Jessica
He shouldn’t be here like this.
Holding me.
Touching me.
Saying sweet, wonderful things to me.
He’s supposed to be a monster, a loser. He’s supposed to be terrible, but somehow, I suddenly can’t picture Matthew as anything but what he’s being right now: sweet. Kind. Gentle. He can obviously sense my pain and my fears, but I can sense his emotions, too: concern, worry. Why can I sense his emotions so very clearly? It’s like Matthew is a book that I can simply read, only I don’t even have to use my eyes. I can use my heart.
It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever felt in my life.
“Why did you come here?” I whisper. “If you don’t want to hurt me, why would you even come? You’ve been gone for years. You could have just stayed away and nothing would be different.”
I have to know.
I shouldn’t ask because it doesn’t really matter, but somehow, I have to know. Why would he run away from Michelle and never look back? Why now, after all of these years, would he return to Dragon Isle? He’s different than I imagined. He’s quieter, somehow. He’s not as fierce as I thought he would be. I fully expected him to pound on the front door and demand that I let him in. Sneaking around the back? That was clever. It was something I didn’t expect.
It’s not often that I’m surprised, especially by a man. This guy seems different, somehow, and he shouldn’t. I want to hate him for what he did. I want to despise him. I want to keep him from ever having access to his daughter because he failed her, he failed Michelle, and he failed me, but something tells me I don’t have all of the information. Something tells me there’s more to Matthew than meets the eye.
“I got the letter,” he says. “I came immediately.”
“You didn’t come before.”
“I didn’t know before, Jessica. No one bothered to tell me I had a daughter. How was I supposed to know?”
“Shouldn’t you have had a sense about it?” I whisper. It’s a low blow, but I have to ask. I guess I always thought he should have somehow figured it out.
“I should have,” he says. “But I didn’t. My heart breaks knowing she’s been here all of this time without a father,” Matthew tells me. “I wish Michelle had told me. I wish I hadn’t found out like this.”
“You guys parted on bad terms.”
“It was her terms,” he says. “I wanted her to come with me.”
“You did?”
“She never told you?” He sighs. “Let me guess: she told you I ran off without so much as a backwards glance.”
“Um…” I blush, but he can’t see me.
“That’s not exactly what happened.”
“Then tell me.”
“I wanted to see the world. I wanted to go away. I wanted to work and explore and study, but Michelle said she would never leave the island. She said if that’s something I had to do, then I would be doing it alone because she liked her life here.”
“She liked the prestige,” I roll my eyes. “We all know that.”
“Well, it is a nice house.”
He looks around, and I see what he’s seeing: wealth.
“She always did have a flair for the dramatic.”
“Did you love her?”
I’m not sure why it matters, but suddenly, I’d like to know. I’ve always heard about him in bits and pieces: whatever Michelle wanted me to know. Somehow, I don’t think I’ve gotten to hear the entire story about this man and right now, I’d kind of like to know everything.
Matthew pauses, but he doesn’t move away. He doesn’t push me away. He just keeps holding me and rubbing my back. It’s a strangely comforting feeling, and it’s one I could really get used to.
I shouldn’t get used to this.
Matthew is not mine to keep. He’s Michelle’s ex-boyfriend. He’s Brooke’s father, for dragon’s sake. He’s the very last man in the entire world I should be falling over sideway for, yet there’s something about him that calls to me. There’s this strange connection between us. It’s like I’ve known him my entire life, like I know everything about him, even though I obviously don’t.
Why do I feel this connection?
Suddenly, my mother’s words from long ago play through my mind.
When you find your true mate, Jessica, it’s like you were never apart. It’s like you’ve always been there together. It’ll feel like the sun is rising and setting at the same time. You’ll tear apart the world if it means saving that man, and he’ll do the same for you.
But I don’t know if I believe in mates.
I don’t know if this dragon mythology has any sort of semblance in reality. Could there really be such a thing as true mates? And could Matthew actually be mine?
My mind is probably just playing tricks on me because Matthew is very handsome and he smells very good and, well, it’s been awhile for me. See? I’m being completely reasonable. I’m not falling in love with my one true mate. I’m just horny. I’m horny and it’s been a long time since someone made love to me. That’s it. That’s a perfectly reasonable, logical explanation.
“I thought I loved her,” he says, and just like that, I’m brought back to reality.
“You thought you did?”
“We were young and everything was new. We thought we knew what it meant to be in a relationship.”
“But you don’t feel that way anymore?”
He sighs. “Michelle was a sweet woman. Stubborn as all hell, but sweet, and we loved being together for a long time. I don’t have any animosity toward her, but I also don’t think what we had was true love. Is that what you’re asking me?”
I nod.
“She wasn’t my mate, Jessica.”
At that, my ears perk up, and I twist around to look at him.
“She wasn’t?”
“She couldn’t have been,” he says. “Because each dragon has one true mate and right now, I’m looking at mine.”