Page 22 of Matched By Mistake
He forgot about Maggie as he horsed around with his brother and nephew in the pool, doing double flips off the diving board and helping Dez beat Trey in a race by grabbing his brother’s ankle and giving Dez an edge.
Surrounded by part of his family, it reaffirmed to him that he wouldn’t do anything to hurt them. He had a chance to protect not only Trey’s investment but his family as a whole from any scheming by the Del Rios. He wasn’t going to tell himself he’d stop lusting after Maggie, as he knew that was impossible, but he could try to resist the deeper pull she had on him.
That woman had gotten into his blood and into his brain. He couldn’t sleep at night without her drifting into his dreams and turning them torrid and hot. He wanted her but not at the expense of Trey or Dez or the rest of his family.
He had dinner with them and then headed back to his gated house in one of the neighborhoods in Royal. Alone, in the big house that he’d had built when he’d landed his first big client at RoyalGreen Architects and had felt like he was solidly an adult. That it was time for him to start building his own legacy. He’d never been the successor to his father or Winters Industries. Which suited him because he’d always been drawn to figuring out how things were made and then creating buildings and designs.
Maybe that was his attraction to Maggie. Maybe he just needed to figure out how she was made. What made Maggie Del Rio the woman she was? She’d been hurt by love and had retreated and then come out of her shell in a big way by going on k!smet.
He’d never been hurt by love. In fact, he was pretty damned sure he’d never been in love, but then he hadn’t been looking for it. He was thirty-three. Maybe it was time he started. Was this some kind of biological thing now that RoyalGreen was solidly established?
He walked through the well-designed rooms of his house and realized as he did so that he’d built it with his family in mind. The sports room with the large TV and the pool table where he hoped to teach his kids to play.
The large eco-designed bedrooms that used natural design elements instead of costly fossil fuels to cool and heat. He’d been thinking of something permanent and solid even though he was still living temporary.
And facing his family’s past and their rivalry with the Del Rios was making him question everything. Especially as he entered the open plan living room space and could easily imagine Maggie standing in it.
“Was your family pissed about you dating Jericho?” Misha asked while they were getting pedicures at the Saint Tropez Salon.
“Sort of. Not really pissed but more concerned. I think that’s what they were going for. More like ‘we don’t want you to get hurt,’ but I could tell some of them still disapproved,” Maggie said.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be, I’m not. But I am nervous about the dates. The families both agreed to everything but...”
“But?”
She took a deep breath. Misha knew everything about Maggie; she never kept her in the dark. “I like him. But there’s no future in it. My mind knows that but I can’t get my body to accept it.”
Misha reached over and squeezed her hand. “You’ve got this. I don’t think the app would have put you two together if there wasn’t something there.”
“Are you sure? It seemed sort of random,” Maggie said.
“I am sure. I had Nico look at the code and make sure it hadn’t been tampered with,” Misha said.
“I hadn’t even thought of that,” Maggie said. “Why did you?”
“We are hoping to release the IPO and there are those who’d like to see us fail. It was just something that I thought about and then couldn’t let go of. What better way to make the app look like it didn’t work than to match members of two rival families who would never normally date each other?”
“You’re right but that wasn’t the case?”
“No. It wasn’t. The algorithm saw something in you two. I mean he’s hot so there’s that, right?” Misha said.
“Yeah. I mean he’s really hot and a dynamite kisser,” Maggie said.
“How do you know that?”
“We had a private meeting at my place before we talked to our families,” Maggie said. “For my part, I needed to know if he was going to be serious about dating. I don’t really want to get hurt again and especially not for revenge because of a business deal that we beat them out on.”
“Makes sense...and the kiss?”
“He’s wicked hot like you said. We have this really strong chemistry. Honestly, I’ve never been like this with any other guy.”
“That’s good,” Misha said. “Maybe this match will work out.”
“Maybe,” Maggie said, but she wasn’t sure. She was going to have to trust Jericho more than she was prepared to do.
“What’s your fear?”
