: Confronting the Past
: Confronting the Past
(Matthew’s POV)
When I arrived at the club, the lights were blazing bright. Aurora sat in her high chair, methodically eating ice cream while staring at Theodore, who stood there looking utterly disheveled. His hair was damp, his expensive suit wrinkled and wet.
The familiar sound of my footsteps made Aurora’s head turn. She quickly stuffed another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth just as I walked through the door.
My gaze swept over Seraphina, who immediately averted her eyes in fear. I walked directly to Aurora, pulling out a handkerchief to gently wipe the sticky sweetness from her face.
“Nora,” I called to the caregiver hovering nearby. “Ice cream this late?”
Nora wrung her hands nervously. “She needed comfort, Alpha King. After everything that happened tonight…”
Aurora’s small, sticky hands suddenly cupped my face. Her dark eyes, so much like Olivia’s, searched mine with an intensity that made my chest tighten.
“Are you my daddy?” she asked, her voice small but clear.
My mind flashed back to the beginning. My relationship with Aurora had started as calculated strategy. I knew how much she meant to Olivia, how loving her daughter would be the fastest way to Olivia’s heart.
But through the sleepless nights, watching her grow from a fragile infant in an incubator, she had become something more. She was my daughter now, a gift from the Moon Goddess
herself.
“Yes,” I answered calmly, my voice steady despite the emotion threatening to overwhelm me.
Aurora’s face lit up like sunrise. Her small teeth showed as she chirped, “Daddy.”
The tender moment shattered like glass.
“She’s not your dad, I am!” Theodore’s voice cracked across the room like a whip.
I stood slowly, lifting Aurora into my arms. “Leave, Theodore.”
I started toward the stairs, but his hand shot out, gripping my wrist with desperate strength.
“Do you intend to continue this farce in front of the pups?” I asked, my voice dangerously quiet.
Aurora’s little hands suddenly grabbed Theodore’s fingers. For a split second, I wondered if the blood bond was truly that strong, if some primal recognition would pull her toward her biological father.
My doubt evaporated instantly.
“Let go of my daddy!” Aurora shouted, her small voice fierce with protective fury.
She began prying Theodore’s fingers off my arm with painstaking determination. Each tiny finger she moved was like a nail in Theodore’s coffin.
Theodore’s face crumpled with pain. “I’m your father.”
Seraphina stepped forward, her voice shrill. “Aurora, he’s telling the truth. Theodore is your real father.”
“No!” Aurora yelled, turning to glare at her aunt with surprising venom for such a small child.
“You’re wrong! He’s not my daddy. He never told me stories, or tucked me in, or braided my
hair.”
She clung to me, her small body trembling with emotion as she stared defiantly at Theodore.
“You’re not! You’re my brother’s dad! You only make my mommy sad. My daddy is the best daddy in the world. He makes my mommy happy!”
“No!” Theodore cried, the sound torn from his throat like a wounded animal.
He looked as if he were about to collapse, his face pale and stricken. I adjusted Aurora in my arms and headed for the stairs.
“Seraphina, escort Theodore out,” I commanded without looking back.
But it was Leo who moved first. The boy approached his biological father, his etched with exhaustion and pain.
“Dad, I’m begging you, please go.”
young face
Theodore stared at his son, when he reached out toward Leo, the boy violently pulled away.
“You never cared about me!” Leo screamed, his voice cracking with years of repressed anguish.
“At that time, when you brought Clara to me and left her to take care of me, I thought my
mother no longer wanted me, that I had hurt her somehow.”
Tears streamed down his face as the words poured out like a dam bursting.
“And now? You want to please my mother, so you’re bringing me back again? I was just a tool to make Mom happy! You abandoned me to that orphanage for three years!”
His voice rose to a desperate wail. “Why are you showing up now? To destroy my sister too? Why did you betray Mom? You ruined everything!”
The raw anguish in his son’s voice was a knife to Theodore’s heart. I could see him physically
recoil as if struck.
I stepped forward, pulling the sobbing Leo into my arms. He buried his face against my shoulder, his small body shaking with sobs.
“Uncle Matthew, make him leave,” he whispered brokenly.
Theodore stood frozen for a long moment, staring at his children. Then, utterly defeated, he stumbled toward the door like a man walking to his execution.
Later, in Leo’s room, I sat reviewing his homework while he lay in bed. The mathematical equations blurred slightly as I thought about the evening’s events.
“Uncle Matthew,” Leo’s voice was quiet, hesitant. “If… if you and Mom separate one day, will you still be Aurora’s daddy?”
I closed the notebook and turned to face him fully. “Yes.”
Relief washed over his features like sunrise after a storm. I could see the tension leave his
small shoulders.
I made my way to Aurora’s room next. She was lying in her bed, eyes squeezed shut in an obvious pretense of sleep.
I sat on the edge of her bed, speaking gently. “Aurora, there’s something we need to talk
about.”
Her eyes opened immediately, proving my suspicion correct.
“There are different kinds of fathers,” I explained carefully. “A birth father, who helped create you, and an adoptive father, who chooses to love and raise you.”
Aurora’s small brow furrowed in concentration. She wrapped her arms tightly around my neck, her grip surprisingly strong.
“I don’t want him. I only want you.”
3/5
“Promise me,” she demanded, her voice muffled against my shoulder.
“I promise,” I agreed, then added seriously, “But this is our secret from Mommy for now, okay?”
She nodded solemnly.
“Remember what I taught you,” I continued. “Always protect yourself first, then your mother
second.”
“I know!” Aurora said brightly, then added with touching sincerity, “And third, protect Daddy.”
When I returned to the Royal Infirmary, the atmosphere in Olivia’s ward was surprisingly cheerful. Killian Vance sat in the visitor’s chair, his daughter Elara beside him with what appeared to be a fresh cast on her leg.
Olivia looked weary but was wearing a man’s suit jacket that was clearly too large for her. She was carefully peeling an apple for Elara, her movements gentle and maternal.
I walked in, my expression carefully neutral despite the irritation building in my chest.
Without a word, I took the jacket from Olivia’s shoulders and handed it back to Killian. Then I walked to the thermostat and adjusted it back to its original setting.
“It’s getting late,” I said politely but firmly. “Elara should rest.”
Killian’s jaw tightened, but he stood. “Of course.”
After they left, I stepped out into the hallway. Killian was waiting.
“We need to talk,” I said, leading him toward the courtyard.
Rain was falling steadily as we stood under the covered walkway. The sound of water hitting the pavement filled the silence between us.
“Was I not clear enough?” I asked, my voice cold as winter steel.
Killian’s composure began to c***k. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“The suspiciously new cast on your daughter’s leg,” I began systematically. “The conveniently lowered air conditioning to justify lending your jacket. The fact that Olivia’s vehicle is still impounded, making your story about hearing of her ‘accident‘ impossible.”
Each point hit him like a physical blow. His face grew paler with every word.
“How did you really know she was here, Killian?”
He broke completely, his voice filled with nine years of anguish. “I’ve loved Olivia for nine years! How could you just claim her with a few words? It was supposed to be me!”
His pain was real, raw, and desperate. But it changed nothing.
“You’re an Alpha, Killian,” I said quietly. “You have to ask yourself why she never chose you.”
My calm dismissal seemed to infuriate him more than any anger could have.
“I don’t understand,” he said, his voice breaking. “You’re an Alpha King. You could have anyone. Why her? Why Olivia?”
I turned to see Olivia approaching through the rain, her silhouette graceful even in the dim light. I walked past Killian to her side, wrapping my arm around her shoulder.
Behind us, Killian’s incredulous voice rang out through the rain.
“You’ve loved Olivia, you’ve loved Olivia for a long, long time!”
