Perfect Date

Cupid she's not but she's pretty darn close. Nothing in the world feels better than finding her clients the perfect date. Finding one for herself might be nice, but creative bill paying is not for accomplished doctors in their forties. Satisfied customers keep the electricity on. Everything in her life was fine until she quit her celebrity radio job to start a dating business. Two years, a cheating ex, and a very ugly divorce later, she's back to living with her mother. Not that her mom isn't great, but come on. With her cop ex-husband doing everything he can to ruin her business, she's at her wit's end. Throw in another cop who makes her believe in love at first sight or at least lust and life is a mess. Another sexy bad boy cop is the last thing she needs.

Dating's one thing, but what's love got to do with it? Nothing. At least not for Ann Lynx. She's fifty-three for goodness sake. She's had love. All she's in the market for these days is some fun companionship no strings attached. Right? Wrong.Thanks to her pain-in-the-rear-end best friend, Georgia, she's now back on the dating scene. Add Georgia's matchmaking daughter Mariah to the mix and Ann is officially in a world of trouble or dates to be more accurate.All that would be kind of doable, but her handyman's sexy too-young-for-her son is making her feel like a silly young girl. She should definitely stick to the handsome, successful, and older men that Mariah keeps throwing in her path, but she can't seem to banish the sexy Cal from her thoughts any more than from her broken pantry.The retired military man is very good at fixing things, and at kissing her senseless. Who's going to fix her though if Cal ends up breaking her heart? What's love got to do with it? Maybe everything.

What could she possibly have in common with a man whose watch costs more than her car?Georgia may be slowing down a bit at her age, but she isn't stupid yet. The idea of her genuinely dating Dr. Brentwood Colombo, aka Hollywood… well, that's just totally insane. Where is her dignity? Where is her pride? How did she let her snickering friends dare her into giving him a chance?And where is the kind, caring daughter she raised? Mariah's been replaced with an evil version insisting she gives the womanizing plastic surgeon who dates twenty-year-olds a fair chance. A fair chance at what? Breaking her heart?No, thank you. Her dignity will not be trampled under Hollywood's expensive shoes. Now if he'd just stop talking about her perfect, perfect breasts, she might forget about him completely.

If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Right? That's easier said than done when Chef Trudy Baker has to co-host the cooking show of a former love, Chef Jack Dozen. Problem is Jack would rather throw Trudy into the fire than share the spotlight with her. Sexy Jack has all the right ingredients for the perfect man…except he's too young for her. He's also her guilty secret one she never told anyone about. Trudy's romantically happy friends are insisting she gets happy too, which is the only reason she signed up with The Perfect Date. Dating sounds nice in theory, but in practice, the only place Trudy ever gets hot these days is in the kitchen. Her saner self knows she's better off dating a mature man closer to her own age than a cocky idiot who's spent the last decade hating her. The recipe of the network putting them together on TV is one that spells disaster. The only thing she and Jack ever cooked up together was trouble. Maybe trouble is the ingredient she's been missing...

Della needs a hero. Anybody got a cape Elliston can borrow? How can a 31-year-old guy in his prime have a dating emergency? Elliston stupidly told his best client that he would bring a date to his weekend function, but then he got too busy with work to actually get off his butt and find one. Hey, don't judge. Finding a girlfriend wasn't on his agenda. So what did he do? He called his favorite dating service. The owner of The Perfect Date, Dr. Mariah Bates, offered the perfect deal one that just might save his ego and his man card. He gets a fake girlfriend for his business trip and all he has to do in exchange is take his fake girlfriend to her sister's wedding. Enter Dr. Della Livingston. Mariah's career-minded assistant with surprisingly great legs has Elliston soon thinking he's hit the fake girlfriend jackpot. Maybe he's nuts from months of working too hard, but he's beginning to wish this whole fake date thing wasn't so fake. Now he wants to jump off the love cliff and save the girl, except he needs to figure out how to fly first. Anybody got a Superman cape he can borrow?

All she wants is a friend. What's wrong with that? Sure Jellica felt a smidge guilty for the money Greg Skyler spent on their date, but what did a man who wears sweater vests expect from a woman who wears crystals, burns sage, and teaches yoga? The two of them are never going to be the romance of the century. In fact, they have absolutely nothing in common. So why is Greg acting so surprised and hurt to hear she wants only to be friends? Before her mind can sort it out, Greg's sister is stalking her, his mother becomes her lawyer, and Greg starts bossing her around in the nicest way possible. Plus he's still trying to kiss her. And he's a really good kisser. Talk about confusing...Sometimes nice guys and girls do finish first. And being friends and lovers is as perfect as you can get.

Her real life is no fairy tale and she's no Cinderella. After what her ex-husband did to her, heiress Henna Colombo is a man-hater, not a dater. And the thing she hates most of all is the fairytale of falling in love. Why do her father and her new wicked stepmother insist she keeps looking for her prince? And why at The Perfect Date? Only the most pathetic losers use a dating service.She's fine being single. As far as Henna's concerned, the love God can take his diaper-wrapped butt and arrows elsewhere. Cupid can also shove those arrows where the sun doesn't shine if he thinks for one second that someone like Vassal Milano is her perfect man. Vassal's perfect alright perfect at sneaking around behind her back. Just like her ex, she caught him kissing someone else. No… she didn't confront Vassal about it. Why would she put herself through all that heartache and torture again? Outside of a few unforgettable kisses, she and Vassal were only friends anyway. Cupid's arrow missed her that time thankfully. As for the whole dating thing and looking for any sort of honorable Prince Charming? Forget it. No such man exists. Luckily, Henna doesn't care.

The last thing Iris needs is a man with his head in the clouds. Most days Iris can't believe that she actually left her home and country for a smooth-talking jerk who tossed her into the street first chance he got. A woman has to view that sort of thing as life lesson. Her mum raised her to be a survivor, and that includes understanding her worst enemy is herself when it comes to good-looking men. Besides... nice men don't date broke women staying at hostels. And Lincoln Walker seems to be a very, very nice man. He has a growing list of rich, beautiful, and successful business women wanting to date him. Iris calls tending bar a career. They couldn't be any less suited for each other. Imagine Cinderella never getting to the ball. Then imagine her turning forty and still scrubbing fireplaces for a living. That would be the fairytale version of Iris's life. She's got no time to waste on dating Prince Charming or rather, Prince Walker. The man owns his own urban kingdom and yet chooses to fly balloons for a living. Iris, on the other hand, chooses to take down rowdy drunks in bars. Cupid better not shoot an arrow her way or she'll take him down too. In her life, love and romance are temporary. That's all Iris can afford.