Cooper shrugged. ‘And how am I meant to do that? My track record isn’t great.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be a leading expert on compatibility? If anyone can find someone, you should be able to.’
That gave Cooper an idea that he’d definitely not have had if he hadn’t chugged four beers on an empty stomach.
And by the time he’d chased the beers with two double whiskeys and some other drinks Scary Sue brought over that he couldn’t be bothered to identify, he could almost convince himself that having the added bonus of being able to save the woman he loved from losing her job had nothing to do with it.
So, with clumsy fingers and unusually carefree abandon, once back home, Cooper completed the totally biased, non-impartial and clearly inadmissible application to get himself a wife and forget about Bridget Donovan once and for all.
* * *
It felt as though he’d barely closed his eyes before the alarm was going off. And,ugh, the hangover…
Three glasses of water, one mistaken mouthful of coffee and a scalding shower later, he braved the ten-minute tram journey from Ben’s flat near the station out to the medical school.
It was only once the tram had started moving that he remembered.
A blinding flash of horror and disbelief, followed by a rumbling thunder of regret and panic that caused his stomach to flip almost inside out. A woman on the seat opposite glanced up, saw the look on his face and then switched to another spot further down the tram.
Okay. Think about this, Cooper. Take a couple of breaths.
It was fine.
Easily sorted.
No one even had to know.
The applications were anonymous. So, even if Bridget hadn’t slept in, and she’d already read the form, all he had to do was send another anonymous email to explain he’d changed his mind and he could go back to breathing properly again.
He hurried up the steps into the medical school building, as fast as he could without having to heave into a bin, and took the lift up to his office. Even as he willed himself not to, he felt too tired and wretched to resist glancing in the lab door as he scuttled past.
‘Cooper!’ Bridget called out from her usual perch.
‘Give me ten minutes,’ he croaked without slowing.
There was a two-second pause before he heard her scurrying after him. She caught up as he unlocked the office door.
‘Are you ill? You sounded terrible. Ugh! You look even worse.’
He went inside and flicked on the coffee machine. Even if he couldn’t face it, Bridget would want one.
‘I didn’t get much sleep last night. You don’t look too great yourself.’
‘Something awful has happened. It can’t wait ten minutes.’ Bridget sat in one of the office chairs, but her knee jiggled up and down like a pneumatic drill, and she was chewing fretfully on a nail.
He filled up two mugs with coffee, adding milk and three sugars to the one without the chip in the rim and waiting for Bridget to put down the folder she was carrying before handing it to her.
‘Are you going to tell me what it is?’ He didn’t want to sound unsympathetic, but he had an email to send.
‘Emma’s applied to the project.’
‘What?Your sister Emma?’
‘Well, it’s hardly going to be Emma Watson.Yes, my sister Emma!She’d talked about it, but I never thought she’d genuinely go through with it. Cooper, you’ve seen the men who’ve applied. I cannot marry my sister off to one of them.’
‘So don’t. None of those men could be compatible with Emma, even using the Cole Compatibility Function of Stupidity.’ Cooper managed a sip of coffee. The hangover retreated a millimetre or two.
Bridget picked the folder back off his desk and opened it. On top of a printout of one of the applications was a handwritten note in the prof’s familiar scrawl:
