Page 1 of Matched By Mistake
One
Jericho Winters took his VIP credentials and walked through the atrium of the Winters Expo Center with more than a little pride. His architecture company, RoyalGreen, had won the bid to build the new center in Royal, Texas, his hometown. Jericho had personally designed the center using cutting-edge eco-design elements to create a convention space that blended seamlessly into the landscape and incorporated energy-saving measures.
His brother Trey had urged him to come to ByteCon and check out the presentation of the wildly popular k!smet app that Trey was a financial backer in. There was a bit of in-family controversy as the creator of the app, Misha Law, had hired her best friend, Maggie Del Rio, to design the graphics and promotional elements for the app.
The Del Rio and Winters families had been feuding for more than a century since Eliza Boudreaux had dumped her beau Fernando Del Rio and married Teddy Winters.
For Jericho’s part, he didn’t get too involved in family politics, preferring to bury himself in his work and watch his beloved Dallas Mavericks play.
He rubbed the back of his neck. Somehow being in this space was stirring up mixed emotions that he’d long ignored about Royal and his place in it. He could have gone anywhere in the world to open his company but instead he’d stayed here. He liked his hometown, liked the people and their friendly faces. He even tolerated the local gossip because it was part of the charm of living in a midsized town. But he felt the pressure of the feud more and more lately.
The scent of jasmines and then the staccato sound of heels on the tiled floor of the atrium brought his head around and he saw the very reason for his feelings toward the feud walking blithely through the crowd.
Maggie Del Rio.
She was tall and curvy with long black hair that she habitually wore in a long fall down her back. He’d noticed her for the first time in the bar at the Texas Cattleman’s Club. He’d recently joined the TCC, a local country club that had been thriving in Royal for over one hundred years, having originally been founded by local cattle ranchers. He’d been on his way over to introduce himself when Trey had pointed out who she was. So he’d turned his attention to another woman but... He wanted Maggie.
Rationally, he knew it was just lust. It had to be because he had never met the woman, but his obsession with her had led to him reading up on her online. She was impressive. Thirty years old and she’d made a huge splash as an art director and graphic artist. Her high-profile client list had made it easy for him to check her work out, and he realized that her reputation was well earned.
There’d been scant personal information available except for a two-year-old article onRoyal Tonight’s website that mentioned a broken engagement. So he wasn’t even sure she was single. That had been his only thought. Not the fact that someone had broken the engagement and maybe there was a valid reason.
His body just didn’t care, which was typical of him. He wasn’t afraid to admit that part of the reason he wanted her as much as he did was that she was forbidden fruit. At best they could have a one-night stand. Neither of them was going to risk all-out war with their families to start anything.
Which suited his life.
He rubbed the back of his neck again and shook his head. He wasn’t going to sleep with Maggie, no matter that he’d had torrid dreams of hooking up with her since that one moment in the bar more than six weeks earlier. It was time to force his attention away from her.
He walked through the exhibition hall seeing old friends like Brian Cooper, whom he’d gone to school with.
“Hey, man, love this place. I heard you got the bid and was really looking forward to seeing what you did,” Brian said after shaking his hand and giving him a one-armed bro hug.
“Thanks. I wanted to get a lot of eco-friendly things into it but didn’t want the design to suffer,” Jericho said.
“Piper said she loved it. She said that you had an artist’s eye,” Brian said.
Brian’s partner, Piper, was an artist herself and a successful gallery owner in Dallas, which was a little over two hours from Royal. The couple split their time between Dallas and Royal. Brian worked in a law firm in Dallas as well. The couple had gotten together a few years ago when someone had been sabotaging Piper’s family.
“Tell her I said thanks,” Jericho said. “What are you here to see?”
“K!smet. Piper downloaded it and recommended it to me for business. But I’m not sure yet. Have you used it?”
“Nah. Not for work. I mean I downloaded it, but I’ve been busy,” he said. Plus he wasn’t sure he wanted to be matched romantically with someone based on an algorithm. The app had been gaining attention and traction for the matches it had made.
Today at the event they were going to debut a new function—Surprise Me!—something that suited the mood Jericho was in.
Despite his attraction to Maggie, he normally dated other people in his industry, either architects or other building developers. He’d been seeing a woman who lived in Dallas off and on for the last three years. But that was just for sex, which was what they both wanted. This app... Well, he had no idea what would happen.
“You might as well. Piper used the business app and it matched her with a graffiti artist who she’s mentoring. The connections that she’s experienced have been solid.”
“Maybe,” he said.
They made their way to the main exhibition stage, where the k!smet banner hung. There was a large computer screen with the company’s logo. Brian excused himself to go and talk with some family members. And Jericho found a quiet spot and pulled out his phone, opened the k!smet app and toggled the looking-for-a-match button. When in Rome, right?
“God, it’s hot today. I mean August in Texas is worse than purgatory,” Maggie Del Rio said as she entered the backstage area and the greenroom that had been allocated to the k!smet app. Her best friend, Misha Law, was looking in the mirror, touching up her lipstick.
Misha wore her auburn hair cut in a wavy bob. She’d accented her hazel eyes by wearing thick mascara that made her lashes seem even longer than they naturally were. She was really good with tech-com stuff and Maggie was very excited to see the app she’d designed doing so well.
“Good. I’m glad. That means more people will be inside and come to our presentation. There is some talk that the investors might take the app public, which is the dream,” Misha said. “I just hope the Surprise Me! function is well-received. When my brother first mentioned it I was really excited for it but now that I’m about to go onstage and debut it...”
