Chapter 1 #3
"Here's how this works." She slid the card toward Emmy.
"Bring me Grant Knight as a signed client within two weeks.
Contracted, committed, willing to let us represent him in his search for a partner.
If you can do that, you have a position here.
Junior matchmaker, athlete demographic specialty.
You'll have access to our resources, our network, my expertise.
You'll also have autonomy to build this division as you see fit. "
Emmy took the card. Her hands wanted to shake. She didn't let them. "And if I can't?"
"Then you're remarkably good at interviews but not particularly good at delivering results." Cecelia's smile was thin. "And Elite Connections doesn't have room for the former without the latter."
"Two weeks."
"Two weeks. I suggest you start by calling your childhood friend."
Emmy made it to her car before the panic hit.
She sat in her Civic and stared at Cecelia's business card.
Cecelia Ferrance
Elite Connections
Boston's Premier Matchmaking Service
Premier. Not good. Not adequate. Not ‘impressive for your age or ‘you have such potential.’ Premier. The kind of success that made people stop asking when she was going to figure out what she wanted to do with her life.
The kind of success that required Grant Knight to agree to something he had zero reason to agree to.
Emmy pulled out her phone. Opened her contacts. Scrolled down to Sir Grant-a-Lot—her revenge for Tinsel Teeth, circa sixth grade.
She stared at it for a moment, then changed it to Grant Knight.
It felt like closing a door.
Their last exchange was still there. June, West's wedding. She'd been in a bridesmaid dress, he'd been best man, and apparently the sum total of their communication had been: You have your boutonniere? Grant's reply: got it.
Before that? She honestly couldn't remember. Maybe a Christmas text? Maybe nothing.
Grant had practically grown up in their house—Sunday dinners, summer cookouts, every holiday her mother could get her hands on him. He'd been as close to a second brother as you could get without the paperwork.
When his parents died his sophomore year of college, her parents had simply refused to let him drift—kept setting his place at the table, kept calling him on his birthday, kept treating him like he'd always belonged there.
Because he had.
But then he'd gone pro and she'd gone to college, and by the time she came back to Boston, the version of Grant she knew was the one that showed up with West, at West's things, in West's orbit. They'd never had the chance to become their own separate thing.
They were connected through West. Not through each other.
And now she was supposed to convince him to let her find him a wife.
Emmy dropped her phone in her lap and pressed her palms against her eyes. The smart thing to do—the ethical thing—would be to text Cecelia right now and say she'd been wrong, she didn't actually have that kind of access to Grant, she'd gotten caught up in the moment and exaggerated.
The smart thing would be to walk away. Start over. Find something safer.
But Emmy had spent six months working toward this exact door. She hadn't quit her job to hedge her bets. She'd quit because she knew what she wanted and Elite Connections was it—the only firm in Boston doing this work at this level. There was no plan B. She hadn't made one.
Elite Connections was different. Elite Connections was perfect. Everything she was good at, everything she wanted to do, packaged into one legitimate career at Boston's most prestigious firm.
All she needed was Grant.
Emmy opened her eyes and picked up her phone again. She could call him right now. Explain the situation. Appeal to whatever residual fondness he might have for West's little sister.
Except Grant had his face on billboards advertising sports drinks and energy bars.
He didn't need her help finding dates. He probably had women pursuing him constantly—athletes always did.
And even if he didn't, he definitely didn't need Emmy Woodhouse organizing his romantic life like it was a logistics problem to solve.
But Cecelia didn't know that.
She couldn't jump into this blind. This needed to be planned. She'd need to do her research—know exactly what she was walking into before she said another word to Cecelia or Grant.
But she couldn't ask West. He'd been in a bubble of wedded bliss since he and Brynn absconded to the suburbs, only emerging for football practice and games and the occasional Sunday dinner where he talked about gutters with their father.
The apartment was quiet.
She opened her laptop.
‘Grant Knight personal life’ went into Google, which felt faintly absurd. She knew Grant—but the public version was a different project entirely. Carefully managed, almost aggressively private. His social media was team-managed. His personal life was a locked room.
She needed the key.
Emmy closed the laptop and stared at her water-stained ceiling.
The worst part wasn't being stuck. The worst part was the stillness.
Emmy Woodhouse was not built for stillness.
Her brain was a border collie—bred for work, miserable without it, and fully prepared to destroy the furniture if left unoccupied.
She could feel it in her teeth, in the restless hum behind her sternum that woke her at 4 AM with nothing to do but stare at her phone and wonder who needed fixing.
Nobody, it turned out. Nobody needed her to fix anything.
But Elite Connections could change that. Could give her a place to aim all of it—the pattern recognition, the people-reading, the compulsive need to understand what made someone tick and then find the person who'd love them for it.
All she needed was Grant.
Emmy opened her phone notes and started typing:
- dating efficiency
- privacy and discretion guaranteed
- Access to women interested in genuine partnership, not publicity or status
- I already know him = better compatibility assessment than a stranger
- He'd be helping me establish my career (appeal to West friendship?)
She read it three times. It sounded logical. Reasonable. Like something that might actually convince a professional athlete to sign up for matchmaking services he didn't need.
It also sounded desperate.
But desperate was accurate.
Emmy saved the note. Opened her calendar. Stared at the next two weeks, completely empty except for a dentist appointment and daily walks with Daniel at four.
Fourteen days to turn a lie into truth.
Fourteen days to convince Grant Knight that he needed her help finding love.
Fourteen days to save her career before it even started.
Emmy closed her calendar and opened her contacts again. Scrolled to "W" for West. Her finger hovered over his name. She could call her brother right now. Ask him to talk to Grant. Use their friendship as leverage.
But that felt manipulative. And it would require explaining to West that she was on a new career path (again), which would lead to concerned questions she didn't want to answer. West was happy. West was settled. West didn't need to know his little sister was flailing.
No. She'd figure this out herself.
Emmy set her phone down and stared at the ceiling again. The water stain looked like a map of something—a continent maybe, or an island.
Now it looked like a problem she'd created for herself.
A problem she was going to have to solve.
Three hours later, Emmy was still on her couch.
At four o'clock, she put on shoes and grabbed Daniel's leash from the hook by her door.
Daniel was not her dog. Daniel belonged to Mr. Pantaleón, who ran the corner store across the street—the kind of place that resisted every category: part bodega, part convenience store, part neighborhood institution.
Pantaleon's Spa, the sign read. It was a cramped rectangle with refrigerator cases humming along one wall, a hot dog grill rotating near the register, scratch tickets fanned out under smudged glass, and a persistent smell of Café Bustelo that had probably seeped into the drywall.
Mr. Pantaleón had broken his ankle six weeks ago, and his son Jaciel was running the place while he recovered.
Daniel was also not a young dog. He was thirteen, arthritic, and moved like he'd earned the right to take his time. Emmy had started walking him when Mr. Pantaleón went down—Jaciel didn't have the hours, and Daniel needed the movement to keep his joints from seizing up entirely.
She clipped the leash and walked him across the street.
Jaciel was behind the register, phone wedged between his ear and shoulder, nodding at whatever his father was telling him while simultaneously trying to locate something in the filing cabinet.
He looked up when the door chimed and mouthed help me with the desperation of a man three days into a hostage situation.
"Insurance paperwork," he said, hand over the phone. "Dad says it's under P. There's nothing under P."
"Try the cash drawer. Manila envelope."
Jaciel reached under the register. Pulled out a fat manila envelope. Stared at it, then back at her.
"He said it was in the filing cabinet."
"He probably forgot." From somewhere in the background, she heard Mr. Pantaleón's voice, sharp and indignant: I heard that, Emmy Woodhouse. "Go ahead, I've got Daniel."
She took Daniel around the block. Slow loop—his pace, not hers.
He stopped to investigate a fire hydrant with the thoroughness of a forensic analyst. He regarded a squirrel with ancient, unimpressed eyes.
He allowed a toddler in a stroller to pat his head with a sticky hand, enduring the indignity with the patience of a saint.
Emmy brought him back, unclipped the leash, settled him in his bed behind the counter. Jaciel was already on the phone with his father, the insurance paperwork spread out in front of him, and he gave her a wave and mouthed gracias as she slipped out.
Back at her building, a laundry basket sat outside 3B with a Post-it stuck to the top: