# Chapter 21: The Matchmaker’s Warning and the Electric Secret
Hey there, fellow romance lovers! Welcome back to another chapter breakdown from *Searching For Someday free digital audiobook*. I’m so glad you’re here with me today, because Chapter 21 is one of those delicious turning-point chapters—full of flirty sparring, dangerous curiosity, and one very revealing trip home to mama. So grab your favorite drink, get cozy, and let’s dive into all the sparks, secrets, and stubborn hearts in this chapter.
The chapter opens with Slade Montgomery caught in that familiar tug-of-war. He keeps telling himself that Hannah would give him a warmer, more intimate atmosphere—maybe something real could emerge there. Why keep chasing Kate when she so clearly doesn’t want to be caught? A smart man would focus on a woman who actually wants him. And yet, even though Slade doesn’t believe in long-term love, he misses the comfort of an affair with someone he enjoys. But he isn’t ready to leave the mixer yet. Not when Kate is still in the room.
The ladies disperse, and Kate heads toward the bar. Slade picks up his wine and follows her like a man who knows he’s playing with fire but can’t stop himself. Kate senses him behind her, stops short, and almost makes him crash into her. She lifts one arched brow and asks if he needed something else. In other words: he’s officially dismissed. But that only makes Slade want to push harder. Kate amuses him with her bossiness, her cool composure, and the way she seems so thoroughly unimpressed by him.
He tells her he thought he’d hang with her for a bit. It’s Friday night, still early. Kate’s pale pink lips tighten. She points out that he could have continued the mixer longer—the women were quite impressed with him. Slade fires back that at least they were impressed; Kate treats him like an annoyance. Her startled jerk satisfies him. She insists she’s only trying to do her job. He grins and says, excellent—then she can babysit her new client and let him buy her a drink. Kate gives a cute little humph, but politeness wins. She grudgingly tells him drinks are free until ten as part of the contract for holding their exclusive mixers there. Slade asks if she wants another Merlot or Chardonnay. She chooses Merlot.
He walks to the bar, grabs two fresh glasses, and hands her one. As they drink, he wonders if her mystery is what intrigues him. Maybe if he breaks through that reserved demeanor, he’ll realize she isn’t as interesting as he thought. It’s happened before. So he starts fishing: tell him about Kinnections. Not many people have the guts to start a risky business in this economy. Kate snorts, seeing right through him. She teases that he’d better do better in court when digging for information—that was pure amateur. Slade throws up his hands in surrender and claims he’s just interested in her company. Sue him. Kate chuckles and says, fine, let’s get this over with. Cross-examine me, counselor.
And so she tells him the origin story. The three of them met at NYU freshman year, got assigned a group project in English, became close friends, roomed together, and graduated together. Slade can’t resist calling them the three hot amigas tearing it up at NYU, joking that the poor guys never knew what hit them. But Kate’s eyes flash with memory and a bite of pain. She says it was different than he thinks. They didn’t really fit in with the regular crowd—probably a big reason they bonded so quickly. When Slade pushes for specifics, she shuts him down. He files the topic away for later, when she’s off guard.
She tells him her degree was in business management. She always dreamed of being an entrepreneur but wasn’t sure what to focus on. Arilyn graduated in counseling, Ken in media and communications. They pursued careers for a while but found everywhere lacking. Then one night, drunk on cosmopolitans, they came up with the idea of a matchmaking agency. Slade teases that women still drink those. Kate’s eyes sparkle with the memory. They were hungover the next morning but still agreed it was the best idea they ever had. They pooled their resources, their talents, and moved forward.
Slade loves the gutsiness. Most grown men he knows sit around whining about jobs they hate but are too afraid to take risks. He asks why Verily. He’d think they could make more money in Manhattan. Kate explains they didn’t want to go head-to-head with big names like Spindel and Kelleher. Verily has the perfect mix of young, career-oriented twenty- and thirtysomething professionals. It gives them the majority of the market, introduces a new client base, and is still close enough to Manhattan for events and recruiting. Their focus is twenty-five to thirty-five, and they don’t accept clients outside those barriers. It gives them a special niche.
Slade nods and raises his glass: here’s to brilliant drunken ideas. Their glasses click, and Kate’s lips curve in a genuine smile. Something about the angles of her face, the fall of her hair over her brow, the stubborn tilt of her chin—separately nothing extraordinary, but together they hold him almost spellbound. A mocking voice in his head warns him not to confuse attraction with love, but he shoves it aside. He asks how successful they’ve been. Kate says ten marriages in three years, a good percentage of engagements, not bad stats. When he asks about divorces, she bares her teeth and says no. But if she gets the call, she’ll send them his way. Then she tells him to leave the cynicism at home on his date with Hannah.
Slade promises he’s very good on first dates. Kate fires back that her challenge will be getting Hannah not to dump him by the third—statistically, that’s when elements of a true personality begin to leak out. Ouch. He asks if she doesn’t need to believe in her clients. Kate pushes a shimmering lock of angel-gold hair from her cheek and says no—she just needs to match him.
Their gazes lock, and raw heat slithers through him. He longs to back her against the wall and kiss that haughty expression off her face, to make her moan while he slides his fingers between her thighs. His body reacts, and he has to control his breathing. He reminds himself why he’s doing this: his sister, Jane. Prove Kinnections fraudulent and protect her. But lately, the idea that they’re con artists is drifting away. Lately, he’s begun to think they actually believe in this happily-ever-after nonsense. And if they aren’t criminals, just misguided, then he has a bigger problem. Because belief and hope in a concept that doesn’t exist is neither a crime nor punishable by law.
Slade changes the subject and asks if Ken and Arilyn are married. Kate says no. He probes: if she’s a witch and casts spells, how come she didn’t find love for her two best friends? The air between them tightens. Kate grips her wineglass so hard he worries it might shatter. She says they’re not ready. She was only being facetious, making sure he can’t sue her over misguided claims like love spells that fail. Slade says that’s what she wanted him to think, but he still doesn’t believe her. She gives a delicate shrug. That’s his right.
Then he pushes further. Do you light up most men you touch? Kate stiffens and claims she doesn’t know what he means. He says she does. That was no regular kiss. It was something else, and she doesn’t want to admit it. The distance between them shrinks, and temper lifts her chin. She tells him not to kiss her anymore, and he won’t have any problems. Slade says that is a problem. Why? Because he likes kissing her. Kate jerks back and insists she’s the complete opposite of what he needs.
He asks how she knows what he needs. His flirty tone seems to infuriate her. Sparks shoot from her ocean-blue eyes. She says it’s because she interviewed him. The only reason he’s suddenly interested is some perverse masculine challenge to win her over because she doesn’t like him. Slade is having more fun than in his last court battle. He asks why she wouldn’t like him—he’s charming, successful, intelligent, and a great lover. Wanna test him out?
Kate narrows her gaze and calls him out completely. She knows his game, Montgomery. He signed up as a joke and to keep an eye on his sister. He thinks he’ll waltz through these dates while she keeps him amused and he pokes at her for fun. But she has news for him. She plays by her own rules, and by the end of this contract, she’ll rip down those neat little walls he built and show him what it’s like to be in love. Real love. Not the kind of crap he plays at. She’ll do it for two reasons. One: she’s damn good at her job. What’s the second? Kate smiles slow and deliberate, like Eve offering a poison apple. Because payback is a bitch.
His heart thunders at her warning, almost as if she cast a spell on him. She puts her glass on the bar and spins on her heel. Slade asks where she’s going. Home. Her party mood has disappeared, and someone is waiting for her. Someone who reminds her that love and emotion are real, not some mocking game played by arrogant lawyers. A strange panic stirs in his gut. He demands to know who’s waiting home for her. Kate throws him a pitying glance and says his name is Robert, and Slade isn’t worthy to say his name. Good night. She stalks off, leaving him wondering if he pushed them both too far. Who the hell was Robert? And why did he care?
Then the chapter shifts to Kate arriving at her mother’s cozy lake house in upstate New York. She steps over the threshold and is immediately smothered by her mother’s enthusiastic greeting. Strong, tanned arms wrap around her neck and squeeze like a pumped-up boa constrictor. The familiar scents of incense and pot drift through the air. Kate hugs her back and fights for breath, scolding her mother for smoking with the door and windows open. Madeline Seymour laughs, white-blonde hair shimmering in the sunlight. She’s every inch the free-spirited hippie: hot pink yoga pants, halter top, bamboo beads, bare feet padding across worn wooden floors. She offers Kate some pot, saying she’s way too tense. Kate declines—sobriety is a goal.
We learn that Kate was raised in the hippie era of free love, peace, health, and spiritual kindness. Madeline eats vegetarian, wears organic clothing, grows an herbal garden, and holds retreats for women searching for their inner Goddess. When Kate was a teenager, she once caught her mother naked and singing around a fire with other women under a harvest moon. It ended in tears, rage, and a vow never to speak to her again. Kate respects her parents’ philosophies but struggled to combine the real world she craved with her mother’s cringe-worthy ideals. Arilyn, of course, adores Madeline and calls her the last great hippie in New York.
Kate settles onto a purple-seated cushion. The Buddha statue dominates the room, with wildly painted murals inspiring relaxation and flow. Her mother floats across the room and settles on a plump gold cushion, turning off the chanting monks. She mentions she just finished yoga and decided to meditate before her client tonight—a man having problems with impotency. She thought they’d try some controversial methods and needs clarity beforehand. Even after all these years, knowing her mother is a sex therapist makes Kate squirm. “TMI, Mom,” she says.
Madeline apologizes and asks what brings her. Kate squirms again, apologizes for being busy with Kinnections, and asks if her mother is okay. Madeline smiles, glowing and beautiful, and says she’s fine—seeing someone new who’s wonderful. Then she asks Kate if she’s having sex. Kate sighs and lies, saying she’s having lots of sex. Madeline calls her out. Kate is so stopped up with emotion that her skin is tingling. Has she gotten the vibrator Madeline sent last week? Kate fights for calm and says she got it, but there are so many speeds and buttons it’s taking a while to go through the manual. Can they focus?
Finally, Kate asks her real questions. About Dad. About the touch. Madeline encourages her, saying she can ask anything. She loved Kate’s father and would never hide anything. Kate reflects on how she sometimes felt born into a family she never understood—until the touch visited her and she realized she was blood. She was only young when her father passed from a heart attack, and she’d been enraged at her mother’s ability to move on. Later, she understood it was the only way Madeline knew how to cope with losing her soul mate. The other men were distractions, desperate attempts to fill a void only her father could soothe.
For one strange instant, an image of Slade drifts past Kate’s vision. What was one of the requirements on his list for his perfect woman? No embarrassing family secrets. Good God, he’d go screaming for the hills of *The Sound of Music* if he got one good look at her mother and heard her history. And why was she thinking of him again anyway? His date with Hannah tonight would be perfect. Kate had left him a polite voice mail asking if he needed advice or support, and he never got back to her. Obviously, he had everything under control. She just hoped he didn’t break her ironclad rules and try to seduce Hannah.
Kate drags herself back to the present and swears she won’t think about Slade Montgomery again. Ever. For real. She asks her mother to tell her specifics about how she connected with Dad. Was it a gut feeling? Did she get dizzy? Or did her skin tingle?
Madeline smiles with the memory. Oh, no—it was much more intense than that. She and Kate’s father went to shake hands, and an electrical shock jolted them immediately. It was the strangest thing, almost like sticking a wet finger in a socket. Benjamin Franklin’s famous kite had nothing on them.
Kate is stunned. She tucks her hair behind her ear and studies the whirling patterns of the bamboo floor, trying to tell herself it’s just a coincidence. Then she asks the question that hangs in the air like a cliffhanger: after the shock, did her mother get a sense that he was meant for her? Or was it just physical chemistry?
And that, dear listeners, is where Chapter 21 leaves us—right on the edge of a revelation, with Kate’s carefully controlled world tilting beneath her feet and Slade stewing over a mystery man named Robert.
Reader’s Impressions & Star Rating: This chapter is a fantastic blend of sexual tension, emotional armor, and family secrets. Slade and Kate’s barroom banter crackles with wit and heat, and Kate’s warning—“payback is a bitch”—is one of those lines that makes you want to cheer and shiver at the same time. Then the shift to Madeline’s lake house adds a whole new layer: Kate’s vulnerability, her embarrassment, and the eerie parallel between her mother’s electric touch and whatever happened between Kate and Slade. It’s funny, tender, and full of foreshadowing. I’m giving this chapter a solid ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.8 / 5 Stars.
Next Chapter Prediction: Next, Kate will press her mother for every detail about the touch, and Madeline will likely reveal something that hits far too close to home. Meanwhile, Slade’s date with Hannah may go smoothly on paper—but his mind will keep drifting back to Kate, especially now that he’s obsessed with finding out who Robert is. I suspect Robert is not a romantic rival at all, but a beloved pet, family member, or some hilariously unexpected figure that will make Slade feel foolish for being jealous. And sooner or later, Slade and Kate’s chemistry is going to explode past the point of denial.
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