Matthew Hart is heir to the family fortune and owner of Hart & Home. When a near-death experience has him fretting over the future, he decides he needs a husband, and not just any husband—an appropriate man to protect the Hart legacy. The last thing Matthew expects is to cross paths with Jax Foster, his first love and the boy who crushed his heart when he disappeared.
Jax is unlikely to make Matthew’s list of suitable candidates. Bad boy, vagabond, deep in debt, with a father who can’t keep out of trouble, Jax has nothing to offer—except his heart and a second chance at the romance they never got to explore.
Oh yeah! This is fluff done right and done so well within the Dreamspun line. This book is full of first loves and lost, second chance romance, great dialogue, an over the top story arc that had me glued to the page, a charming secondary cast, hot sex, romance out the wazoo and well, a hope for a second book with two men who lit up the page with their chemistry!
Ack.
This.
Was.
Good.
Matthew Hart is in a good place in life. He’s taken over the family business of Hart & Home from his father and not only brought the furniture company into the new age of technology but they are thriving financially. Matthew has nothing in life to bring his spirits down...that is until one day, lunch from his favorite place ends him in the hospital. This harrowing medical experience has shaken Matthew and made him realize, he doesn’t want to live his life alone anymore, alone and unloved.
When Matthew trusts his personal assistant Adam with the truth about his lunch and the oddity of his epi pen not being where it should have, he begins to worry. Also with this trust in Adam, Matthew lays his heart on the table lamenting his bachelor status and his new need to find someone to spend his life with ‘til death do they part. But Matthew doesn’t know where to look for a possible husband and when Adam questions him about what he likes in a man, we learn about Matthew’s first love, Jax Foster.
Matthew and Jax met when they were ten years old with Jax saved Matthew from his routine beatings from school bullies. It was this first meeting that solidified Matthew’s sexuality and Jax became a list of first for Matthew. Granted, the boys lives were vastly different with Matthew’s being one of influence and Jax’s being from the wrong side of the tracks but the boys fell in love as much as two young men could. But this love, this deep and first love was shattered when Jax disappears and leaves Matthew heartbroken and never able to fully get over Jax. You what they say about first loves, right?
I have to take a moment and say how much I adored Matthew’s assistant Adam from the beginning because once he hears Matthew’s story, he goes into full romance novel matchmaking and you know where the story is going to lead and it did not disappoint. Adam is not just Matthew’s personal assistant but he is his best friend and a friend of the family. Adam only wants the best for Matthew even if he has to push his best friend out of his comfort zone to get closure or win the heart of his first love and live happily ever after.
When Adam and Martin, Matthew’s father, decide Matthew needs to oversee an artist's commission for one of their very important clients, Matthew is unprepared when he finds a brilliant glass etcher who’s kept something from Matthew’s past along with Matthew’s heart. You see, Martin and Adam only want the best for Matthew and knowing he needs to see Jax again gives them ample opportunity to throw the men together, even if neither of them knew it was happening. Though Matthew is angry and refuses to listen to Jax when they meet face to face after 20 years, the fierce emotion he portrays gives all of us hope because you know, fighting is great foreplay.
Told in the dual POV of Matthew and Jax, we get the latter MC after the men meet again 20 years later. Jax has never forgotten about Matthew all these years but what can a man who is forever in debt, never been out of the country and has who has a gambling/con addicted father ever fit into the world of Matthew Hart who is on the cover of Forbes Magazine? Sure, this has the “I decided to never contact you because I am no good for you” bit but I am a reader who loves that because it always gives ample opportunity for the MC’s to hash out where they are wrong and what really can work for them as a couple.
So, as Matthew oversees the commission, he and Jax begin to build a new friendship while each man learns how truly talented their first love is. As they learn about one another over meals disguised as meetings or overseeing of the project, Jax sweetens the deal by taking the first step back into Matthew’s heart with a piece of lemon cake and a promise to hear Jax out. This promise leads them on a date and the hearing of honest confessions.
Goodness. But I loved these two. I loved that they are both grown adult men and yet it’s almost as if you can feel who they were as young men in love. It’s palpable in their past and it’s amazing to witness in the present. Jax’s reason for leaving Matthew was heartbreaking but his fierce determination to keep the boy he loved safe was so lovely even at that young age. Jax has never forgotten Matthew and after they hear truths and leave the past behind, it’s time for them to get down, I mean, get on with this new part of their lives and possibility of a relationship.
Was it too much to hope for that Jax could be his Mr. Right? Granted, Jax didn’t really seem to fit the title of Mr. Right, but maybe he’d been looking at it all wrong. Maybe what Matthew needed was a little Mr. Wrong.
I will tell you, this book is pure fluff and I want to dive back in right away. This line from Dreamspinner has had me in its grasp from the first book and I don’t think I will ever get enough. I used to adore the books I would borrow (without permission) from my sister and soak up the romance in the categoricals she kept beside her bed and now, I get that same feeling back as I read stories of two men doing everything to fall in love and have their happily ever after. Call me an easy reader but I am reader who truly enjoys the romance these books give me and this one, this one falls perfectly in line with my favorites.
Anyway. Matthew and Jax while falling easily back into the comfort of being around one another, fall hard and fast but jealousies from irritating people lead to a story arc that is a bit over the top but one I couldn’t stop reading. It gave a bit of action and surprise to a book that was very low angst and sweet and brought it back down again with the warm embrace that is the true romance of Matthew and Jax.
Finding Mr. Wrong was the perfect read for a Sunday spent snuggled up in bed with dogs and a cup of tea, my favorite way to read. The book had everything I needed to put a smile on my face, a shift in my hips during the sexy parts, butterflies in my stomach as Jax and Matthew fall in love and a sigh as they fight for their HEA.
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