Page 94 of Let the Game Begin (Kiss Me Like You Love Me #1)

It was a weird feeling: this was probably the most intimate moment the two of us had shared in years. I occurred to me then that Matt sometimes seemed different from the man I remembered and that thought led me to wonder if it might actually be possible for things to improve between the two of us.

“Thanks,” I said awkwardly, my hands tightening around the warm cup. I blew on it before taking a sip of the chocolate.

“I wanted to thank you.” He sat down next to me and smiled.

“For what?” I asked, feeling the hot chocolate trickle down into my empty stomach.

“Being there for Mia and the kids.”

“No need to thank me. We have to support each other at times like this.” I was convinced of this: we were a family, albeit in our own weird way.

“You remind me so much of your mother,” he said softly, and a melancholy look passed over his weary face.

All it took was one mention of my mother, and I was suddenly reminded of my adolescence in a kind of flashback that conjured up all the pain I’d felt in those years.

I lowered my gaze to the steaming cup avoiding my father’s eyes.

“Selene.” He paused. “I know very well that I’ve made a lot of mistakes.

That I’ve always put my career first and that I was…

” His voice broke because it was never easy to expose oneself in that way.

“Unfaithful to your mother. I know you saw me with another woman. Everyone makes mistakes. The most important thing is that we understand our mistakes and try to fix them.” He rubbed his palms against his stylish pants, the same ones he’d worn the day before.

None of us had gone back home—none of us would until we knew more about Logan’s condition.

“I wanted you from the moment your mother told me she was pregnant. Please, try to forgive me. You can’t know how much it hurts that you won’t call me ‘Dad.’”

It hurt me too, and maybe I should have been less extreme and more willing to bend. Matt’s behavior had hurt me in a soul-destroying way that irreparably poisoned my perception of him. The struggle to forgive him was basically synonymous with the intense pain that I still felt inside.

“I don’t know.” My frosty tone extinguished his hopes as well as my own.

“I don’t know, Matt,” I repeated thoughtfully, staring at the cup as though I might find all of life’s answers at the bottom of it.

Forgiveness meant forgetting about our painful past, and I wasn’t ready to do that.

I was a slave to my anger and resentment and maybe that pain was always going to be inside me, even if I did try to stuff it down into a corner of my soul.

“Think about it. That’s all I ask of you.” I had never heard my father plead like that. He had always been a man who never asked for anything, the invincible and untouchable Matt Anderson.

He swiped a hand over his face, and only then did I notice the dark circles under his eyes. He was really having a rough time, and surprisingly, I was worried about him.

“You should go home and rest,” I suggested.

“No, not until we have more definitive news about Logan,” he answered, sounding exhausted as he gazed at Mia, sleeping next to Chloe. Suddenly, it occurred to me that Neil was nowhere to be seen, and I immediately started looking around for him.

“Where’s Neil?” I asked, maybe sounding slightly too concerned. I heard it as I said it and hoped Matt wouldn’t get suspicious.

“With Logan,” he answered. “The doctor let him go in and he hasn’t moved all night.”

“So he hasn’t eaten or rested or…?” Matt started shaking his head before I could even finish. Neil’s love for his brother ran deep; they had an unbreakable bond like I’d never seen before.

“Nothing. Neil’s sitting at his brother’s bedside, and he doesn’t want anyone to disturb him,” Matt said, and my chest got tight at the thought of how much he was suffering over Logan.

“I’m going to check in with the doctor and see if there’s any news.

I’ll be right back.” Matt got up and walked off, and I stood up as well, stretching my stiff muscles.

I smiled ruefully at the sleeping Chloe and Mia while a few nurses walked through the silent lobby, the smell of disinfectant filling the air around us. I headed quietly for the vending machine. I got two coffees and took them back over to Mia.

She opened her eyes, blinking in the fluorescent light.

“I thought you might want some coffee.” I handed a cup to her and she smiled slightly as she accepted it.

“Thank you so much.” She stroked Chloe’s hair as she took a sip.

The girl was now spread out over her mother’s lap.

I set the other coffee down on the chair next to the baby of the family so she could have it when she woke up.

Then I sat down and rubbed my palms against my jeans, feeling slightly discomforted.

“I’m grateful for everything you’re doing, Selene,” Mia said abruptly. “I can’t imagine how difficult it’s been for you to accept your parents’ situation and the relationship between your father and me.”

I looked uneasily at her because we’d never discussed that before. When I moved to New York, I had a completely different idea of who Mia was, mainly due to my own dumb preconceptions and the things I read in the tabloids.

“I consider you a member of our family. I’m glad you came to live with us, and I would never want you see me as a threat.”

I ducked my head because that had happened so often when I was a teenager. My insecurities and jealousy led me to take a hostile position toward my father’s new romantic situation. I felt he had abandoned me and my mother for her, making me see Mia as a danger to us.

“Your father and I met by chance,” she said and I stared at her, waiting for her to keep going.

“I had breast asymmetry. Ever since I was a girl, my condition was…traumatic for me. But I dreaded the idea of an operation and didn’t want to undergo surgery.

I thought the situation might improve with pregnancy, but it never did.

” She licked her lower lip and took a deep breath before continuing.

“So I decided to turn to one of the most renowned surgeons in the country—your father. He helped me not just through my physical journey but my psychological one as well. After the end of my marriage, I thought I’d never commit to someone again.

I thought I’d never meet a man capable of changing my life and… I was wrong,” she said in a low murmur.

“At first, I hid our relationship from my kids. When I finally brought him home, Chloe took it pretty well. Logan was a bit shocked. And Neil…” She gripped the coffee cup in her hands and her voice trembled.

“He didn’t speak to me for months,” she confessed, and I felt a strange tension in my chest. Mr. Disaster was so strong, but at the same time so fragile.

“Months?” I whispered.

“Yes. Neil is very rigid: he gives his trust only to a few people, and he hates anyone he believes has betrayed him.” She gave me a resigned look and continued.

“He never forgives. Our relationship was already troubled because of my ex-husband and the problems Neil had in his childhood, but after Matt came on the scene, I lost him completely. The only people who truly have a place in his heart now are his siblings.” Her eyes moved down to Chloe, and she stroked the girl’s blond hair as she continued to doze on her mother’s lap.

“And that’s how I know that, if I ever lost Logan or Chloe, I would lose Neil as well.

He lives symbiotically with them; he won’t survive without them.

” The gravity of her words kept me from speaking.

I’d known already that the bond between Neil and his siblings was deep, almost uncanny, but now Mia had added another piece to the puzzle.

She had made it clear that something had happened, something specific that made Neil cling so tightly to them.

“Let’s not think about worst-case scenarios. Everything’s going to be okay; you’ll see,” I tried to reassure her.

“As for your relationship with my father, I didn’t know about your operation and I’m glad that you told me.

I appreciate the trust you’ve placed in me,” I admitted, a little embarrassed.

“You’re not a substitute for my mother, Mia, but…

” I cleared my throat before continuing. “But maybe we could be friends.”

I didn’t know if “friends” was the most precise term to define our relationship, but I considered it a reasonable proposal, if unexpected.

It occurred to me that even in the worst situations there were opportunities to be seized and maybe this turning point in my relationship with my father’s girlfriend could be one of them.

Mia and I talked for a bit longer, and then I got up and went back over to the vending machine and got another coffee. Not for me, but for Mia’s son, the walking disaster I hadn’t seen in several hours and with whom I very much wanted to “talk,” though I already knew how he’d feel about that.

I headed for Logan’s room. I wouldn’t be allowed to go in, but I needed to at least make sure Neil was okay. But before I reached the door, his imposing form appeared right in front of me.

His handsome face was etched with suffering, his hair as wild as ever, and his golden eyes lusterless. With every step that brought me closer to him, my heart beat a little faster, throbbing in every corner of my body.

“Hey,” I said as soon as I’d caught his eye. “I brought you some coffee,” I babbled. Neil got me agitated, and I hated how I lost the ability to form meaningful sentences whenever he stared at me in that dark, mysterious way of his. I could never tell if he was admiring me or disgusted by me.