Failure to Match: An Enemies to Lovers Billionaire Matchmaker Romance

My borderline unhealthy obsession with the seventh season of Chef Wars International started exactly four and a half years ago, and it was all Ria’s fault.

I’d been on day three of the godawful stomach bug that had reduced me to a useless, couch-ridden blob of vomit and cold sweat, watching Ria dick around on her phone when it happened. She clicked a video of fresh, still-squirming octopus tentacles being served raw on Yet Another Cooking Show. (Seriously, how many of them did there need to be?)

Under normal circumstances, I’d have been intrigued. But these were not normal circumstances. I was at the cruel mercy of a microscopic bug that considered raw, wiggling tentacles to be about as appetizing as moldy foot cheese.

I’d barely made it to the toilet in time.

Now why would that, of all experiences, create an all-consuming obsession with that particular season of a TV show I couldn’t have cared less about until that one defining moment?

Because of him.

Daniel Omori.

Seconds before my very life was being violently yanked out of my empty stomach, I’d caught a glimpse of the sexiest dimple to have ever bracketed anyone’s chin, tucked just underneath the most endearing, boyish smile to have ever been smiled.

I didn’t stand a chance. My inner hopeless romantic immediately took over and, as soon as I could stomach it, I’d binged the whole season.

Three times. In the span of four weeks.

He was the youngest competitor that year, a complete underdog in terms of schooling and experience, yet he’d still managed to win. Oh, and his best friend and the love of his life was Maple, his blind, three-legged golden retriever.

I mean… how could I not have fallen into immediate infatuation with him?

To this day, the viral photo of him celebrating his win with Maple in his arms was my desktop background, which… if that was how Jackson figured it out, I also needed to add “impressively observant” to his profile, because it was impressively observant.

I grinned up at Jackson, well beyond the point of controlling my emotional expressions. “How… just… how?”

We were quite literally on the set of the show. Or more plausibly, an insanely accurate recreation of it. Everything was here—the cooking stations, the judge’s table, the signature branding. The only real difference was the massive Teppanyaki grill set up in the back, complete with two place settings and a very tall, very real Daniel Omori dicing something behind the bar.

He was here.

Not in Tokyo, running his world-famous restaurant.

He was here. In Toronto.

Breathing the same air as me.

My heart was pounding inside my throat.

Jackson’s shoulders ticked up with cocky pride as he took in my reaction. He stood a little straighter. “You see? Much better as a surprise, is it not?”

Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. This was hands down the coolest thing that had ever happened to me.

“Is it just us here?” I asked quietly, my gaze sliding back to Daniel’s tattooed forearms. He’d gotten so many new ones since the show. I couldn’t wait to ask about them.

“Yes. We have him for the full night. Or, in your case, another thirty-eight minutes since you insist on ending our date right on the hour.”

I was aware that he was teasing me, I just didn’t care. I was seconds away from meeting my celebrity crush and, as luck would have it, I was wearing a dress that made me look like a literal princess. It couldn’t be more perfect.

Ignoring Jackson’s quip, I ran my hands over the front of my dress and adjusted its straps, casting nervous little glances toward the Teppanyaki grill. I was tempted to run to the bathroom, wanting to check my makeup and make sure I didn’t have anything stuck in my teeth.

But when I looked up at Jackson again, I found him watching me with less arrogance and more uncertainty clouding his expression.

“What?” I asked.

He hesitated for a beat. “You’re a fan of the show, correct?”

“Yes. Sure.” The show. Daniel’s generously tattooed biceps and chin dimple. Same dif. “Shall we go?”

His fingers curled around my arm, making me pause midstep. “And you have a picture of that guy on your laptop… because he won. And he’s a famous sushi chef… and you like sushi. That’s all.”

I blinked, confused by his tone. Why did he sound like he was trying to convince himself of the reasoning behind my choice of desktop backgrounds?

“Uh, sure. Yup. Can we go now?” I threw another longing look toward Daniel, rapidly running out of what little chill I still possessed.

And oh. My. Fucking. God.

He looked up at the same time I did and smiled at me. It was glorious. Heart-throbbingly glorious. I beamed back, waving at him⁠—

“Hey!” My grin died when Jackson tugged my arm, pulling me back the way we’d come. “Where are we going?”

“Leaving,” he bit out, shoving at the elevator button.

Disappointment weighed on my shoulders, making them sink an inch. My heart dropped. “What? Why? We just got here.”

He adjusted his bow tie, a muscle ticking across his jaw. “I miscalculated.”

What? I glanced down at my phone. “No, you didn’t. We still have over a half-hour left like you said.”

For the life of me, I couldn’t decipher the look that response earned me. Jackson held my gaze as the elevator doors slid open… and closed again. The allergies were back.

As were the tingles.

I slipped my arm out of his grip. “Okay,” I relented, smoothing my palms over my dress again. “Where would you like to go instead?”

He didn’t answer right away. Then, “Not sure yet.”

Was he serious?

“What’s wrong with this place?” I asked. “You very clearly went through a lot of trouble. It couldn’t have been easy to get Daniel Omori here on such short notice.”

I’d agreed to the evaluation less than eight hours ago. Daniel was a famous chef who lived on the other side of the world. Pulling this off seemed more than a little impossible to me.

“How the hell did you manage to even get him here on time?” I asked. Wasn’t the flight from here to Japan like fourteen hours or something? “How did you get him to agree?”

“Money,” Jackson said simply. “Most people are willing to do anything if you offer them enough of the stuff. And he flew in from New York, it’s not a big deal.”

That made even less sense. Why was he trying to downplay it?

I crossed my arms. “So, you spent all that money on a celebrity chef, and you want to leave before you even get to taste the food?” I was missing something. What was I missing?

He rolled his lips. “Like I said, I miscalculated.”

And since he very clearly wasn’t talking about the time, I had no idea what⁠—

“Hey, you guys ready to eat?”

Judging by the way both our heads snapped toward the new voice, Jackson hadn’t heard Daniel sneak up on us either. My pulse jumped, my mouth going dry as I struggled to recall the proper cultural protocols for greeting someone you were meeting for the first time.

Because oh my god, his accent! It was even more deliciously Australian in person.

Daniel’s friendly smile widened as he met my star-struck gaze, the adorable little dimple on his chin digging deeper. I returned his smile, the connection between my brain and my mouth mending as my hand shot out.

“Hi!” Was that my voice? That didn’t sound like my voice. It was four pitches higher than I remembered it being. “I’m Jamie?”

Nope.

That was meant to be a statement. Not a question.

“Danny,” he said humbly. As if he wasn’t Daniel frickin’ Omori, internet sensation of my heart. As if his chin dimple didn’t have its own Instagram fan account with half a million followers.

“It’s nice to meet you, Danny.” And it was. It really, really was⁠—

I inhaled sharply, my grin faltering when a large hand slid gently over my lower back. It wasn’t the gesture that made me gasp (though that was also rather surprising), but the electric current that shot up my spine in response to the deceptively possessive touch.

Jackson’s fingers splayed across the thin fabric of my dress, covering a surface area so impressively large that it made my mind go blank.

It was to the point where I missed whatever was said next. I heard the words, but they didn’t register over the swarm of sparks floating through my body, ignited by the gentle stroke of Jackson’s thumb.

What the hell?

I blinked, trying to clear the static from my mind as Daniel asked yet another question I actively missed.

No, seriously, what the hell?

What was wrong with my body? I felt flushed, my heart was racing again, and before I even knew what I was doing, my shoulder pressed to Jackson’s broad chest, leaning into him for support.

He stiffened when it happened, but as soon as I went to correct my posture, his hand slipped to my waist and pulled me against him.

And ooohmmkay. The man was about as soft as marble, and those sparks from earlier? They were everywhere now. My skin was doused in electricity.

Before I could make another feeble attempt at putting distance between our bodies, Daniel turned around with a polite smile and walked away.

What was going on? Were we leaving?

Jackson’s palm pushed into my hip ever-so-slightly before I could ask, and my body intuitively followed the silent command, falling into smooth step beside him. I slid into a curved stool as Daniel made his way behind the bar. It was happening. It was really happening.

I mean, my initial excitement had somewhat waned, but that was to be expected. What wasn’t expected was Jackson hooking his fingers under the edge of my seat and pulling me a foot closer to him in one smooth motion.

“What are you doing?” I whispered, frowning at him.

He wasn’t even sitting properly. His body was turned toward me, legs spread shamelessly to accommodate the fact that my stool was all but tucked between his knees.

“You’re the relationship expert,” he said. “What do you think I’m doing?”

First of all, “I’m a matchmaker, not a relationship expert.”

Second of all, “If I knew, I wouldn’t ask.”

Third of all, his eyes were, um, even more striking up close. They were at least five different shades of winter blue, cutting over one another like thin shards of ice, fighting for dominance⁠—

I’m sorry, but what the actual fuck are you talking about? Shards of ice? Fighting for dominance? Are you okay?

No. I was not okay. I was familiar with what okay felt like, and this was not it. Breathing was a lot easier when I was okay.

“I’ll give you a hint,” Jackson murmured darkly. His pupils ate away at the surrounding color as he leaned to whisper in my ear. “I don’t share, Jamie.”

The sparks had infiltrated my brain. I couldn’t think.

“I’m a selfish, selfish man.” His nose accidentally brushed the shell of my ear and I jolted.

“I’ll make sure to add that to your profile.” My voice cracked.

Jackson leaned back again, a secretive smile toying with his mouth. “Eat.”

I blinked down at the twin small plates sitting in front of us. The same ones that had been empty a second ago. When had Daniel—holy shit, I’d forgotten about Daniel.

I blinked again, giving my head a small shake. How was that even possible? What the hell had been in that champagne?

I picked up the small piece of… I couldn’t remember what it was.

“Uni,” Daniel supplied, reading the impending question on my face. He was working a small serving of rice in his palm, prepping it for the next dish.

“It’s delicious.” I could barely taste it.

It wasn’t the uni, it was me. Daniel continued to place several artfully crafted dishes in front of us, explaining each one in meticulous detail. There’d been well over a handful of them so far and, gun to my head, I wouldn’t have been able to recall a single one.

You want to know why?

Because Jackson’s knee was brushing mine underneath the bar, his hand was draped possessively over the back of my chair, and he was still wearing a bow tie. But at least he wasn’t whispering things in my ear anymore⁠—

I started when my alarm went off, indicating our hour was up. I fumbled with my phone and proceeded to miss the Stop button three times before my unsteady thumb finally found it.

“I’m so sorry,” I said to Daniel as hot embarrassment sprinted up my neck.

He didn’t look impressed. After almost thirty minutes of receiving distracted, half-hearted praises for his world-renowned cooking, my alarm had startled the tin of caviar out of his grip. It’d landed facedown on the grill, sizzling and ruined. “It’s fine.”

Judging from his tone, it wasn’t. I couldn’t believe I’d been so rude, or that I hadn’t thought to turn off the stupid alarm earlier.

Clearing my throat, I offered him a polite smile as he carefully peeled the lid off a fresh gold tin. “I really am sorry,” I pressed. “That was very rude of me. I was just so nervous and excited to meet you that I forgot to turn it off before we sat down.”

Jackson’s knee pressed to mine. I crossed my legs, effectively breaking contact.

Daniel smiled back. Just a little. “Oh yeah?”

“You have no idea.” I leaned in and placed my forearms on the bar, giving him my full attention. When Daniel’s shoulders rose an inch, I forced my smile wider.

“You’re a fan of the show?” he asked.

“Kind of. Season seven is my favorite. You know that episode where they brought Maple in for the first time?”

His eyes twinkled as he nodded. It was working.

Jackson’s knee pressed to my thigh again as he leaned forward. I ignored him; he could have my attention again in a minute. I needed to fix this first.

“Probably my favorite TV moment of all time,” I said. It was so sweet. They’d flown the contestants’ families in for moral support during the tenth episode of the season, but since Daniel’s grandmother—the only living member of his family—was too old to travel halfway across the world, they’d brought Maple in instead. The three-legged, blind golden retriever had trotted onto the set a little nervously at first… until Daniel said her name in shock, a half-second before sinking onto his knees and breaking down into her fur as she whined with uncontainable excitement.

Oh, and attached to her collar was a handwritten letter from Daniel’s grandmother.

There hadn’t been a dry eye in the room. Any room. Anywhere in the world, probably.

Ria and I had lost it. We’d had to rewind the clip three times to actually hear him read the letter out loud, we’d been sobbing so hard.

“Eating at your restaurant in Tokyo is on my bucket list,” I told him, encouraged by his reaction.

He chuckled, sliding two identical sashimi dishes in front of us. “Toro sashimi with beluga caviar.”

This time I forced myself to actually pay attention to the flavors and… yeah, okay. “This is genuinely incredible.”

“That’s Maple’s favorite caviar.” He was all smiles now. Also, I loved the way he said caviar. His accent made the word sound utterly exquisite.

“Maple has a favorite caviar?”

He shook his head. “She’s so spoiled now. The last time I tried giving her dry kibbles she wouldn’t even touch it.”

I giggled. “Cute.”

Jackson cleared his throat rather pointedly, and just as I was about to pull him into the conversation, Daniel gestured between us and asked, “So how long have you two been together?”

“Oh, we’re not.”

I said it, and then I regretted saying it. Not because it wasn’t true, but because it could not have tumbled out of me any faster.

Daniel’s eyes slid between us slowly, his smile tilting with confusion.

“I mean… this isn’t”—My hand flapped between me and Jackson as I tried to think of the right words—“It, uh, I’m his dating coach.”

That one I regretted saying altogether.

I couldn’t see Jackson’s expression from this angle but the gloomy cloud of disapproval forming around him was making the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

“You’re his dating coach?” Daniel gave an entertained, disbelieving laugh. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, it’s um… long and boring to explain. Sounds more exciting than it is.”

“I doubt that,” he said. “Truffle butter lobster sashimi.”

It didn’t escape me that Jackson hadn’t touched his last two dishes. He also made no indication that he was going to try this one.

“Tell me, how close is the real thing to the Will Smith movie?” Daniel asked.

“Hitch,” I supplied with a polite laugh. “And not close. I actually work at Charmed Elite. It’s a matchmaking…”

I trailed off when his expression changed.

“No way.” He crossed his arms, soft brown eyes lighting up. “One of my investors met her wife through you guys. She’s been pushing me to sign up for a while.” Then, “You got a card on you?”

Um. I did. Yes.

But I hesitated as something unpleasant snaked through my gut.

Technically, this wasn’t a real date. And even if it was… it wasn’t like Daniel was asking for my contact information for personal reasons. Asking for someone’s business card because you were interested in their professional services was not the same as asking for their number.

So, this was fine. We were well within respectable boundaries here.

“I don’t have any on me. Sorry.”

Under the bar, Jackson’s knee brushed my thigh gently. A praise.

My cheeks darkened for literally no reason. I’d lost my mind.

“All right, well, take mine.” After wiping his hands, Daniel quickly nabbed a sleek white card out of his back pocket and placed it in front of me.

Just like that, I had Daniel Omori’s direct contact information staring up at me, ready for use. Ria was going to die when I told her.

“Call me, yeah? We’ll set up an appointment at my restaurant if you want, so you can cross it off your list. Janice said you guys are willing to fly out wherever?”

Wherever. Whenever.

It was all covered in the hefty signup fee for members.

I took the card. “Sure. I’m on a full-time case for the next few weeks, but I can connect you to⁠—”

I cut off when he shook his head. “I’m not in a rush.”

Okay, but I also wasn’t planning on staying at Charmed once the Immersive was over. But, at this point, it felt like more excuses would push things into awkward territory and make it seem like I was actively discouraging a potential client from signing up for our services, which I really shouldn’t have been doing.

So, I slipped the card into my phone case with a smile and said, “Cool. We’ll be in touch.”

On a completely unrelated note, Jackson didn’t say anything else for the rest of the meal.