Faking It to Making It. Ally Blake

glanced over at Ernest, the big wiry Airedale currently lying on his back, legs in the air, snoring on the dinky old armchair in the corner of her office.

      With a sigh, she slid her feet back to the floor and shifted the legal pad an inch. She and Ernest might have discovered a bona fide fondness for one another, but she’d never get used to the angry red envelopes that fell through her mail-slot on a weekly basis. Never wanted to. The only way to make them go away was to work. And work some more. And then, when night fell and her bed was beckoning, get back to work.

      Mouse hover and click.

      Saskia lifted her hand off the mouse, ready to take notes on the next candidate, but at the sight of him her hand wobbled pointlessly in midair.

      She might, in fact, have gasped at the sight, because Ernest suddenly snorted, his legs twitching like an up-ended spider, before settling back into a dream-filled sleep.

      Gorgeous didn’t even begin to describe the man. Dropdead, movie star, take-your-breath-away gorgeous came a tiny bit closer. The shot was candid, with the man looking at something over the photographer’s shoulder. Dark blond hair precision cut. Sleeves of a pale blue business shirt neatly rolled up to his upper arms, a vein or two roping from wrist to elbow. A solitary raised eyebrow, a barely there lift to one corner of a truly sensuous mouth. But who’d even notice, considering the guy had the bluest eyes Saskia ever seen.

      How does a man who looks like that not have someone in his life? she wondered. Though, considering the fibs the other men had told, she couldn’t count on it!

      He did look resolute, as if he wouldn’t be used to hearing the word no, so maybe he was plain mean. Or into cross-stitching. Or he had halitosis. Or really gnarly toenails. Or maybe he was looking for something even more outrageous than “fun in all the wrong places.”

      Intrigue levels rising, Saskia wriggled the blood back into her fingers and scrolled to the mini-profile that had been sent out with the guy’s initial contact.

       Favourite Book: Catch-22

       Drink of choice: double espresso

       Thing you say more than any other: Next

       Looking for: a wedding date, no strings

      Pretty much bang-on to his picture, which was an anomaly unto itself. And Saskia did love an anomaly. That love had sent her from pure statistics into research in the first place. That moment reminded her why, as a seed of an idea sprang to life inside her.

      Lifting her backside from her chair, she flicked through a pile of random papers till she found the press release Marlee at Dating By Numbers had sent over as part of the initial brief.

      The number of people who had signed on—and only to that one site—was staggering. All of them had struggled using traditional avenues in their search for companionship, for sex, for love. Including her. And if a man who loved coffee as much as she did, had awesome taste in literature, and looked enough like a young Paul Newman to induce a drool epidemic had reached his thirties without finding someone, what would it take?

      She’d been looking for an angle for her infographic, and she might just have found one.

      When a massive Big Bang Theory mug appeared next to Saskia’s elbow, she nearly jumped out of her skin. “God, you scared me half to death!”

      “Not surprised. You have that weird scientist look in your eyes,” said Lissy. The blue and purple tips of her long blonde locks bounced as she landed with a whump in the bouncy chair on her side of the paint-splattered old table they used as an office desk. “If it was legal I’d marry your espresso machine.”

      “Get in line.” Saskia put her glasses on the desk, blinked to clear her eyes and, breathing in the rich scent of the cocoa enriched brew, let the huge mug warm her hands before closing her eyes and taking a sip. After Stu had taken off with everything she’d leased computers but bought a replacement espresso machine. Horse before the cart and all that.

      “So, what are we working on?” asked Lissy. “The railway map thing? The business listing thing?”

      “The online dating thing.”

      “Ooh, much more fun.”

      “I’ll drink to that.” They clinked mugs. “I think I’ve just had a bit of a breakthrough. I’m considering adding something extra to my analysis—along the lines of an equation for finding love.”

      Lissy stopped sipping at her coffee and blinked. “Like, chocolates plus flowers multiplied by heaps of hot sex equals never having to say you’re sorry?”

      Saskia laughed as she scrawled curlicues in the top corner of her legal pad, her mind whizzing now it had hit on something. “Not quite. Mathematics is natural. Love is natural. It only makes sense that it’s mathematically quantifiable.”

      Lissy glanced pointedly at the pile of bills on Saskia’s side of the desk which, for the first time ever included a late mortgage payment.

      “I wouldn’t be making work for myself, as I’m doing the research anyway,” Saskia said. “And I think it would make a great anchor for the bottom of the infographic.”

      Then again, maybe Lissy was right. If Saskia wanted to wrestle back control of her mortgage payments, let alone get back to the renovations she’d been in the middle of doing when Stu absconded, she needed to focus.

      Unfortunately, while Lissy was a crazy brilliant graphic artist, to her, focus was a foreign word. “It’s never been done? This love formula thing?”

      “Maybe,” Saskia said, enthusiasm spiking again. “Or maybe nobody’s ever tried. Perhaps somebody just needed inspiration.”

      “Like when Einstein was hit with that apple.”

      “Newton.”

      “Whatever. So, what hit you?”

      “Nothing hit me.” Saskia made the mistake of glancing at her laptop.

      Lissy’s eyes narrowed. Then, quick as a rattlesnake, she spun her chair round the desk and looked over Saskia’s shoulder before she had the chance to snap the thing closed.

      “Ha!” Lissy pointed. “Talk about inspiration. Who is that?”

      Saskia’s eyes skewed back to the monitor, to the bluest eyes and the hint of what would have amounted to an indecently sensuous smile if the photographer had only been kind enough to wait half a second more. “His handle is NJM.”

      “Handle? He’s one of our online dating guys?” Lissy blew out a long, slow whistle. “Why did I let you be the guinea pig on this one?”

      “Because you were dating Dropkick Dave and when he saw you smile at the greengrocer he snapped all your carrots in half.”

      Lissy winced at the memory. “I’ll admit the guy was high strung—”

      Saskia coughed out a laugh at the understatement of the year.

      “—but Lordy the man knew how to kiss.” With that Lissy disappeared into a daze. Saskia made a mental note to check Lissy’s phone and make sure Dropkick Dave had been deleted.

      With a shake of her head Lissy came to, tiptoed her chair back to her side of the table, and angling her mug at the back of Saskia’s laptop, said, “Stats please.”

      Saskia shuffled the mouse and clicked on the link for NJM’s full online profile. The sight of neat and tidy columns, of horizontal bars filled with information, of questions with answers, and she found her zen. “Six-two. Blue eyes. Dark blond hair. Financier. No interests listed.”

      Well, now, that just seemed a little sad.

      “I put up my hand to give him some!” said Lissy.

      Saskia laughed, then realised she was still rolling a finger over the mouse