Harper was usually a very patient person. When it came to her job, she had a veritable ocean of patience. Someone didn’t get to where she was without hitting a few speed bumps or working over a few difficult clients. There were days, however, that she felt would never end. The city seemed like a maze of pushy, impatient individuals who all demanded that she find what they themselves didn’t want to put the time or effort into.

But whenever she had days like this, Harper always took a deep breath and calmed herself with a singular, balming thought: It will all be worth the paycheck in the end.

She’d spent her last few hours with Victoria Brucknell who was, without a doubt, one of the choosiest women she’d ever encountered. Harper had long ago discovered that if you took already picky people and gave them money, it was a recipe for disaster, and Victoria was walking proof of this. She had very strict specifications for the man she wanted to be with - down to the type of suits he wore and the vacation locales he frequented.

When Harper suggested - very politely, that Victoria might do herself a favor by cutting down on some of her more trivial requirements, the thirty-five-year-old woman had all but thrown a tantrum in her office. It had been quite the site to see - and trying as hell on her nerves.

But Harper Jones had never dropped a client, and she wasn’t about to start now. She let Ms. Brucknell rant and rave for a good fifteen minutes until she huffed and puffed and blew herself out...and then she tried again. This time, she suggested that they take another look at some of the men that Victoria had already been matched with. In the process, Harper had tweaked a few details. Despite all her numerous requirements, Victoria didn’t really know the difference between a Prada and an Armani suit. She couldn’t tell a vacation picture of the Maldives from one in Hawaii, and a fifty-thousand-dollar car looked the same as a hundred-thousand-dollar one.

Surprise, surprise, Victoria found someone she was willing to meet with - and Harper had breathed a huge sigh of relief the moment the woman left her office. Blissful quiet had returned and she treated herself to a few glasses of wine as she finished the remainder of her paperwork.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so glad that her day was over.

In truth, a large part of Harper enjoyed the matchmaking process. This wasn’t, however, because she liked working with people, or even because she was a sucker for happily-ever-afters. Instead, it was because, over the years, she had discovered a foolproof, numerical system to help find people a compatible partner. It had become a simple input of information and output of suitable matches -  and Harper couldn’t be prouder of her methodologies. After all, they hadn’t come to her overnight. She’d been working on her system since she was in her early teens. An odd hobby for a fourteen-year-old, certainly, but Harper had her reasons.

Of course, when she was fourteen, she had never imagined that she’d actually make matchmaking a career. The very notion seemed somehow laughable - even now that she was living it.

But it wasn’t a joke. Harper’s very profitable career was tangible reality. As corporeal as the posh high-rise office she currently sat in, or the two-hundred-dollar bottle of wine she currently partook of.

That wasn’t to say, however, that matchmaking was the same thing that it had been through the ages. If Harper used those archaic methods to try and get people together, she probably would have ended up in jail instead of living the high life in New York city. Even the most successful methods of getting people together could always use an update - and that was where she came in.

Though her origins were in journalism, Harper had changed professions when she realized just how many people she knew ended up together at her suggestion. She was particularly good at observing others - their mannerisms, their likes and dislikes, and she usually grasped how strangers thought within minutes of meeting them. The blonde’s greatest gift, however, was her ability to quantify their feelings. She could write down the measure of a person on a piece of paper, look at that paper, and then match it to someone else.

The first time she mentioned the strange talent to her younger sister, Athena, she was more than a little skeptical. But then, Athena was skeptical of anything that didn’t run off pure emotion. Unlike her older sister, the raven-haired girl had maintained the same bright-eyed idealism of her youth - even though she had recently celebrated her twenty sixth birthday.

Athena couldn’t be less like Harper - and so, her older sister attributed a number of their friends’ budding romances to cold hard data, Athena had suggested to Harper that it was because they were friends that had just fallen in love. Harper’s rebuttal was simple; if they were already so in love, why had it taken her prodding to get them to do anything about it?

That upset Athena. Not that upsetting her baby sister took a lot -  and Harper certainly didn’t enjoy it, but she and Athena were very different people. She didn’t press the issue further - at least, not until she announced to her sister that she meant to move to New York and start a matchmaking business.

Athena was rolling on the floor. Harper could still see it now, and the memory incited a strange mixture of irritation and affection in her. By the time they both graduated college, her sister had declared her a robot - “Harping Harper.” She couldn’t even compliment the simplest modicum of affection, preferring to scorn it under her breath.

Unless Athena was involved, that was. As far as Harper was concerned, there was no purer soul on earth than her baby sister. She had never been a violent person, but there had been a number of times in college where she threatened to cut off the balls of a boy who broke her sister’s heart. She eventually resolved that Athena would never be as cautious as her, and so all she could do was protect her from horny sons of bitches with bad intentions.

And there had certainly been a fuck ton of those where they’d grown up in Cali.

Despite Athena’s skepticism, she moved to New York with Harper to start her own career as a hopeful diplomat. Eventually, she’d chosen the translating path instead, and she expected that Harper would give up her matchmaking nonsense and get a job as a reporter somewhere. Athena liked to tease that she certainly had the look for it.

That was, Harper had discovered, about all one needed to succeed in the media business - the look. Perhaps that was why she had never been interested, even when she was offered several minor positions in major news stations. She didn’t want to work her way up the ranks in a world based solely on how prominently her breasts showed when she was on-air. She wanted something that would stimulate her mind; and oddly, matchmaking did just that.

And now, here she was. In the seven years she’d been in business, her unique approach to the art of satisfying those looking for love had catapulted her to cult status - at least, in the world of people who believed in matchmaking. Even if the crowd wasn’t a big one, it was, surprisingly, a moneyed one. But, then again, people with money, Harper knew, were more than happy to pay others to do almost everything for them.

Including finding a life partner.

And Harper was more than happy to take their money.

She left the office around nine that evening. Her time with Picky Vicky had eaten up more of her day than she realized, and she had to make sure she had everything in order for the rest of her meetings that week. Thankfully, this meant there was little traffic on the way downtown to her Soho apartment, and she had never been more thankful for the (mostly) smooth ride.

If Athena were around, she would impress upon Harper (for the hundredth time) the ridiculousness of driving anywhere in New York City. Athena took public transportation literally everywhere and encouraged Harper to do the same. It wasn’t that Harper thought herself too good for public transportation. In fact, that anonymity of the subway at rush hour was welcome after a long day. But she was used to driving. She liked driving - and it afforded her privacy.

Harper liked her privacy. Perhaps the only person she ever allowed to invade it was Athena, and that was because there was nothing more precious in the world to her than her sister. As different as they were - as much as Athena’s relentless idealism could grind on her nerves, Harper adored her.

Perhaps it was exactly because she was what her older sister could never be.

The moment she stepped into the apartment, Harper felt her absence acutely. She had been close to Athena for as long as she could remember. They went to the same schools, the same college, and then Athena had come here with her. No matter how late it was or what mood she was in, Athena always had a jaunty greeting for her. Besides that, she cooked like a dream.

Since she left, delivery had become a way of life for Harper. Delivery and solitude.

But there was no way she was going to be so selfish as to wallow in self-pity. Athena had finally gotten the big break she always hoped for. Thanks to her dedication to her studies (and the four languages she spoke fluently, she’d been picked up as a personal assistant to one of the most high-profile working men of their age: Toshiro Kensley.

Of course, Harper had been pissed at first. Athena hadn’t worked hard all these years to be relegated to making someone’s coffee and making sure they got to all their meetings on time. But when her sister assured her that being Toshiro Kensley’s assistant was about as far from being a typical assistant as it was possible to be, she was intrigued. Athena had been charged with travelling with the man to all his exotic locales and serving as his translator for a few choice languages inaccessible to him. It was a position next to none, and the salary was ridiculous. Athena would have been insane not to take it.

But that had never been an issue. The younger woman had all but jumped on the offer, and, at this point, she’d been travelling for two weeks. According to Athena’s reports, Toshiro was one of the best men she had ever worked for and they got along wonderfully. She got to use her language skills and was getting indispensable experience in the world of international business. She had never been happier.

And Athena’s happiness was all that Harper cared about.

If she had to trade her sister’s absence for her happiness, it was an exchange Harper was more than willing to make - even if her apartment felt a little emptier without Athena in it.

After ordering dinner from a nearby sushi joint, Harper took a long, relaxing shower before slipping into her favorite robe and slippers. She had just retrieved her food from the grinning kid at the door when her phone rang. At the first strains of Athena’s ringtone, Harper pounced on it, answering with a rare smile.

“Where are you now, Thee?”

Athena laughed in delight from half a world away. “Were you standing by the phone waiting for me to call? You’re utterly hopeless, Harp.”

“I happened to be passing by. Don’t get cute.”

“I’ve always been the cuter one.” Harper couldn’t argue with her. Athena had a kind of pale, wide-eyed ethereal beauty that made you want to protect and keep her from the world. She had always marveled at how her sister’s inner idealism manifested on the outside as well.

“Yeah, yeah. That won’t save you now. I can’t see you.” Harper smirked. “Are you going to tell me where you are or not?”

“Maybe if you ask really, really nicely.”

“Oh, please, Thee. I can just look at the news, but I wait to hear it from my beloved sister. So spill.”

Athena laughed in response to her sister’s threat. “Fine, fine. We just landed in Seoul this morning.”

“Nice.” Harper grinned. “Don’t forget to get me a souvenir.”

“Your souvenir bag is getting pretty heavy, Harp. I might have to ask Toshiro to carry it.”

The statement made Harper pause for a moment. Toshiro? Not ‘my boss’ or even ‘Mr. Kensley? That was a change - and a telling one, in her book.

“Your boss carrying your bags now?” she returned casually. “I thought you were supposed to be the personal assistant.”

“Well, no! I mean...that’s not what I meant!” Athena backtracked rapidly, and Harper arched a blonde brow in inquiry.

“Well, what did you mean?” her sister responded predictably.

“How’s business going?” The only time Athena even pretended to take an interest in Harper’s peculiar form of matchmaking was when she wanted to change the subject.

“Don’t do that,” Harper returned in warning.

“What?” Athena practically oozed innocence. “I just want to know how you’re doing.”

“You don’t want me to ask you about Kensley. Or would you prefer that I call him Toshiro?”

Athena made a trapped sound in the back of her throat and a beat or two of silence followed before she finally spoke. “He’s just...nice, Harp. And a gentleman. Maybe it’s the Japanese thing or something else, I dunno...he’s easy to like. And he told me he didn’t like me calling him ‘Mr. Kensley.’ He prefers Toshiro. That’s all, I swear.”

That wasn’t all, but Harper elected to let it go for the moment.  It had only been two weeks, and Toshiro Kensley didn’t seem like the type to prey on his employees. Like Athena pointed out, he was a gentleman - or, at least, he had been on every occasion Harper had ever witnessed. The man was the epitome of relaxed poise - a softer edge to his elder brother, who seemed like he constantly had a stick up his ass. Harper supposed that running a multi-billion-dollar company could do that to someone, but Vladimir Kensley almost never showed his face to the media anyway. It wouldn’t hurt him to look a little friendlier on the occasions that he did.

“Well, fine then. You just be careful, ok Athena?”

The younger girl gave a long-suffering sigh. “I’m fine, Harper. Really. It’s you I’m more worried about. Are you interacting with other humans in my absence?”

The blonde woman rolled her eyes at the question. Just because she preferred Athena’s company to anyone else’s didn’t mean that she didn’t have any other friends.  She simply wasn’t capable of collecting them as quickly as her more likeable sister did.

“Very funny, Thee. I’ll have you know that I’m very content in your absence.”

“Really? When’s the last time you went on a date?”

Only Athena would measure how happy she was by whether or not she had recently been on a date. It was simultaneously ridiculous and terribly astute of her younger sister. Athena knew her too well.

Harper wasn’t a huge fan of dating, and she thought sex was overrated. The idea that a man could make her feel better than she could make herself feel was foreign to her - which made her rely on intellectual interest alone when she dated someone. And there were few men who interested her long enough to hold her attention for more than a month or two, let alone end up in bed with them. She couldn’t, for the life of her, understand why so many women her age seemed sex-crazed.

Athena told her numerous times that she simply hadn’t been with the right person, but Harper didn’t like the idea of sleeping her way through half of New York to find the right person any more than she liked the idea of dating someone she wasn’t extremely interested in.

When she was dating, it was usually because she had a sudden surge of self-confidence in her sexuality, usually boosted by Athena herself or one of Harper’s few friends. But that always seemed to end in disappointment.

“No, I haven’t been on any dates. I don’t need to go on any dates. I’ve got a ton on my plate.”

“I’m sure you’d find time if you found someone interesting enough.”

Harper smirked as she answered, “Pretty sure someone like that doesn’t exist.”

“Maybe you should see a matchmaker…”

“Ha, ha,” Harper replied dryly.

Athena sighed, and her sister could all but see her shaking her head in disapproval. “You know I just like to see you happy, Harper.”

“I don’t need a man to make me happy, Thee. I’m plenty happy by myself. If anything, a man would just mess all that up.” She injected unintentional venom into the statement, and, when Athena replied, her words were careful.

“Harp...just because Mom and Dad couldn’t work things out doesn’t mean all relationships are like that.”

Harper stiffened at the very mention of their parents. She didn’t like to think about their particular brand of love - or why it had failed so spectacularly. People like her parents were poster children for why love was a formula rather than some romantic twist of fate. Romance faded...compatibility was a real, tangible thing.

And their parents had been about as incompatible as it was possible to be.

“I’m in the business of getting people together, Thee,” she provided, as steadily as she could, “I don’t always have time to take for myself. Besides, the next couple of weeks are jam-packed. But,” she forced a smile, “I’ll let you know if I stumble upon anyone I deem worthy.”

It was a relief to hear the edge come out of Athena’s voice. “You’d better, tell me every last detail.”

At a low, masculine murmuring in the background, Athena made a surprise sound before speaking again. “Shoot, Harper, I have to go. We’ve got a meeting to get to. I’ll call you later on this week.”

“Sure thing, Thee.” Harper was glad the conversation ended before Athena could lecture her any more about her love-life - or lack thereof. “Love you.”

“You too.”

When her sister hung up, Harper exhaled a long breath. Maybe it was a good thing that Athena was on the other side of the world, pursuing her dreams. Harper would admit to smothering her, but that was only because she felt she needed to somehow make up for their lackluster childhood. Their parents had divorced when she was ten and Athena was seven, but only after years of verbal and physical abuse that had taken its toll on the young girls.

Thankfully, Athena had come out unscathed in the end. She still held on to her wide-eyed, wonderful view of the world, and Harper certainly couldn’t begrudge her that. Certainly, not if she wanted her sister to be happy.

She, on the other hand, bore the brunt of her parents’ separation. It was what got her into matchmaking in the first place. Romance, Harper knew, had nothing to do with it. It was all about actual compatibility. Mental compatibility, financial compatibility - concrete configurations that worked flawlessly for her every single time.

Maybe if someone had figured out her method sooner, her parents wouldn’t have tried to destroy each other.

Fuck.

Now she was in a bad mood. Harper considered the sushi on the table and ended up refrigerating it. She’d eat when her appetite returned. She was tired. All she wanted to do was fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

If only she could be so lucky.

Even though Harper hadn’t been lying about her schedule - it was jam packed for the next few weeks- she took a bit of Athena’s advice and agreed to meet her friend Gary during her lunch break the following day. Gary was one of the first people she’d met upon coming to New York, and she always appreciated his forthright way of speaking and thinking.

It also helped that the man had a killer eye for fashion and was one of the only people she knew who could keep up with her when she went shopping. One of Gary’s favorite bistros was down the street from her office, and when they met, as always, she admired his impeccable dress sense.

“Oh, this old thing?” Gary struck a pose, showing off the vintage jacket he’d snagged from a thrift store. “It was a complete steal from the meatpacking district. I’ll take you the next time you have a day off.”

Harper smiled sardonically. “Might not be for a while.”

“Ooooo,” Gary perused the wine list with interest. “Business booming?” As a budding actor, he had to use his money wisely - and so he liked to live vicariously through Harper and her experiences serving the upper crust.

“More than ever.” Harper ran a hand through vivid blonde locks before crossing long legs primly. “People can’t seem to get enough of the idea that they can find their perfect mate without any actual legwork on their part.”

Gary chuckled. “People are lazy, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want genuine romance.”

Harper made a face. “I don’t really deal with that side of things. I get them together, I send them off. As long as they’re interested in each other - as long as they can respect one another’s best qualities, things work out.”

Gary smiled lazily, gesturing to the waiter. “You know, I don’t think the prospect of a good old fashioned romance would kill you, Harper.”

The blonde rolled her eyes. “Not where my profits come from.”

“Grumpy Gus.” Gary stuck his tongue out at her before ordering for both of them, as usual. Harper smirked. She knew what was coming next. She loved Gary to death but he, like her sister, was on the looking-for-love bandwagon, and always trying to get her to join the club. Gary liked to gossip, and she could usually get him to give up if she offered him some juicy stories about her clients. (Keeping the actual individuals completely anonymous of course.)

She told him about Picky Vicky, and another client she had recently - a man who had been so crazy for redheaded lawyers that he dropped twenty-five grand on some jewelry just to get a date with one he liked, but who wasn’t interested in his profile. The figure made Gary’s jaw drop and his eyes widen.

“I can’t even imagine what it must be like to have that much money. I mean, just throwing away twenty-five grand. That’s insane.”

For her part, Harper couldn’t really imagine it either. She made a fair amount herself, but it was nowhere near enough to go tossing money like that around as if it were nothing.

“Have you ever actively sought after clients?”

The question caught her off guard, and Harper found herself eying Gary in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“I mean: Have you ever seen two people and thought they’d go perfect together, and then tried to recruit them as your clients?”

Now that Harper hadn’t touched since her college days. By now, she got most of her business by word of mouth. She couldn’t remember the last time she had to push two people together, and she had almost certainly never tried to recruit a high-profile client.

“If you could match anyone, who would you most like to work with?”

For Harper, it was a strange question. She had never actively watched TV or read papers looking for a mark or anything of the sort. If there was someone she admired, it was usually for their ability to weather their life without the distraction of romance. The idea of genuinely liking someone she took on for a client was slightly disturbing to her. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

“There’s no one you’d like to meet?” Gary rebutted incredulously. “No one? What about one of the Kensley brothers?” he continued to prod, his grin turning salacious. “Jesus, just matching one of them would probably have you set for life, and I can’t imagine that it would be hard to do.”

But Harper was already laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of the notion. The Kensleys? One of the most recognizable and successful families in the entire world? They were business people for God’s sake. She couldn’t, for even one second, imagine a scenario in which Jackson Kensley would allow one of his brood to be seen needing help to find a partner.

“Is it really that outlandish?” Luckily enough for her, Gary was good-humored enough not to take offense at her sudden onset of hilarity. “None of those boys are married, and they’re all absolutely delicious.”

But Harper was already way ahead of him. Holding out a hand, she ticked the Kensley men off on slender fingers. “Vladimir - tall, dark, quiet and completely media shy. He’d never need a matchmaker; women are all but salivating over the mystery. And the fact that he’s rumored to be a complete, anal asshole only adds to the allure for them. Alistair - absolutely fucking nuts. He’d want someone who can keep up with him and all that sky-diving and base jumping he adores so much - and that’s not really my clientele. Toshiro - he’s probably got a woman in every country he visits.” So he doesn’t, Harper added to herself, need to have anything to do with my baby sister. “He hardly needs someone to help him out stateside. On top of that, the man would probably die of mortification if it got out that he had been to see a matchmaker.

“Lucas is young and still has plenty of time. Plus, he probably won’t go into the company business, which means that he almost certainly won’t have a high-profile partner. Which brings us to-”

“Ethan.” Gary sighed the name almost like a prayer, clutching at his well-toned chest through the thin t-shirt he wore beneath his jacket. “Be still my beating heart.”

Harper snorted at the mere notion. “And I suppose the fact that he’s fucked his way through half of the socialites in the city doesn’t bother you at all?”

Gary grinned indulgently. “If he comes over to the rainbow side, I’ll be all he needs.”

That drew a genuine laugh from Harper. Out of all the Kensley men, Ethan had most proficiently proved himself to bat firmly for team straight. The man had a revolving door of actresses, models, ballerinas, and God knew who else in his bed. He’d even been caught with his pants down a couple of times, and all he could do was grin for the camera. He thrived on the attention and his playboy status, and he was the absolute last person in the cosmos she could picture matching.

People who came to her to find a match were usually ready to give their vagabond days up. They wanted to settle down. They wanted forever. Ethan lived in the moment.

At her very pronounced analysis of the man’s character, Gary simply sipped his wine with a knowing smile. “Spent a lot of time thinking about him, have you?”

Harper frowned. “Most of the population of the world probably has. He’s on the front page of a new gossip rag every single day.”

“I know. Like mana from heaven.” Gary took the opportunity to pluck a magazine from his messenger bag and toss it onto the table.

It was that day’s issue of the Enquirer - and it was no surprise that Ethan Kensley was front in center in a tux, surrounded by women at a high-profile event. The headline for the picture was something or other about the man’s secret harem, but Harper ignored it completely. She mulled over the picture for perhaps twenty seconds.

No one with eyes could deny that Ethan Kensley was attractive. He was a tall, broad, blonde-haired, green eyed man that knew how to dress, and had a smile that could probably stop any princess of High Haughtyland in her tracks.

But looks weren’t everything.

With a smirk, Harper slid the magazine back in Gary’s direction. “Good luck. Ethan Kensley is the kind of man destined to die of old age with a playboy bunny on his arm eagerly awaiting his last breath.”

Gary gasped in mock shock. “Harper Jones, you are savage.”

The blonde raised her glass at the statement, her smile never wavering. “I’ll drink to that.”