Page 90 of Perfect (mis)Match

“I need to go. Darcy and I have some meetings to prepare for.”

“Yeah, that’s right. How’s it going with Mercedes?” I asked quickly, before she could walk away from me.

She closed her eyes, clearly at the end of her patience with me. “Vincent,stop. Okay? Stop playing nice. You made your feelings very clear at the launch party, so there’s no need to pretend to care about what’s going on in my life. Enough. I’m done. Okay?We’redone.”

She looked raw as she said it, and the sadness in her eyes was a knife to my gut. But she was right. I’d opted out of her life, and I had no right to ask her about it.

“Piper,” I said softly.

I wanted to reach out and touch her so damn bad.

Her jaw flexed as she scanned me, like she was steeling herself to say something, then she turned and walked away without another word.

I cleared my throat and forced myself to ignore the sadness churning inside of me.

I strode back into my father’s hospital room and dropped in the chair next to his bed.

“The three of us should play together soon,” he boomed as I walked in. “I know you’re ridiculously busy, but you can make time for your old man, right? I’m not going to be around forever, you know,” he grinned at me mischievously.

“Dad, seriously? Don’t talk like that.”

“What? It’s the truth. At my age, you need to take stock of the time you have left and prioritize what’s important.” He snorted. “Learned that lesson the hard way. I’ve determined that what matters most is the relationships we have. Like you and Piper. Looks like you’ve figured it out for yourself already.”

I grimaced. I didn’t want to have the conversation now, but he’d given me no choice.

“Dad, Piper and I broke up.”

His cheerful expression shifted to shock. “What?”

I nodded. “Yeah. It happened the night of the launch.” Thankfully, Dad had no patience with social media, so he’d managed to miss most of the firestorm.

His mouth settled into a thin line, and I knew what was coming. “You’re making a mistake.”

“Says the man who cycles through relationships like Kleenex,” I retorted, then flinched. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud—it had just slipped out.

He watched me in silence for a few minutes, and the only sound was the steady beeping from the machines hooked up to him. “Do you knowwhyI’m a serial monogamist?”

“Yeah, because you keep looking for the perfect partner, but that woman doesn’t exist. You’re chasing a fantasy and paying the price in alimony payments.”

He flinched, and I felt bad for being so blunt.

“You’re half right,” he began. “I have been looking for something. Something that got away.” He waited for me to look at him. “Your mother.”

I didn’t respond. I’d heard him talk about how wonderful my mom was many times before. This was nothing new.

“Every new relationship was my attempt to try to recreate the magic I had with her. And after the last relationship failed, I tried to fill the void in my life chasing thrills.” He paused. “I just wanted to feelsomethingthat was close to the sensation of falling in love with her.”

“Falling in love is easy,” I said dismissively. “It’s the staying part that’s hard.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” he replied softly. “How hard was being in love with Piper?”

“Who said I was in love?” I fired back.

He gave me a wan smile. “You didn’t have to. It was obvious.”

My father was wrong. Love? Me? Impossible.

“I could see it in both of you, clear as day,” he continued. “And now you’ve let it slip through your fingers, just like your ridiculous father.”

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