Page 37 of Stupid Matchmaking Love

Cristina drops her voice and leans over. “Rhett, I can’t win this competition.”

There’s that fear again—the same look she had when she took that phone call in the lobby last week. It was the first time I’d ever seen her shaken. Her shoulders had gone rigid, her voice tight.

I spin in the seat until I’m facing her. “Why can’t you win?”

She hides her face by tenting one hand over her forehead. “I just can’t, but I also can’t forfeit.”

“That makes two of us. If the quilt picked us, maybe it knows something we don’t.”

She glances at me, and for the briefest of moments, the wall she’s put up lowers and I catch a tiny glimpse of the real Cristina—vulnerable, full of life, complex.

Then she shivers like a cold wind swept down her back, and mutters, “The quilt doesn’t know anything. It’s a quilt.”

“Maybe so. But back to your dilemma.”

“It’s not a dilemma. I can’t win. You and I”—she points between us—“can’t win this.”

I fold my arms and lean back. “What are you proposing?”

Cristina looks around to make sure no one can hear. “We lose . . . on purpose.”

Her words land on my heart and drill a hole in it. She wants to lose before we’ve even started, and somehow that stings worse than not being picked at all.

“Why do you want to lose?”

Her eyes flash on me before darting away. “I have my reasons.”

“And what if I don’t want to?”

“Come on, Rhett.”

“No, I’m serious.”

“I am, too. Every time we’ve met, something’s gone wrong. You and I—we’re not meant for each other.”

That’s the problem—every wrong thing feels right with her.

“The competition will look rigged. And if we win, it’ll confirm it. And it might be worse for the resort if you do take that prize money.”

She’s got a point. We need this resort to be a success, not a flop, and if people think I wound up in the competition because it was planned, not only does the competition lose legitimacy, but so does the resort, and along with it, my reputation.

I’ve worked too hard to lose what I’ve built.

“I’ll do it,” I say, “but on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You have to tell me why you want to throw it.”

She drops her head back. “You’d have to ask that, wouldn’t you?”

“I didn’t say you have to tell me now. But before we’re out, you have to give me your reasons.”

She considers this, her eyes narrowing as those gears inside that pretty head of hers work overtime, trying to decide if she trusts me. Or is she coming up with a plausible lie?

Something tells me Cristina wouldn’t lie. It’s a feeling deep in my bones, like when we first met, that sensation I’d been circling someone like her my whole life, never getting too close for fear she’d be burned.

Not me.