White Lies (37 page)

She was dazed. “But I pulled my registration file.”

“Nothing ever disappears completely once it’s online. It’s always out there, somewhere.”

“And the computer matched us?”

“That’s what it says.”

“Good grief.” She sat down slowly, unable to take her eyes off the screen. “I don’t understand. Did you do it so you could find out whether or not we really are meant for each other?”

“No,” Jake said. “I already knew that. I did it soyou could be sure. Given your trust issues and all, I figured you needed some objective confirmation.”

Truth rang in every word, so dazzling and crystal-sharp that it stole her breath. She did not know whether she was going to laugh or cry. She covered her face with both hands and did both.

“Hey,” Jake said, suddenly anxious. He touched her shoulder. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to make you cry. Damn. That’s the last thing I wanted to do.”

She raised her head. The tears were spilling down her cheeks but she smiled anyway. “When I saw that they’d matched you I was ready to hunt down those dip squat arcanematch.com matchmakers, wrap my hands around their scrawny little necks and start squeezing.”

“I did get that impression,” Jake said. He looked both relieved and pleased.

“Now, of course, I realize that I should wrap my hands aroundyour neck, which is not scrawny. Nevertheless—”

“If you insist. But if you’re in the mood to squeeze something maybe you would like to consider wrapping your hands around another portion of my anatomy?”

“You are absolutely impossible.”

“Maybe. But I love you, Clare.”

Once again the pure, silvery energy of truth shimmered in the atmosphere.

She leaped to her feet. “I love you so much.”

His arms closed around her, warm, tight, strong. This was where she belonged, she thought. This was her true mate.

“About your last name,” she said. “Can I assume that is not a coincidence? Are you one of those Joneses?”

“Afraid so.”

“And Dumbass Fallon Jones?”

“A cousin. I’ve got a lot of ’em.”

“Family, hmm?” She smiled slowly. “In that case we will definitely quadruple our consulting fees whenever we take on contract work for J&J.”

Jake laughed. “I’ll leave the negotiations up to you.”

He started to kiss her. She put her fingers on his mouth.

“One more thing,” she said.

“Yeah?”

She took her fingers away from his lips. “What would you have done if the arcanematch.com crowd hadn’t matched us?”

“No problem. I would have called Fallon and told him I needed one of his techs to hack into the arcanematch.com database to make a few adjustments to our profiles.”

“You would have crafted a whopping great lie just to convince me to marry you?”

“In a heartbeat.”

She smiled. Love rushed through her, hot and sweet and true.

“Right answer, Jones.”