Nothing. I’m just so glad you guys joined Blinddatebrides.com. I don’t know how I would have survived these months without your support and friendship.
But typing the words gave Dani a funny feeling in her stomach. What kind of friend was she? Keeping the truth about what she was doing at Blinddatebrides.com from Marissa and Grace.
Englishcrumpet: You’ve been through a lot, Dani. Losing your dream job and getting used to your new one. Things will turn around. Just watch.
Kangagirl: And then, when you least expect it, you’re going to meet him. That one special man.
Dani hoped not.
Snores drifted from the engineers’ cubicle a few feet away. Someone must have pulled an all-nighter.
She needed to get her career back on track first. She’d spent the last six months trying to find another job with no success. Distractions, especially men, weren’t allowed right now.
Kangagirl: The only question is…how do we make it happen?
We. Unexpected tears stung Dani’s eyes. She ran her fingertips over the bracelet—silver with crystal beads—Marissa had sent her after a trip to Hong Kong. These women, even though they’d never met in person, truly cared about her.
Sanfrandani: Please. No one needs to make anything happen. I’m doing fine. No worries.
Englishcrumpet: We’re not really worrying. We just want to help. You joined this site for a reason, Dani.
But not the same reason as Marissa and Grace.
Guilt welled up inside Dani.
It was time to come clean. To stop lying.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard with light ning speed, in case nerves and fear got the best of her. Or her boss showed up.
Sanfrandani: I didn’t join Blinddatebrides.com to meet men.
Kangagirl: Then why did you join?
Sanfrandani: Because
The cursor blinked, waiting for her to finish. Dani swallowed hard. Her online friendship with Marissa and Grace was the only thing in her life going well these days. Did she want to risk that?
But what kind of relationship did they have, really, if she couldn’t be honest?
Dani took a deep breath and typed.
Sanfrandani: I was forced to.
She stared at the screen, her heart racing, her hands sweating.
Englishcrumpet: Did someone sign you up like my daughter did with me?
Oh, dear. Dani snuck another look around the office before returning her trembling hands to the keyboard.
Sanfrandani: No, I signed up myself.
Kangagirl:???
Dani felt sick, but the truth had to be said. Er, typed.
Sanfrandani: I’m a spy.
“There’s something you should see.”
Bryce Delaney heard his assistant’s voice, but didn’t glance up from his computer monitor and the database query he was writing. He didn’t have to.
Joelle Chang would be standing two feet from the edge of his walnut-stained desk holding a manila file folder with a pen—blue ink only so she could tell the difference on photocopies—tucked behind her ear. Despite her college-girl long hair and trendy clothes, forty-one-year-old Joelle was dedicated, thorough and one-hundred-percent predictable. Exactly the way he liked things. And people. “I pay you enough to see for me.”
“You said you wanted to be kept in the loop about possible security issues.”
Security. A top priority at his Web site Blinddatebrides.com. Bryce looked up. “Possible or probable?”
Joelle’s almond-shaped eyes grew dark. “Two red flags.”
Damn. He didn’t need this on top of the other problems they’d been dealing with. Scammers, spammers, hackers, marrieds, the list went on.
“It might not mean anything,” she added.
In the last year, there had been a handful of false alarms. “But it could mean we have a troublemaker on board.”
It wouldn’t be the first time. He’d dealt with escorts, cheats, thieves and liars. Had charges brought against them when possible, too.
Bryce wasn’t about to let anyone take advantage of his customers. Too many people pretended to be something they weren’t, both in real life and online. He had experience with that. His sister, too. But she was more trusting than him. That was why he’d started a dating—make that a relationship—Web site: to protect good people like Caitlin.
“What do you have?” he asked.
Joelle handed him a file. “This particular client has been a member of the site for over six months. Everything about her looks good, including her background check.”
“Her?”
“Yes,” Joelle answered. “None of the e-mail filters have picked up anything to suggest she’s an escort.”
Those were usually easy to detect since they asked for money in almost every e-mail.
“But the chat filter picked up something so we did a little investigating,” Joelle said. “The subject spends hours logged on to the site each day, but she has not accepted a date yet, even though her profile has been marked highly compatible with several men.”
Bryce had worked with a psychologist to create an algorithm to match clients based on their interests, backgrounds and personalities. Chats, based on compatibility, were also arranged with groups of well-matched people, too, since many people preferred group interactions to one-on-one. Some clients, though, preferred to peruse the profiles themselves and pick matches that way.
He opened the file and studied the photo of a woman. The messy blond hair piled on top of her head and secured with a—was that a red bandana?—caught his eye first. Not the most appealing hairstyle. The picture itself was far from flattering. She wasn’t smiling or looking at the camera. Shadows obscured what he could see of her face, though she looked flushed unless her skin was always red like that. Her profile stated blue eyes, but he couldn’t distinguish the color, really anything about her. “She’s been matched?”
“Yes. The compatibility program has matched her with seventeen clients so far. Five of those contacted her. Others must have seen something they liked in her profile because they e-mailed her, too. She replied back to each one, but that was it. No additional correspondence. No chat invites. Nothing.”
“At least she’s following the guidelines about replying to others even if you’re not interested in them.”
“Yes.”
He read more in the
