Page 2 of Let the Game Begin (Kiss Me Like You Love Me #1)

Selene

They say in life we have to make the right choices, but we don’t always have the ability to recognize them. Who establishes right and wrong? Does the right thing really make us happy?

I was lying comfortably on my bed and surfing on my laptop.

I was supposed to leave for New York that morning, though I wasn’t enthusiastic about it.

I lived with my mother in an apartment in Indian Village, a residential neighborhood of Detroit.

At least that’s where I had lived until my mother had the bright idea to turn my life upside down overnight.

I hooked one ankle around the other and kept on scrolling through the gossip blogs about one of the most famous surgeons in New York, Matt Anderson, and especially about his partner, Mia Lindhom, the high-profile director of an important fashion house.

I carefully examined the photos of her taken at various moments in her day. She was all sophisticated beauty: tall, with a refined, slender frame. Her hair was the color of gold, her eyes a luminous gentian blue.

“He chose well,” I commented to no one as I chewed on my index fingernail.

Yes, Matt Anderson (also known as my father) had, after a series of affairs, finally decided to leave my mother for a younger, more beautiful and more famous woman.

I wondered if she had children too, but there was no information on the subject.

“Selene! Don’t pretend you can’t hear me!” My mother came into the room, huffy after shouting my name for several minutes. Still, I didn’t pull my gaze away from the pictures of Matt and Mia looking happy and carefree together.

“Since when does he like blonds?” I asked, scowling seriously as she walked around my room, gathering up the clothes scattered here and there. I wasn’t a neat freak like her.

“Since he met Mia, probably? Anyway, I have your suitcase packed downstairs,” she reminded me, though it was hardly necessary.

I knew full well that my flight was scheduled for ten o’clock.

I had already bathed and dressed, albeit reluctantly.

I didn’t want to repair any relationship with Matt, much less become part of his life after he had been so completely uninterested in mine for so long.

So, I kept opening random web pages, just to keep my mind occupied even as I could feel the anguish rising inside me.

Parents rarely understand how much their actions affect their children’s emotional state.

My adolescence was marred by fighting and my father’s constant affairs.

Indelible memories that I tried to fight against every day in vain.

Going to live with him was a terrible punishment for me that was probably going to bring all sorts of unhealed wounds to the surface.

“Selene…” Mom sighed, sitting down on the bed beside me. She closed my laptop gently and smiled at me, finally getting my attention. “I just want you to try,” she said in an indulgent murmur.

Sure, she wanted me to try to accept a man who had long since ceased to be my father.

Four years had now passed since he left us to live with his current partner.

Four years in which he had tried to call and talk to me but got no response.

Four years in which, every time he tried to see me, I locked myself in my room and waited for him to leave.

I sighed at those nagging memories and tilted my chin down to hide my pain from the only person I truly loved.

“I can’t do it…” Memories of her weeping and raving over the lack of respect shown by the man she’d married were embedded too deeply in my mind.

Matt had started off by sleeping with a nurse ten years his junior. One lover became two, three, four…until I lost count. Or rather, until Mia came along and took him away from us for good.

“Sure you can do it. You’re a bright girl…” She stroked the back of my hand and gazed lovingly at me. She believed in me, and I never wanted to let her down. Never.

“I don’t want anything to do with Matt,” I muttered like a wayward child. I needed to act like a woman, put on the mask of acceptance and display a certain maturity, but it was nearly impossible to act rationally when anger had taken me over inside.

“Selene, I know it’s not going to be easy.

I don’t expect the two of you to get along right away, but I at least want you to give it a chance…

You’ve refused to speak to him for too long.

” She looked at me with the pained expression that inevitably corralled my pride.

She was fully aware that her big blue eyes—identical to my own—had the power to make me surrender. Still, I tried to make my case.

“Mom, that man doesn’t deserve my respect. You know…” I answered, scowling, and it was the truth. After everything she and I had gone through by ourselves , my mother knew very well how much it cost me to go along with her request that I live with a “father” who was nothing of the sort.

“I get it, sweetheart. But I’ve forgiven him for what he did. You should, too.”

I stared silently into her eyes. My mother had the enormous fortitude required to forgive that man’s wrongdoings, but I wasn’t like her. I didn’t have her strength.

***

The trip to the airport went by too quickly.

My mom waited with me until I had to go through security and spent the time reassuring me, even if her words were heavy and difficult to accept for a twenty-one-year-old.

I once read somewhere that someone of my age was on the threshold of adulthood, but at the same time, lacked definitive maturity.

That was probably why I vacillated between childish behavior and moments of utmost thoughtfulness.

The plane ride took about two hours. It felt like the longest flight of my life, even though I had outfitted myself with a couple of books that partially relieved some of my perpetual anxiety.

On our descent, from my window seat I observed the giant skyscrapers rising in the distance and all the cars speeding by on the streets of the great city. It was clear to me in that moment exactly why they called it the city that never sleeps.

When I arrived in New York, the cool air and chaotic atmosphere hit me immediately, catapulting me into an entirely new reality.

I sighed and let my mother know that I had arrived.

She’d asked me to call her the moment the plane landed, and knowing all too well how excessively anxious she got, I tried to reassure her.

Then, I tried to spot Matt in the crowded arrivals area of the airport.

How could I find one person in such a giant space?

Maybe I should have held up a sign? “Wanted: Matt Anderson, asshole father.” Or: “Selene seeks asshole father, Matt Anderson, and his new family.” Either way, I would have kept the “asshole.”

I remembered what model car Matt had—a black Range Rover. He would bring it to come get me, but how many of them might drive by? I looked around me; there were so many people concentrated in one space it made my head spin.

However, I must have had a lucky star on my side, because during all the chaos of people and cars, I spotted a shiny black Range Rover pulled up a few feet away.

I wasn’t completely sure it was the vehicle I was looking for, but I had a feeling.

I hadn’t seen my father yet, but inside I could sense his presence.

I stuck my cell phone into the pocket of my jeans and grabbed my suitcase, dragging it along toward the luxurious vehicle.

As I approached, I squinted, trying to pick out any details of the interior—a figure that I could associate with him for certain.

Every step I slowly took toward that car became more and more uncertain, as if I were walking to the gallows.

Then, suddenly, the door opened and dispelled all my doubts.

My father appeared, a man of sophisticated charm, decidedly in shape, dressed in an impeccable suit undoubtedly from some famous brand.

He looked like he’d made a deal with the devil.

Despite his age, he was still handsome and alluring in a way few other men were.

And that was his biggest problem. He had always been a magnet for women and incapable of controlling his urges.

It was no coincidence that fidelity was a moral commitment he struggled to keep.

I looked at him, but his warm hazel eyes were hidden behind his sunglasses, which gave me a moment to regain my composure. I didn’t want him to see the effect he still had on me.

“Hi, Selene.” He gave me an almost embarrassed smile and immediately reached to take my suitcase, giving every appearance of a kind and considerate person. His voice… I had forgotten the sound of it.

“Hi, Matt.” I didn’t call him “Dad” anymore; he knew how it was between us.

“How are you? How was your trip? I’m happy you agreed to come and stay with us—”

I interrupted him immediately to avoid listening to all those worthless pleasantries. He was good with words, with speeches and little soundbites, but I was certainly not the kind of daughter to be so easily duped.

“I only did it for my mother. Can we go?” I opened the car door and slid into the passenger seat.

Neither of us said a word for the entire journey.

It was a truly embarrassing situation, but it couldn’t have gone any other way.

That man had left us to make a new life, and even during my parents’ marriage, he had never acted like a husband or, more importantly, like a father.

I could still remember every birthday he missed, all the performances he promised to come to but never showed up at, and the calls he didn’t answer because he was too busy getting some younger coworker in bed.

It happened again and again. His distraction, his absence, I remembered all of it… especially my mother’s tears.