Page 33 of Playing with Temptation

“Nate loves his son. Why is that bad?”

“Because it can’t be the only reason we’re together, like it was for Dad when he married my mom.”

There was an uneasy silence between them. As much as Kendra loved Maya now, it hadn’t always been that way. Kendra had resented Maya and her younger brother.

She couldn’t shake the hurt of knowing she was the reason her father left. Curtis Williams abandoned their family less than a year after her birth.

Though he’d left them behind, he chose to stay with Maya’s mother just a year later. They’d gotten married and raised two kids. He’d attended every school function and proudly filmed everything from Maya’s and Cole’s first steps to their college graduations.

Even now, she sometimes lay awake at night wondering why her father hadn’t loved her enough to stay with them. Why he hadn’t doted on her and Dash and embraced being their dad as much as he enjoyed being a father to Maya and Cole.

“I don’t think it’s as simple as that.” Maya adored Curtis Williams. She was a daddy’s girl. He’d been there for her all her life. Why shouldn’t she adore him? “He loved your mom.”

Kendra snorted. “He had a damn funny way of showing it. Love like that, I don’t need.”

“Nate isn’t our dad,” Maya said quietly. “And for the record, Dad was young and he made his mistakes. He regrets how poorly he handled things.”

“Agree to disagree.” It was Kendra’s signal for Maya to end the discussion of Curtis Williams’s virtues.

“Okay.” The word came out of Maya’s mouth in an odd singsong. “But you’re not being fair to Nate. Just because being a family is important to him doesn’t mean you aren’t.”

Kendra understood the sense of indebtedness Maya felt toward Nate. She and Dash had wanted nothing to do with their father or their half siblings. Still, Maya had been persistent, following Kendra to college. Nate and his parents encouraged her to get to know Maya.

“She’s family,” Nate’s mom, Ms. Naomi, had said. “Doesn’t matter how she became family. She just is. And you don’t turn your back on family.”

Kendra had resented Nate’s interference at first, but she and Dash had grown apart as they’d gotten older and she yearned for the deep connection Nate had with his siblings.

Getting to know and accept her younger sister was one of the best decisions she’d ever made. She and Maya owed a huge debt of gratitude to the Johnstons. But she wouldn’t be with Nate out of a sense of obligation.

“We’re not the same people we were seven years ago.” Kendra stood by the fireplace, allowing its warmth to soothe the chill creeping down her spine.

“So get to know each other again. Most important, tell him how you feel,” Maya urged.

Kendra’s temples throbbed. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“He’ll say it just because I need to hear it.” Kendra paced in front of the fireplace. Her slippers scuffed against the carpet.

“Nate always says what he feels. That’s why he’s in the spot he’s in now.” Maya sighed in response to the cluck of Kendra’s tongue. “If he says it, it’s because he means it.”

“Then why didn’t he say it the other night? Why didn’t he say he misses me? That he wants to be with me? That he can’t stop thinking of me the way I can’t stop thinking of him?” Kendra hadn’t meant to say the last part, but her mouth was moving faster than her brain.

Maya hesitated before she responded. “The last time Nate confessed his feelings for you, you rejected him and walked away. Can you blame him for being gun-shy?”

Kendra’s stomach twisted in knots as the truth of Maya’s words hit her squarely in the chest. She didn’t respond.

“Maybe Nate’s reluctant to share his feelings because he isn’t sure he can trust you with them.” An apologetic tone filtered her sister’s brutally honest words.

“Maybe. Still, I won’t get back with Nate for the wrong reasons. As much as I know Kai wants his dad and me to be together, it would be worse if things blew up a few years down the road. I won’t set him up for the disappointment and resentment I experienced at his age.”

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