Page 61 of Matched By Mistake
He was quiet for a moment, and the way he stared into the distance told her that he was considering. “My son is staying with his grandparents tonight. That’ll work for me.”
“Great,” she said, smiling. “I’ll see you then.”
Without another word, Trey turned and walked out of her office. She couldn’t help but notice the way the denim of his jeans clung to his lower body as he closed the door behind him.
She let out a heavy breath. “What was that?” she said to her empty office. HowdareTrey Winters just barge into her office and tell her that her app didn’t work. She woke her computer, which was already open to her email, displaying a High Priority email that had been forwarded from k!smet’s PR firm. “How should we deal with this?” they’d asked.
Dear Ms. Law,
I downloaded k!smet hoping to find the love of my life. Unfortunately, that isn’t what happened. When I matched with Steve, our differences were noticeable immediately. Not only did we disagree on most topics, even many of the deal breakers that we’d included in our profiles, but when I excused myself to go to the ladies’ room, he made a quick exit. When I came back my purse was also gone. Did he take it? I can’t say for sure. Maybe it was someone else. I’ve heard a lot of great things about k!smet and your matching process, and I thought that it would be a great way to find a future partner, but instead, I ended up alone, needing to cancel my credit cards.
I just wanted to let you know that even though the k!smet app has been touted as the next big thing in dating apps and making foolproof matches, in this case, your app matched me with my complete opposite. Maybe it didn’t get it right this time.
Misha reread the email from an unsatisfied customer. It was only the latest in a list of complaints from users who had been paired with incompatible matches. She would never admit to Trey that maybe he was right; maybe there was a problem with the app. But what would admitting that mean for her best friend, and the happiness she’d found with Jericho? k!smet was set to be the cornerstone of creating a tech hub in Royal, Texas. Trey himself, had already invested so much money into her business, and Jericho had built the Winters Expo Center, in preparation of putting the town on par with Silicon Valley and other tech hubs. If there was something wrong with the app, it could ruin everything, cost everyone involved a lot of money and disappoint the people of Royal.
Misha trusted her work, and honestly, she had no reason to believe that there was something wrong with the code. They’d tested the algorithm and functions, and it worked for a long time. The code seemed sound, but it was the users, the way the algorithms were constructed and manipulated, that’s what lead to unpredictability. But there was something strange going on when it came to the wonky matches being made, especially when it came to pairing users who gave incompatible answers on the personality profile upon signing up for the app.
These were things she didn’t want Trey to know, and she had no plans of discussing them with him. But bringing him in could be helpful. Two hands were better than one, and if he discovered a problem that she’d missed, she would accept it. She’d rather have any glitches found before they launched the IPO. She looked to her closed office door, picturing, once again, him in her office, in all of his mouthwatering glory, and knew that it was better to keep him as an ally than a foe.
She hated the idea of having him checking her work, but she didn’t want to tell her small staff that there may be problems. She didn’t want to scare anyone or start any rumors to stir bad press. Even though she didn’t want Trey looking over her shoulder, or checking her work, he would definitely be a help.
But not only that—as she thought about him, he might be an arrogant ass, but it could be fun to bring him into it, spend a little time getting to know him. And if she kept him busy with the app, then maybe he wouldn’t yell from the rafters that there was something wrong with it. But even though Trey was an investor, she didn’t want anyone else’s input. k!smet was her baby, and she didn’t want anyone fooling with it.
She had so many confused thoughts—about the app and Trey—that she knew there was only one person she could talk to about this—her brother, Nico. She picked up her phone and dialed his contact. Like he always did when she called, he picked up after one ring. “What’s up?”
She smiled upon hearing his voice. She’d spent too many years not being able to contact him whenever she wanted or needed to, and now they called each other several times a day. It helped with the physical distance that was between them. “Nico, you will not believe what just happened here.”
He exhaled, no doubt picturing any number of scenarios. “Tell me. Whose ass do I have to kick?”
“You’d have to come home to Royal to do that,” she told him pointedly. She managed to bring up the topic of him returning to town during every conversation.
“Not much chance of that happening,” he said, just like every time. “Tell me, what just happened?”
“Trey Winters just stormed in here.”
“What did he want?” Nico asked.
“He’s claiming there’s a problem with k!smet.”
“What kind of problem?”
Misha told her brother about the other man’s visit. “He says there’s no way his brother Jericho would be paired with Maggie, given the feud between their families.”
“Screw that,” he scoffed. Nico and Misha had worked closely together to create the code for the app, and she knew that her brother took these allegations as strongly as she did. “Well, the algorithm doesn’t detect family feud BS. There’s nothing wrong with the code,” he maintained.
“Yeah,” she said, trailing off, her voice low.
“What was that tone?” he asked.
“What if he’s right?”
“You created that code and I double-checked it. Then we triple-checked it before the release,” Nico needlessly reminded her. “Your work is brilliant. If neither of us caught an error, it doesn’t exist.”
“You’re a lot more confident than I am,” she said. “We’re not omnipotent. We could have missed a problem.”
“Not likely.”
“But even so. He offered to help me figure out where the problems are.”
