THE MATCHMAKER’S BOOK CLUB #3
Ozara’s eyes sharpened. She knew praise from someone who understood what they were praising. “Lumi built that world alone. Every panel. Every line of dialogue.”
“That’s precisely the problem, isn’t it?” Revka sipped her champagne.
Gerri distributed cookies and let the silence do her work. Two mothers, separated by temperament and united by the same terrible fear: that their brilliant children would spend their lives creating extraordinary art about love and never experience it for themselves.
“You know,” Gerri said, turning a cookie in her fingers the way another woman might turn a card. “I’ve heard that Kael Axan is thinking about a new project. But he needs a collaborator to help design something fresh.”
Revka’s expression didn’t change. Not by a millimeter. But her stillness was the kind of stillness Gerri recognized—the stillness of a woman who’d been handed exactly the piece she needed.
“Perhaps Ozara might mention Lumi’s name to someone,” Gerri continued, her tone as innocent as a fox in a henhouse. “Who might mention it to someone else. Who might, eventually, mention it to Kael.”
Ozara looked at Gerri. Looked at Revka. Back at Gerri.
“You’ve already mentioned it to Kael, haven’t you.”
Gerri’s smile was a masterpiece of non-denial. She bit into her cookie. “The lemon zest really is the secret.”
Ozara turned to Revka. “She’s terrifying.”
“Yes.” Revka’s mouth twitched—the closest thing to a grin Gerri had ever seen from her. “But she’s effective.”
Gerri watched them lean closer. Ozara’s warmth meeting Revka’s precision, the two women finding each other’s rhythm with the speed of people who recognized a co-conspirator.
Within minutes, they were sharing phone photos of their children’s work—Ozara pulling up Lumi’s Instagram, Revka showing a rare photo of Zeir’s published villain spreads.
Their heads bent close. Their voices dropped.
Gerri heard fragments: distribution problems...
the elders are impossible... she hasn’t let anyone close since...
he creates at night when no one can see...
The party wound toward its natural end. Zy and Ellie slipped away first, his hand on the small of her back, her laugh trailing behind them like a promise.
The mothers lingered. They always lingered at Gerri’s events—there was always one more glass of champagne, one more secret to share, one more child to worry about.
Gerri stood at the window and watched the city glitter. Her phone buzzed in her clutch—a text from her industry contact, a comics publicist named Dale who owed her a favor from the tiger shifter situation.
I need you to make sure Lumi Stone’s portfolio crosses Kael Axan’s desk. Organically. If either of them smells a setup, it falls apart.
You’re matchmaking again.
I’m facilitating creative synergy.
The last time you “facilitated” something, a tiger shifter fell in love at a gaming tournament.
And look how that turned out.
She glanced across the room at the spot where Zy and Ellie had been dancing. Champagne toasts and happy endings. You’re welcome.
She tucked her phone away. Reached into her clutch for the last cookie. Bit into it.
Behind her, Ozara and Revka were exchanging numbers.
Good. The mothers would do half the work without Gerri lifting another finger.
That was the art of matchmaking—set the pieces in motion and let gravity do the rest. People thought Gerri forced connections.
She didn’t. She created proximity. She engineered the conditions under which two people who needed each other might accidentally discover that fact for themselves.
At least wolves mate for life, she mused, brushing crumbs from her emerald dress. Though she’d managed a tiger or two. *Tigers just eat you.
Wolves were tricky, though. Wolves were loyal to a fault and stubborn past the point of reason.
A wolf who’d locked his creativity in a drawer for years wouldn’t open it for a business collaboration.
He’d need more than professional proximity.
He’d need someone who spoke his creative language so fluently that keeping the drawer locked became more painful than opening it.
And the artist. The woman who’d been burned so badly that she did every piece of her work alone, who ate ramen rather than accept help, who poured every drop of love into fictional characters because fictional characters couldn’t betray you.
She wouldn’t open up for a publishing deal.
She’d need someone who saw her work—truly saw it, the way she saw her own villains—and didn’t flinch.
Gerri finished her cookie. The last of the crumbs disappeared.
The proudest hearts were the ones that had forgotten they were worth finding. She’d remind them.
She picked up her clutch, smoothed her dress, and walked out of the penthouse into the corridor. The elevator doors opened with a quiet chime. Manhattan waited below—cold, bright, indifferent, and full of people who had no idea Gerri Wilder had already decided their future.
She smiled. Stepped inside. Pressed the Lobby button.
By the time the elevator reached the ground floor, she was already mentally drafting the next move.