Page 38 of Matched By Mistake
“Yes,” she said, realizing how spur-of-the-moment this was. She had no change of clothes, and her car was left at the lot in Royal. “I didn’t plan for this.”
“Neither did I. Regrets?” he asked.
Sex seemed to make him only able to talk in short bursts while her mind was waking up and she had a lot she wanted to say to him. But she didn’t. “None.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said. He carried her upstairs to his bedroom, and she noticed that all of his lights were on motion sensors and shut off after they left. He offered to let her use the bathroom to wash up and gave her a RoyalGreen T-shirt to wear.
She got her phone and texted her mom that she was spending the night at a friend’s so she wouldn’t worry and then washed up. She looked at herself in the mirror, trying to see signs of changes in her face, but she saw none. There was no outer evidence that everything had changed inside her in the course of one night.
She’d let go of the insecurities that had been like chains wrapped around her after she’d been rejected by Randall. She’d let go of the expectations of the people in Royal who thought that a Winters and a Del Rio could never be together. She’d let go of not trusting her gut but she still wasn’t sure she was ready for what it was trying to tell her.
That Jericho might be more than the key to moving on... He might be the key to her future.
Eleven
Jericho dropped Maggie off at her car the next morning, kissing her slowly because he didn’t want to leave her, but they both had places to be. Something that lingered on his mind as he drove to work. He hadn’t anticipated falling for her but there was no question he was. Seeing her in his home had twigged something in his mind, and as he’d made her breakfast while she’d been doing her makeup at the kitchen table, he couldn’t help but think she belonged there. They told each other their plans for the day, as if it was the most natural conversation in the world.
She’d asked him a few questions about the family business and his dad, and he’d told her he wasn’t really involved in the business, which was for the best since he tended to butt heads when it came to anything involving work. Joseph more than once had “offered” Jericho advice on how to run RoyalGreen.
He had a design meeting that took all morning, and when he got out he saw he’d missed a message from Maggie.
Maggie: Are you free for dinner tonight?
Jericho: I was planning to be with you.
Maggie: Great. Uh, do you mind going to dinner with my parents?
Yes, he thought. He didn’t really want to spend the night with Mr. and Mrs. Del Rio. The impression he’d had when he met her brother was that he was persona non grata with the entire Del Rio clan... But maybe Maggie had felt the same when his sister and her brother were going at it. And she had met his folks already.
Maggie: I can tell by how long it’s taking you to say yes that you don’t want to go.
Jericho laughed at her text and then hit the video call button. She answered it immediately.
“Sorry, it’s not that I don’t want to meet your folks...”
“I totally get it. When you saw your parents last night, I wanted to bail but the truth is we had a lot of fun and I wondered...well, if maybe this entire feud thing hasn’t been blown out of proportion. I just wanted to see you with my family.”
He understood where she was coming from, and honestly, given that he was starting to think of Maggie as more than his summer fling, getting to know her family was seemed like a solid plan. “I think will work.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m smart that way. It’s probably better that you know that at the beginning of this thing we have going on.”
“Know what?”
“That I tend to be right.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. So just go with what I suggest and we’ll be good,” she said and he saw the twinkle in her eyes and knew she was teasing him.
And it made him wish they were together so he could pull her into his arms and make love to her. “That might be awkward because I’m usually right.”
She furrowed her brow. “How? All that means is you’ll be agreeing with me.”
He threw his head back and laughed. He didn’t say it out loud, but damn this woman got him in a way that no one else ever had. Which was kind of hard to figure since they’d been raised by two families that were supposedly very different.
“I’ll take that as agreement. I’ve got to go. I have a client meeting in ten minutes. I’ll text you the details for dinner. Want to stay at my place tonight?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
