‘Good morning, Anita,’ I say cheerfully as I sail past reception into our open-plan office.
‘Welcome back,’ she says with a smile and a wave.
‘Thank you,’ I sing-song.
‘Hi, everyone,’ I call out. Several heads lift at once and my fellow agents rush to greet me.
‘Poppy! We missed you,’ says Freya, throwing her slender arms around my neck. I return the hug one-armed.
‘Welcome back, Poppy,’ says George, leaning in for a cheek kiss. ‘There’s an invite in your inbox. Drinks after work.’
‘I—’
‘Nope, not taking no for an answer. You’ve been away two weeks—’
‘Ten days,’ I interject.
‘And we have loads of gossip to catch up on,’ he says, disregarding my correction.
‘What George really means is he wants all the honeymoon gossip,’ says Freya playfully.
George swats at her. ‘I do not. That’s private business between Poppy and her smoking-hot husband. Besides, they’ve been married for months now. Surely that side of things has died down by now?’ He eyes me intently, the nosy bugger.
‘I am not answering that,’ I tell him firmly.
He blinks at me and purses his lips with reluctant concession.
‘Anyway,’ says Nasrin, ‘welcome back to real life. You look…’ She scrutinises me and I half expect her to blurt out something like ‘thoroughly shagged’ – George isn’t the only member of my work family who oversteps – but instead, she says, ‘Hot.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ I reply, basking in the compliment.
‘No, I meant you look overheated. Are you sunburnt?’ She peers at me even more closely and I step around her.
‘Just a little pink,’ I say, miffed. ‘It was overcast on our last day, and I didn’t realise I’d been in the sun too long.’ It was a rookie mistake for an Aussie who grew up sun-smart, slip, slop, and slapping her way through childhood – but I don’t mention that.
At my desk, I relieve myself of my handbag and retrieve my laptop from the locked bottom drawer. Thankfully, someone had the presence of mind to water my peace lily and its waxy leaves greet me cheerily.
‘Poppy?’
‘Yes, George?’
‘Drinks at five.’ He punctuates this mandate with a wagging finger, then wanders towards the kitchen.
‘Yes, George, got it. Five o’clock. And put the kettle on?’ I call after him. He lifts a thumb up into the air. I start every workday with a pot-for-one of perfectly brewed tea.
Freya squeezes my arm. ‘So good to have you back,’ she says before heading back to her desk.
Nasrin sidles over and perches on the edge of mine.
‘What can I do for you?’ I ask, giving her at least half of my attention as I boot up my laptop for the first time in nearly a fortnight. I can’t believe that only two days ago I was in the Maldives. On honeymoon! With Tristan!
It was our first proper holiday together, as I’m not counting our quick visit to Tasmania to spend Christmas with Mum and Dad. That was a whirlwind trip so Tristan could meet my parents, and I spent half of it enduring the cringey stories Mum told about my childhood – with photographic evidence – and the other half rescuing Tristan from Dad’s deep dive into the minutiae of farming apples. It was fun and lovely but very much not a holiday – especially as any time Tristan attempted to seduce me, I shooed him off. I was not having sex with my parents in the next room!
‘You’re lost in thought,’ says Nasrin, bang on. ‘I’ll come back in five.’
Left to my own devices, my mind wanders further. Even now, months later, it still feels surreal when I consider the magnitude of marrying the client I was supposed match with a fake wife.
With three potential wives – one man-eating disaster, one desperate-to-be-a-mother near-miss, and one Goldilocks-style just-right match – it turned out that Tristan had fallen in love with me! And despite striving for professional distance (and failing) and with every nerve in my body telling me to steer clear (while simultaneously yearning for him), I fell in love right back.
And why wouldn’t I? Tristan is caring, brilliant, funny, and ridiculously handsome. Just picturing him walking about our waterfront bungalow naked, which he did at least once a day while we were on honeymoon, elicits a sigh.
‘Are you finished faffing yet?’ Nasrin asks, returning to her perch on my desk.
I abandon the not-suitable-for-work thoughts of my husband, lean back in my office chair, and smile benevolently. ‘Go for it.’ Nas may be impatient (and at times, mildly irritating), but I am still riding a post-honeymoon high, and nothing can faze me today.
‘I have something for you – a case,’ she says.
Oh. I had hoped to take a day or two to get back into the rhythm of work, but there’s something in her tone that captures my interest.
‘What is it?’
‘Long-lost love – can’t forget him, can’t get over him, can’t find him.’
‘Ooh, that sounds interesting,’ I say, leaning forward. ‘Go on.’
‘Client’s coming in tomorrow and—’
‘Wait, are you asking for a second or…’
She huffs out a frustrated sigh. ‘No, I wish. But I’m knee-deep in my parent-trap case and I need you to take the lead on this one. She’s a referral from a friend, so I don’t want to turn her down.’
‘Ahh.’
‘Please,’ she adds as an afterthought.
‘I’ll happily consider taking the case.’
She nods. ‘Brill. Thanks, Poppy.’
Nasrin seems to be ignoring the ‘consider’ part of my offer, as she’s acting like I’ve already said yes. I choose my next words carefully. ‘And if I do take the case, how about you’re my second?’
‘Oh! You sure? Our styles are a little… uh…’
‘Different,’ I finish. ‘I know, but you love these,’ I say, alluding to her fondness for ‘lost love’ cases. I’m guessing that Nasrin has her own lurking in the past.
‘I do but…’ She pauses, internal conflict blaring from her face. Nasrin is either on the precipice of a gigantic moan about the unfairness of the universe or… well, not. She reins it in. ‘That would be fab, Poppy. I’ll send through the invite.’ She gets up from my desk and immediately turns back around. ‘Oh, and our client, the one who’s coming in – she’s actually our real client’s sister.’
‘Oh. So, a secret behind-the-scenes match?’
‘Exactly,’ she says with a lift of her brows.
Ooh, this case already appeals to me.
‘Tris, is that you?’ I call from my nook in the guest bedroom.
I’m sat at my beloved antique secretary, catching up on work emails and aiming to get my inbox down to zero before dinner. And even though I went for a quick after-work drink, as mandated by George, I still beat Tristan home by an hour.
‘No, darling, it’s your lover, Raoul.’
A grin spreads across my face. It was only weeks into our marriage when we began this playful exchange for post-work sexy time. ‘Well, you’d better get in here and ravish me. My husband will be home any minute now.’
Tristan appears at the doorway, rumpledly handsome after a long workday moving money across the globe in complicated multi-million-pound transactions.
‘Hello, wife,’ he says, his whisky-coloured eyes boring into mine. Not too long ago, I considered the word ‘wife’ to be a perfunctory, unsexy word. From Tristan’s lips, it has superpowers and my body floods with heat.
Without a second thought, I abandon my work and fling myself into his arms. His mouth finds mine and he kisses me hungrily. I tug at his silk tie, loosening it, then carelessly drop it to the floor. And so begins our rushed disrobing, buttons taking too long to come free and zippers annoyingly stubborn. Since making love for the first time, on our wedding night, we cannot keep our hands off each other.
‘Here or—’
‘Here,’ I say against his lips, as our bedroom seems a mile away even though it’s just on the other side of the lounge room. Tristan backs me up to the bed, then performs the (very smooth) manoeuvre of lowering me onto it with one arm while hovering over me with the other. He pulls back, regarding me intensely, and a grin breaks across his face. ‘I missed you today.’
‘I missed you too,’ I say, my voice raspy with lust. I grab him, impatient, and the feeling of his skin against mine almost sends me over the edge – almost.
But my newish husband knows exactly how to tease me, leading me up to the brink, then bringing me back in an excruciatingly exquisite dance.
Sometime later, I surrender to sensation and cry out. We still, lying side by side, our skin glistening and both out of breath. Well, I am. Tristan is so fit, he could probably run a marathon at a moment’s notice.
‘How was your first day back?’ he asks.
I prop myself onto one elbow and trail my other hand lazily over his (deliciously sexy) chest. ‘It was good – nice to see everyone. Oh! The Carruthers case has finally come to a close.’
Last year, the now-former Mrs Carruthers discovered that her love match was one-sided and threatened to expose the agency, and some of our high-profile clients. Quite a terrifying time for a matchmaking agency that prides itself on discretion and confidentiality. Five months on, after some next-level matchmaking by my colleague, Ursula, and she’s on her way to the altar with a real love match.
‘Oh, that’s wonderful news,’ he says.
‘Yep. Everyone’s relieved to close the door on that one, especially Saskia and Ursula.’
Saskia Featherstone: former solicitor, founder of the agency, and one of my mentors. We secretly call her ‘The Swan’ for her unwavering cool-headedness, and even she was fazed by the Carruthers case. As was Ursula, senior agent and my other mentor. It was one of Ursula’s rare ‘failings’ as a matchmaker.
‘Understandable,’ says Tristan. He knows exactly how close the agency was to imploding (and me losing my much-loved job), as he showed up to propose to me the same day Mrs Carruthers barged into the office and caused a massive scene.
I lift my hand from his chest and run a finger gently over the ridge of his right cheekbone. Tristan really is so handsome. I once described him to my best friend, Shaz, as the love child of Henry Cavill and Theo James.
‘And any prospective cases on the horizon?’ he asks after a few moments. He must have been lost in thought too – probably musing about how beautiful I am. Hah! I’m not, but he says I am – and often.
‘Actually, yes,’ I reply. ‘A referral from Nas – long-lost love. We’re meeting with the client’s sister tomorrow and I’ll decide then.’
‘You really get to pick and choose your cases?’ he asks, a reminder that even months into our marriage, we’re still learning about each other.
I nod. ‘Mmm-hmm. I have to be all-in to be an effective agent.’
‘And what if it’s the only case on offer?’
‘Hah!’ I laugh. He frowns, slightly stung. ‘Sorry, Tris, I didn’t mean to be condescending. I just thought you were joking.’ He shrugs and I land a conciliatory kiss on his lips. ‘Do you remember our first meeting?’
He nods, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
‘And do you remember being rude and impossible?’
He barks out a laugh, scrubbing his face with one hand as if to erase the memory.
‘So, that’s a yes,’ I continue. ‘Well, you might also recall that I mentioned a waitlist.’
He drops his hand from his face and meets my eye. ‘Vaguely. I may have been a little inside my own head.’
I plant a kiss on his cheek. ‘Just a little, darling.’
We regard each other a moment and he lifts his head to kiss me.
‘Anyway,’ I say, resuming the conversation, ‘I have several prospective clients in my inbox – and I haven’t even cleared it yet – so I’ll meet with the sister tomorrow, then decide whether to take the case.’
He’s quiet for a moment, contemplative. ‘Why did you take my case?’ he asks softly, the question – and how he’s asked it – a glimpse into his huge and vulnerable heart.
I run my forefinger along his jawline. ‘Because I like a challenge,’ I reply.
He sniggers and wraps me up in his arms. ‘And thank god for that,’ he says, his mouth against my hair.
