie is sick and tired of finding Mr. Wrong, so she
does the only thing she can think to do – she signs up for a
dating agency. But when she finally starts to fall for someone,
it doesn’t quite go to plan. Because she’s falling for the one
person she can’t have … the matchmaker. And she’s a she,
which is a surprise.
When it comes to romance, Adley’s had it rough. The
irony of matching countless couples to their own Happily Ever
Afters for a living while being decidedly single herself is not
lost on her, but her painful past is holding her back. Until she
meets one of her latest clients, Stephanie. And now, she’s not
quite so sure she wants to keep her walls up anymore.
This is a standalone steamy F/F age-gap romance novel
with a HEA.
Chapter 1
Adley
I’m running late for one of the most important meetings of my
life, and I have my six-year-old niece in tow. What else could
go wrong?
Don’t jinx it.
Right. My life is already incredibly screwed. I was
made to understand that I was being given this client to work
with because everyone else was already overloaded. I was also
made to understand that my last six clients all failed to find
lasting matches. One gave the company a seriously negative
review that my boss had to beg and plead to get removed from
social media sites. One asked for her fees back, and the other
four tried the company’s services again. Not with me. With
one of my co-workers. Out of those four, three declared
themselves to be undyingly happy, or some cheesy, romantic
version of it.
“Where are we going again, Auntie?”
I haul Matilda out of her booster seat. I did a terrible
parking job when I hurriedly stopped the car in the one open
spot on the whole street, and the car door almost scrapes over
the sidewalk. I wince. Tildy laughs at my sour face.
“To the coffee shop. I have an important meeting with
a lady that I couldn’t reschedule.”
“Why don’t you have meetings in an office?”
“Well, we do. Sometimes. But some people don’t like
that. Some people think that’s impersonal. And I want to make
a good impression because if I don’t, my butt is going to get
kicked out the door.”
Tildy laughs. “Butt. That’s funny. Who would kick
you? That doesn’t sound very nice. I’m not allowed to kick
people. I got in trouble at daycare because I kicked someone.”
“I know.” I lift Tildy out of the car and set her down on
the sidewalk. Taking her small hand in mine, I walk over to
the meter. “Shit,” I breathe. “I mean, shoot. Dang it. Darn.” I
glance at my curious little niece. She’s very precocious and
has the most massive ears. Not physically, just metaphorically.
She giggles again while I stare at the meter in dismay. “Of
course it would be out of order. Just of course.” Makes sense,
though, as to why the spot was open. I don’t have time to find
a new spot. I’m running late, and I passed the coffee shop six
blocks ago. I’m going to have to risk it.
“Ready to run?” I ask Tildy.
She grins back at me and nods. We take off together,
me with my huge messenger bag filled with all my writing
materials, files, and laptop bouncing at my hip. Tildy keeps up
for about half a block, then she starts to whine.
“My feet hurt. Can you carry me?”
Jesus Murphy. “Alright.” I scoop her up. Thank god
she’s pretty small for her age. It’s one of the things her parents
fight over. The fact that they can never get her to eat anything.
She’s fussy. What six-year-old kid isn’t? “Here we go.” I try to
make a game out of the fact that I look like a lame horse
running down the sidewalk.
“Why are you meeting this lady?” Tildy asks as she
bounces furiously up and down. Her face is only level with
mine every other second. I have to keep glancing around her to
see the sidewalk and the intersections coming up.
“Because. That’s what Auntie does. You know that I
help people fall in love.”
“Yeah. You should help my parents.”
My heart stops. I don’t think anything could help
Mandy and John. They’ve fought since day one. I thought they
were the worst match ever, even before I started working for a
dating website for a living. It was pretty obvious to everyone
that they wouldn’t last six months, but then they did. They
were going strong, albeit with pretty rank fights and breakups
in between, for two years before they got married. They had
Tildy six months later. I’m not saying they wouldn’t have
gotten married anyway. That’s just the timeline. Long story
short, the fights got so intense that the relationship was more
fighting than anything else. Like the people who ask if you’d
like some fries with your ketchup if you like it too much.
That’s them. Would you like some good times with your
fighting?
“Honey…” I try to think of something to say, but
explaining to Tildy why she’s staying with me for the week
while her mom packs up her stuff out of the house because her
parents are splitting up for good and getting the big D is too
complicated for right now. I’m already late and I’m
completely out of breath from running.
Mandy asked me if I could watch Tildy since I work
from home and just go into the office for meetings. The office
is incredibly small as the company is still establishing itself,
only in its second year. Most of the room is taken up with
hardware and servers and blah, blah, blah stuff I don’t
understand. The space for actual people is tiny and we were all
given the option of working remotely, with that being the
encouraged choice. It seemed ideal. Getting to work from
home. Lounging around all day in my pajamas. Making my
own schedule.
You know what’s not ideal? Almost getting fired six
months after getting hired because the past two months have
been a disaster for me.
This is the one that is either going to make me or break
me. Freaking literally. Okay, it might not make me, but if I
mess up again, it could very well mean looking for new jobs. I
did browse through the classifieds section yesterday, when I
got up. I saw a serving position advertised for a medieval
themed bar and grill. They used the term ‘wench’ to describe
the position. Ugh. I can’t believe they won’t get sued over that.
Wench? Seriously? That’s about all there is out there right now
though, which doesn’t put any pressure on me at all.
&n
I shift Tildy to my other hip as we fly across the street
before the little walking man light goes off. I hit the curb,
nearly stumble, but manage to set my other foot forward and
keep on going. I did have to dress professionally, so that
means that I’m doing this in a skirt and blouse. Thank god for
the ballet flats I put on this morning, anticipating that I’d be
late.
I can’t blame Tildy, even if she did take a hundred
years to let me get her ready this morning. I should have just
offered her something to eat in the car. I shouldn’t have cared
that she dropped cereal all over her shirt. I shouldn’t have
insisted that she try to pee before we left, even though she
insisted she didn’t have to. I should have known I wouldn’t
win that battle. When does anyone ever win with six-year-
olds?
Tildy used to go to daycare during the day in the
summer, but since her parents are getting divorced and they’ve
had to seriously hash out the finances in some really unhappy
sorts of ways, they can’t afford the place anymore. Which
means that family has to help out. It’s just me and Mandy.
Dad’s still working, but Mom is retired. She’s going to watch
Tildy after this for the rest of the summer on and off between
John’s parents taking turns and maybe his brother, although I
doubt that very much, but she and Dad are on vacation in
Europe until next Tuesday. So that left me.
Normally, I wouldn’t mind. Tildy is a great kid and I
love her to death. I don’t mind today. I keep telling myself
that. I should be thankful. At least I still have a job and Tildy
is healthy and here for me to love. Mandy and John are going
to be much better off apart. When they’re apart, they seem
much more decent to each other. Everything is going to be
fine.
I’m not going to lose this job.
I burn those words into my brain as I reach the coffee
shop door. I get a load of my reflection before I rush in. Red
face. Dark hair pulled from my bun and stuck damply all over
my forehead and temples. Wild dark eyes. Blouse untucked.
“I want a latte!” Tildy announces loudly enough for the
entire coffee shop to hear. “With caramel and whipped
cream!”
I groan inwardly as about six heads lift up and six
faces, both male and female, young and old, judge me on my
parenting skills. Or lack thereof. I can’t very well inform the
entire shop that Tildy is my niece and I would never, ever give
her coffee, so I just set her down. I glance around frantically,
but thankfully, Stephanie isn’t here yet. I have her picture, so I
know what she looks like. No one in here looks like her. I just
hope she didn’t send me a fake one just so she could judge me
silently and unseen before we work together.
“Honey, can I get you some milk or something?
Chocolate milk? Juice?”
“No!” Tildy pouts. “I want a latte! With whipped
cream and caramel. That’s what mom always gets!”
“Well, she’s a grown up, sweetheart. Coffee isn’t good
for kids.”
“I don’t care. I want that!”
Tildy isn’t normally this difficult. She isn’t spoiled or
bratty. These past weeks have been incredibly tough for her
with what’s going on with her parents and it’s starting to show.
I stand there helplessly as Tildy’s eyes fill up with tears.
Fuck it. Let’s do this. “Okay.” I take Tildy’s hand,
ignoring the death glare and bad vibes coming from all around,
and march proudly over the counter. I smooth down my blouse
and brush my hair back as I stare at the menu.
“What can I get for you?” Even the teenage barista, a
really pretty girl who is probably seventeen or eighteen, is
judging me. I can tell by the way she’s looking at me, then at
Tildy.
“One decaf latte with whipped cream and caramel, and
one regular coffee, black, please.”
“The lattes have a lot of sugar in them…” the girl says.
I stare at her chest area, looking for a nametag so I can
see who I should blast, but then it occurs to me that maybe
she’s not trying to judgemental and just helpful and I need to
calm the heck down. I take a deep breath. This isn’t me. I’m
not mean to strangers. Never. That’s the one thing I can’t stand
in the whole freaking universe. When people are mean to other
people they don’t know for no reason at all. When people take
things out on other people even though it’s not their fault.
But no. The girl’s eyes narrow and she’s clearly
judging me.
I seriously have bigger things to worry about. “That’s
fine. No problem. I’ll get the small. And make the coffee
large. Thank you so much.”
She shakes her head at me as I get out my card to pay. I
silently vow never to show my face in the coffee shop again. It
had been one of my favorites up until now, but that’s alright.
There are a thousand others. This is Phoenix, baby.
I take my coffee, slap a lid on it, sprinkle Tildy’s drink
with some chocolate stuff out of a shaker, and pass it over to
her. “Here you go, honey. Make sure you savor that. This is
Auntie’s treat to you for being such a good girl this morning.”
By being, I hope that includes the future tense. I brought paper
and markers, and if that fails, there’s a tablet in my bag.
Because this is just my freaking day, I have to time
handing over a huge coffee drink that is labeled “latte” for the
whole place to see my shame and basically make it obvious
that I’m resorting to bribing a six-year-old girl to behave, right
as Stephanie De’Silvo walks in the door.
Chapter 2
Stephanie
I recognize Adley James by her clothes. She told me she’d be
wearing a purple blouse and black skirt. What she didn’t tell
me was that she was bringing her kid to the interview.
Which is okay with me. I happen to be a teacher. I love
kids.
The first thing I notice about Adley when I walk into
the tiny coffee shop is that she looks totally frazzled. She’s
also very pretty. She looks like she ran ten city blocks to get
here on time. Her blouse is a wreck, her dark hair is coming
undone at the nape of her neck, her cheeks are flushed, but for
all that, she’s gorgeous. I think other women probably
naturally hate her because she’s so pretty. Tall. Slim. Nice
boobs and bottom for her size though.
Not that I’m looking. I’m just saying, just getting the
full mental picture and assessing the situation.
“I got a latte!” The child, who is probably around four,
holds up her cup proudly. “It’s caramel!”
“Oh my goodness.” I notice Adley’s forehead crinkle.
“Sorry,” she breathes. “I didn’t—I mean, I know this isn’t
professional. I should have called you. It was kind of last
minute. I-if you want to reschedule, that’s totally fine. Or
cancel. I get it.”
“No. I love kids. No worries.”
Adley’s whole face registers her relief. “Can I get you
a drink? On me?”
“You know what, I already had a coffee this morning
and I think one’s enough.”
I smile at the little girl. She’s got dark hair and big
brown eyes like her mom. She’s pretty too, also like her mom.
They don’t look that much alike, but the resemblance in the
high cheekbones and the shape of the lips is definitely there.
“Alright. Uh, I…”
“I noticed there was a park on the way here. It’s only a
few blocks away. Just a little structure with some green space
and benches. I had to park further away, since there weren’t
any close spots.”
“Sorry.” Adley winces. “I shouldn’t have chosen such a
