Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Emmy's office at Elite Connections was less an office and more a storage closet that had been told it could be anything it wanted to be if it just believed hard enough.
It had one small desk, a chair that protested her existence with every shift of her weight, and a window with a view of Amore Italiana’s dumpsters—which, if she tilted her head just so, she could pretend was "outdoor dining adjacent."
But it was hers. She had claimed it with the ferocity of someone who had spent months working from a ‘home office’ that moonlighted as her couch, organizing her pens by color and taping a small print of a Jane Austen quote inside her desk drawer where no one else could see it.
There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.
A week in, and she'd memorized the ecosystem.
"Good morning, Beckanne," Emmy said, deploying her most aggressively professional smile.
Beckanne didn't look up from her screen. "Someone left a K-Cup in the machine again. It drips." She said this the way someone else might announce a death in the family.
"I'll look into it."
Apparently, ‘junior matchmaker’ was another name for bottom bitch.
Emmy walked past the "Success Wall"—Cecelia's pride and joy. Framed black-and-white photos of matched couples, all cheekbones and coastal real estate. Engagement photos on Martha's Vineyard. Wedding shots at the Four Seasons. One couple literally on a yacht.
Everyone looked perfect. That was the common thread. Not happy, necessarily—though they'd clearly studied happiness from a distance and could reproduce it on cue. Just... curated. Like their love lives had been focus-grouped.
She turned down the hallway. Sabine Greer's office occupied the corner with the harbor view—glass walls, leather furniture, a desk that belonged in a magazine no one could afford to subscribe to. Door always closed during consultations, which apparently required soundproofing and two hours minimum.
Sabine looked up as Emmy passed. Their eyes met. Sabine's expression was the emotional equivalent of a read receipt with no response—acknowledgment without engagement. The look of someone who'd already filed Emmy under temporary.
Emmy lifted her hand in a small wave. Sabine inclined her head a fraction of an inch, then returned to her client.
Emmy sat down at her desk, woke up her laptop, and pulled up Knight, Grant.
She had him. She actually had him.
Grant was officially in the system. Now came the hard part: finding the woman who wouldn't make him want to fake an injury to get out of a date.
Emmy pulled up the profile she'd spent the last forty-eight hours refining.
Name: Juliana Deliberto
Age: 31
Occupation: Art Gallery Director (Newbury Street)
Interests: Marathon training, high-altitude hiking, modern architecture
Emmy clicked through to the "Lifestyle" tab, where she'd pasted notes from Juliana's intake form and her blog, Optimized Living.
4:45 AM: Wake-up, no alarm (circadian rhythm optimization)
4:50 AM: Cold plunge (3 minutes, immune system boost)
5:20 AM: Fasted cardio (5-mile run, Zone 2 heart rate)
6:30 AM: Breakfast (macro-balanced, tracked in three separate apps)
Emmy sat back. She scheduled her bathroom breaks.
Like a psychopath.
But there was something else in the intake—a paragraph Emmy had almost skimmed past. Juliana had written about discovering a Rothko at the Tate Modern when she was nineteen.
I stood there for forty minutes and cried. I didn't know why. I still don't. That's what art should do—bypass the part of you that needs to understand.
A woman who could cry in front of a painting for forty minutes and then go home and track her macros in three separate apps—that wasn't a contradiction. That was someone with range.
It was logical. It was efficient. It was exactly what Cecelia wanted. And you kind of needed to be a psycho to date a celebrity, right?
"Sabine just signed the youngest partner at Bain Capital."
Emmy's soul briefly left her body. Cecelia Ferrance was standing in the doorway, having apparently materialized from the shadow dimension where apex predators waited for their prey to relax.
"Good morning, Cecelia," Emmy said, straightening her spine. "That's great for Sabine."
"She's consistent," Cecelia said, her eyes scanning Emmy's tiny desk as if looking for dust. "Sabine closed four high-profile matches last quarter. A tech CEO and a surgeon. A state senator and a museum curator. Do you know what those matches have in common?"
Emmy's stomach tightened. "They're all successful?"
"They're all still together. Six months later, still together, and actively recommending Elite Connections to their equally wealthy, equally selective friends.
" Cecelia leaned against the doorframe, looking like she'd been professionally pressed and dry-cleaned that morning.
"You have Grant Knight's name on a contract, Emmy.
That's impressive. But names don't keep you employed.
Results do. I want a 'definitely,' not a 'maybe. '"
"I have a match," Emmy said, turning her screen. "Juliana. The gallery director."
Cecelia leaned in, smelling of expensive soap and judgment. She tapped a manicured nail on the screen. "The marathon runner? Good. She won't be intimidated by his stats. She has her own."
"Exactly. Iron sharpens iron."
"Book it," Cecelia said, straightening up. "And Emmy? Don't let him wear a baseball cap.”
She vanished as silently as she'd appeared.
Emmy let out a breath she'd been holding since she walked in the building. She looked at Juliana's photo—perfect teeth, perfect hair, eyes that said I will crush you in a 5K.
"Okay, Grant," she whispered to the screen. "Meet your future."
She grabbed her bag, shoved Juliana's dossier inside, and headed for the door. Ryan was at his post, signing for a flower delivery.
Ryan was the only person in the building who said good morning without fail. He was probably twenty-seven, built like a high school athlete who'd never quite retired, and unfailingly kind. Next to him, Elite Connections felt like a social experiment in competitive indifference.
"Morning, Ms. Woodhouse," he said, glancing up with that easy smile.
"Morning, Ryan." She paused, hand on the door. "Quick question. If you were an NFL quarterback, would you want to date someone who wakes up at four forty-five in the morning to do a cold plunge?"
Ryan blinked. "Is this a hypothetical?"
"Very hypothetical."
He considered this. "I mean, if I'm already up at four forty-five for practice, maybe? Depends if she's cool with me sleeping until noon on Tuesdays."
"Right. Compromise. That makes sense." Emmy adjusted her bag strap. "Thanks."
"Anytime." He held the door open for her. "Good luck with... whatever this is."
Emmy stepped out into September sunshine and tried to ignore the small, persistent voice in her head that whispered you're missing something.
She'd been able to describe Juliana in three sentences—the range, the ambition, the Rothko tears. Clean. Complete. A profile she could hand to anyone and they'd understand.
But when Ryan had answered her question—would you want to date someone who wakes up at four forty-five?
—her brain had tried to answer for Grant, and the file was empty.
Not the stats. She knew the stats. She just couldn't articulate what he actually needed.
Every time she reached for it, the language went slippery, like trying to describe a color she could see but couldn't name.
Three hours later, the bistro around the corner from Elite Connections was everything Emmy had been eyeing since she got hired—trendy, buzzing, full of people who looked like they closed seven-figure deals before their second espresso. A client lunch felt official. Professional.
Grant would have probably preferred a hole in the wall like Antonio's. But this this was where matchmakers took their star clients.
Emmy made a mental note to stop by Antonio's next week with a new crossword book.
She spotted Grant at a corner table. He was wearing a navy Henley that fit like it had been personally apologized to by his shoulders, and—defying Cecelia's yet-unrelated orders—a baseball cap so faded it had probably been grandfathered into his wardrobe by squatter's rights.
Around him, the lunch rush clattered and performed.
Grant existed in his own pocket of calm, reading the menu like a man who'd already decided and was killing time.
Emmy slid into the booth, breath coming a little fast. She'd power-walked from the T station, clutching her bag like it contained nuclear codes.
"You're late," Grant said. He didn't look up from the menu.
"I am three minutes early."
"You're usually ten minutes early. Therefore, late." He signaled the server without asking her. "She'll have the turkey burger, no onions, extra pickles. And bring a basket of truffle fries. The large one."
Emmy bristled, smoothing her skirt. "I didn't say I wanted fries. This is a business lunch, Grant. I'm not twelve anymore."
"I've known you since you were in velcro shoes, Em. I know the signs." He handed the menu back to the server. "You're vibrating. Which means you haven't eaten, and if we don't get carbs into you in the next five minutes, you're going to be hangry.”
Emmy opened her mouth to argue, realized her stomach was actually trying to digest her own spine, and snapped her mouth shut.
He'd known her too long. Seven years older, basically a third Woodhouse sibling growing up. He'd seen every version of her—boy bands, bad bangs, the semester she came home from college convinced she was going to be a vegan (lasted three weeks). He knew her tells.
It was annoying. But right now, sitting across from someone who knew exactly what she needed before she had to perform competence she didn't feel yet—it was also a relief.