Meant to Be (RightMatch.com Trilogy) by Kathryn Shay

The poor woman was embarrassed.
    As she’d suspected he would, the guy backed off. He was wrong and knew it. Beth was sorry she’d have to deal with them on such a busy weekend. And when her nerves were raw.
    When she finally got a minute to herself, she absconded to the privacy of her suite in the back of the Inn. Sitting down at her personal computer, she woke up her server. By tacit agreement, she and Cole had left the question of continuing their relationship unanswered. After an incredible bout of sex, instead of making any decisions, they’d simply left it at Let’s talk on email for a while.
    So she was once again waiting every day to see if there was a missive from Cole Matheson.
    o0o
    Sabrina Jenkins was as pretty as her name. Cole had hired her as the site’s psychologist two years ago and he’d never regretted it. Together, they’d devised the profile questionnaires based on her recommendations, then he’d left her to make any revisions along the way. Their site was smaller than average, and more expensive, and computers did the algorithms for the matches like mega sites, but Sabrina reviewed them and took care of potential problems. Since she was the mother of twins and wanted to work part-time at home, the arrangement suited them both. So when she’d called this morning, he’d been worried. Neither had babysitters, so they met at the local park, and while their kids played in the sandbox, they sat side by side on a bench.
    “I think,” Sabrina said, “that we have a predator on the site.”
    It was the last thing he expected. “What?”
    “I think we have a predator. You know I follow-up on all the complaints and then send what I’ve done with them to you, but I wanted to talk to you in person about this one.”
    “Most of our complaints come from the poor souls saying they got rejected and think it’s our fault. One woman griped about the price of renewal being too high for her. Stuff like that.”
    “Up until now, yes. But we have a more serious issue this time. A woman named Carrie Lawson accepted a date with a man she’d been corresponding with for a few weeks. They met at a restaurant in Rockland, as we advise, but she wasn’t intrigued enough to have a second date.”
    “Which happens to a large percentage of the clients. They go on to date other people, though, until something clicks.”
    “Well, this guy isn’t giving up. He keeps emailing Carrie, even after she shut him down.”
    He shot a quick glance at Ellie who was filling her shoes with sand. “And the woman’s irritated?”
    “No, she says it’s creepy. She feels unsafe.”
    “Ah, that’s not good.” Cole frowned. “First thing, we’ll refund his money and bar him from our site. Then I’ll call our lawyer and have him write a cease-and-desist letter for the guy to stop emailing her. If we have to take it further, I’ll contact Joe. I may talk to him anyway.”
    “Okay, good.” Sabrina was still scowling.
    “You don’t look like it’s good.”
    “I have a bad feeling about this one.”
    “Don’t you think we’re doing all we can for the safety of our customers?”
    Cole and Sabrina and their attorney had taken precautions. First, they asked for more information than most sites, like name and address of clients, then they used a background site called BeenChecked.com to run a cursory investigation of the name given. And finally, they demanded the signup fee be paid by check. It was more complicated to operate this way, and they might have lost clients, but the cost of joining was high anyway, so they’d probably already weeded out those with no bank account. In any case, the check would confirm the name and address given in the initial profile. When customers renewed, they could use a credit card. His team also cross-referenced clients in the sexual-offender database. Finally, a section of RightMatch.com was devoted to Internet Dating Safety Tips.
    “I think we’ve set up as many precautions as humanly