know,” Merry admitted, surprising herself. “And once I began, it was so difficult. It took me four years and several mismatches to get things straight. I’ve been doing this long enough now to be realistic. One year is not enough time to ensure that five couples will meet, fall in love and marry. Could you—”
“What?” Lissa asked, her eyes kind, but her voice firm.
“Give me a little more time.”
Lissa shook her head sadly. “A princess wouldn’t ask for more time.”
“So, it’s hopeless.”
“If you just stand around talking, yes, it is.”
Merry let out a sigh. She looked down at herself, at her once beautiful body, now ravaged by age and riddled with aches that even the warm winds of this Florida island couldn’t take away. To be like this forever, to never go back to her lovely pampered life…
“All right, I’m working on it,” she said. “I just have to keep taking it a step at a time, a couple at a time. Let’s look at who’s due at the resort this week.” She sat down at her computer and called up the schedule of guests. A groan escaped her. Lissa looked over her shoulder.
“I see what you mean,” Lissa said. “There doesn’t appear to be anyone very promising in this batch. You might have to wait until next week.”
But by next week she would be that much closer to losing her youth and beauty and life of royalty forever.
“No, if there aren’t two people in this group who are likely to fall in love, well then, I’ll just have to choose two people who are unlikely to fall in love and work a little magic.”
“Your magic is limited, you know.”
“I know.” Of course, she knew. She had discovered that time and time again. But all she had was her subtle magic. And, oh yes, she did have one thing more.
“If they won’t fit, I’ll make them fit,” she said defiantly. “I may not have much, but I have determination.”
She ran her finger down the list. “There. Him. And her. She’s already here, which might make it easier for me to persuade her. And as it happens, the two of them already have a connection of sorts.”
Lissa crossed her arms. “It’s not a positive connection. They’re likely to be adversaries, not lovers.”
Merry crossed her arms in kind and glared at her godmother. “You set me a task. I’m tending to that task. You may want me to fail, but I don’t intend to do that if I can help it. Now, if you don’t mind, I have business to see to. If I’m going to attempt the nearly impossible, I have to rest up. There’s matchmaking to be done, whether the man and woman want to be matched or not.”
She took a deep breath and stalked off.
Behind her, Lissa smiled. “Oh, I don’t want you to fail, my dear. I very much hope you succeed, but, you’re right—this is a difficult task. And you’ve chosen to make it more difficult by trying to match two people who won’t appreciate your efforts. For the first time, even I am beginning to doubt that you might make it.” And she sighed and went back to work.
Chapter One
“Darn it!” Jacqueline Hammond said to the four walls that surrounded her. She was here in this lovely resort on this lush island to do business, but business wasn’t going well at all right now. And Parris, her half sister and business partner, was nowhere to be found.
“I’m not sure we’re going to make it,” she muttered out loud to herself. “And if we don’t make it, we’re going to lose the business before we’ve even gotten started. And then that man, our father, is going to win. He’s going to say that we can’t do anything right.” Which was exactly what he had been thinking ever since Jackie had been born.
And for today, that just might prove to be the truth. Nothing had gone right all morning.
“Well, at least not much more could go wrong,” Jackie reasoned out loud.
The telephone on the desk in the temporary office that the resort had provided rang loudly. Jackie groaned. She picked up the receiver.
“Hammond Events,” she said, amazed that her voice sounded cool and calm even though she was mentally preparing herself for more bad news.
“Jackie?” The now familiar voice of Merry Montrose, resort manager, flowed crisply through the lines.
“Yes, this is she.”
“I’m at the front desk with someone who wants to see you. A rather…interesting someone. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be escorting him to your office.”
Ugh, not another celebrity coming to reclaim some family heirloom that yet another family member had tried to sneak into the auction Hammond Events was organizing. Didn’t people just donate things out of the goodness of their hearts anymore? Didn’t donated items stay donated anymore?
“All right, thank you, Ms. Montrose,” Jackie said, trying to keep the weariness and frustration from her voice. It was getting more and more difficult to smile the longer the preparations for the auction went on.
She looked around the room at the collection of items that were starting to stack up. Which precious item was this person going to want to take back? She was beginning to wonder how well any of the donors actually knew the woman who had commissioned Hammond Events to run the auction. Victoria Catherine Smith seemed to have money and the ability to preen with the best of them, but she didn’t appear to have any true friends, not when everyone was taking back their stuff. For a minute, Jackie regretted taking this project on, but then she remembered what was at stake—this business, the only thing that had ever been close to belonging to her, even if she had to share it with a half sister she didn’t know very well. If this auction failed, so would the business. There had been no question that they would take on Ms. Smith’s auction to raise money to build the Victoria Catherine Memorial Aquarium, slated to showcase some of the local marine life but mostly, Jackie guessed, to showcase Ms. Smith’s name to the wealthy who flocked to La Torchére.
The problems with the reluctant donors made it a difficult task, and no doubt it was going to get more difficult within the next few minutes when the unknown man finally made it to her office. She wondered if he was the owner of the Pollock hanging on the wall. She hoped not. It was one of the items most likely to draw crowds to the auction. She frowned at the painting.
“It doesn’t look that bad to me,” a male voice said.
Jackie whirled and found herself staring up into the face of a tall, dark-haired, broad-shouldered man. His face was tanned, his eyes nearly black and unreadable. And though he’d seemed to be making a joke, there was no trace of levity in his expression. Indeed, the way he was studying her made him look a bit like a hunter, and she felt more than a bit like his prey.
With great effort, she forced herself to smile and ignore that ridiculous thought.
“Is it yours?” she asked.
He blinked. No, it obviously wasn’t. “It’s hanging in your office,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but it’s an
