A Perfectly Imperfect Match

He had to have her confused with someone else, she decided—then immediately backtracked. The man knew her name, so he couldn’t have her confused with someone else. But who was this Theresa Manetti, and why was she sending this man to her?

“Really?” Jared asked, somewhat confused himself. “She speaks very highly of you.”

And then it hit her—why his voice sounded so familiar. It was the same voice she’d heard stumbling on her answering machine last night. He was the incomplete call that had abruptly ended in midsentence.

Her eyes pinned him in place, daring him to deny what she was about to say. “You called me last night.”

Instead of denying it, he surprised her by owning up to the botched call. “I did.”

“But you hung up,” she pointed out.

He looked slightly chagrined, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar and unable to pull it out, or even come up with a plausible reason why his hand was there in the first place.

“Sorry about that,” he apologized.

Face-to-face, he could easily make up an excuse as to why he’d terminated the call. Power failure, a dropped signal—there were myriad reasons for him to choose from. But he didn’t see the advantage of beginning what would only be a very short association—his parents’ anniversary was in three and a half weeks—with lies and excuses.

So he told her the truth. “I’m not very good when it comes to talking to answering machines,” he confessed.

“I noticed,” she acknowledged, then laughed softly. “Just between you and me, I’ve got the same problem. If you call in person, I can guarantee that I pretty much could talk your ear off. But if I find myself on the other end of some robotic-sounding recorder, I go completely blank.”

Her summation of the problem amused him. “Nice to know I’m not alone.” He became aware that the director was looking expectantly in his direction. “I think we’re in the way here,” Jared said.

Now that he’d met her, he wasn’t so keen on pulling the plug on the music anymore. He looked around the soundstage, but there didn’t even seem to be the hint of a vending machine around.

He looked at her. “Is there somewhere we can go where we can talk?”

Though she told herself she was letting her imagination run away with her, Elizabeth felt her pulse kick into high gear.

She inwardly chided herself for getting carried away. The man obviously meant he just wanted to talk to her about her playing abilities, not because he was as drawn to her as she was to him. Someone who looked the way this man did was either married, spoken for or extremely busy socially.

“Well, you could walk me to my car,” she suggested. “Other than that, I think there’s a coffee shop about a block away outside the gates,” she told him, trying to picture the place.

He glanced at his watch. He just wanted to make sure that he didn’t lose track of time. He had an early meeting tomorrow and he needed to have some rough drafts of the new campaign for Getaway Resorts done before then.

“Ordinarily, coffee would sound great, but I’ve already had twice my quota today…and if I have any more, there’s no way I’m going to get any sleep tonight. Maybe I should just walk you to your car.”

She nodded, surprised at the sliver of disappointment that seemed to slice through her. She told herself she was behaving like an adolescent, but somehow, that didn’t seem to change her feelings.

“Walking it is,” she declared dramatically, then lowered her voice as if she were part of a stage performance. “Although I should warn you, I didn’t exactly park close.”

Elizabeth led the way out of the soundstage, taking a side door marked Exit.

The darkness enveloped them the moment they came out.

“As a matter of fact,” she went on to say, “if you didn’t have time to get in your morning run today, this will probably make up for it—and then some.”

Her comment bemused him. “What makes you think I run?”

She looked at him as if the question didn’t even really require an answer. “This is Southern California. Everyone always claims to be into all kinds of exercise out here. Running was the first thing that came to mind.”

Also, a body like yours doesn’t come from a mail-order catalog, she added silently. He made her think of Michelangelo’s David—except more so.

“Do you?” she asked out loud. When he looked at her somewhat quizzically, she added, “Run?”

“Only when I’m late getting somewhere and the car doesn’t work,” he quipped. He had no idea what made him share the next piece of information with her. “I’ve got an elliptical trainer in the garage that guilts me out every night when I park my car inside.”

“That’s simple enough to avoid,” she told him, then suggested, “You could try parking your car in the driveway instead.”

He saw the twinkle in her eyes, and laughed. He liked her sense of humor. “Sounds like a plan,” he murmured.

As the sound of his laugh wrapped itself around her, Elizabeth caught herself returning his smile.

Chapter Three

“So,” Jared said once they stepped outside Paragon Studios, “where’s your car?”

“You can’t see it from here, but it’s that way,” Elizabeth told him, pointing in the general direction. “We’re going to have to walk a little bit before you can see it.”

Jared shook his head. He’d thought she was exaggerating before. Obviously not. “You weren’t kidding about your car being parked far away.”

She stopped and looked at him. Taking the man on a forced march was not the way to win over a potential employer. “If it’s too far for you, you really don’t have to walk me to my car.”

He laughed and waved away her words. “Just an observation, Ms. Stephens, not a complaint. The way I look at it, the exercise will do me good.” They resumed walking, stopping only to get out of the way of a car that was pulling out. “But seriously, why did you park so far away from the actual soundstage?”

Most of the people he knew tried to find a space that was close to their destination, not park in the next county.

“The first time I came here, I found that the parking spaces that were near the building were either reserved, or already taken. I didn’t want to waste time driving up and down the aisles, looking for someplace that was relatively close, so I just took the first space I saw when I pulled in.”

Megan could stand to learn a lot from this woman. “I bet you get a lot more Christmas shopping done with that philosophy,” Jared speculated. His sister spent half her time cruising the lots, looking for that one perfect spot that just happened to be right in front of the mall entrance.

“I don’t know about my philosophy having anything to do with it, but I’m usually done with Christmas shopping in November.” Glancing over at him, she noted that Jared looked as stunned as if she’d just told him she had superpowers.

“You’re kidding,” he said incredulously. “November? Really?”

She nodded. “That’s right,” she confirmed, then decided that maybe an explanation was in order. “That way, I can take my time, and then enjoy the season instead of dashing madly about, looking for some picked-over last-minute gifts that people may or may not like.” But there was also a more practical reason for her spreading out her shopping season. “Besides, December is one of my busiest months. People seem to like violin music more when there’s a Christmas tree involved.”

Her phraseology amused him, but he pretended to take her comment seriously. “Must be the smell of pine,” he quipped.

Elizabeth nodded, mimicking his overall tone. “Must be.”

He liked the way her mouth curved ever so slightly as she was trying to keep a straight face. Liked the smile in her brilliant blue eyes. Since they had a ways to go before they reached her car, Jared decided to use that time to find out a few things about this attractive blonde.

He started with an easy question. “How long have you been playing the violin?” he asked her.

She knew the exact moment she had started playing in earnest, but for simplicity—and because the story wasn’t one she shared with someone she’d just met—she said flippantly, “Sometimes it feels as if I were born clutching a violin in my hands.”

“Must have been a really rough delivery for your poor mother,” he deadpanned.