Dare to Hold by Carly Phillips Page A

couldn’t agree more.”
    “I wonder what’s worse. Not having a father or having one who preferred his other family.” He paused, sandwich halfway to his mouth. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
    She reached out and touched his arm, too aware of the muscles beneath her fingers and his hair-roughened skin. “I’m glad you did. It’s easier to share if you’re not alone when you’re doing it.”
    She’d come late to knowing the Dare family, having just met Olivia through Dylan a few months ago. But of course she’d heard of Robert Dare, hotel mogul, with two families… There’d been stories. Whispers around Miami. But she’d never thought about how that had affected his kids.
    “What happened?” she asked.
    “He wasn’t around, and I grew up thinking he was a father who worked really hard for his family. That’s what he’d tell us, that he had business trips and he had to visit his various hotels. He’d come home for short periods, spoil us with gifts, and take off again.”
    Meg watched his face, noting the hard lines visible now. This wasn’t an easy subject, yet he was opening up to her. “That’s really rough,” she murmured.
    “It was. And it wasn’t. My mom is amazing. You’d really like her—and she’d like you,” he said, as if thinking about it had been a revelation. He smiled. “And I had my brothers and sisters. We were cool. But then one day, Dad came home, and there was a big discussion .” He frowned at the word. “I heard Mom crying, and then they told us we had to go the hospital for tests. Christ.”
    He wiped a hand over his eyes, and her heart clenched at his visible pain. “They said that Dad had another kid who was sick with cancer and needed bone marrow. He wanted all of us to get tested.”
    “Oh my God.”
    “Yeah, except that wasn’t the worst part. That came at the hospital when we met his four other kids. And that’s when the illusion of Dad working hard for his family blew up in all of our faces.” Scott rose and took his plate with him to the sink.
    She followed, placing her dish on the counter. “What happened to his sick child?”
    “My sister Avery was a match. She donated bone marrow, and Sienna’s healthy now. Thank God. But I hate him,” Scott said tightly, the raw anguish in his eyes as stark as his voice. “For what he did to my mother, to us. For the lies. I don’t hate them though. The others.”
    “That’s because they didn’t do anything except be born, and you understood that.” Although it couldn’t have been easy, and she admired the man he’d become, one who was compassionate and understanding despite the curveball life had thrown at him .
    “Ian took forever to come around and accept the others,” he said of his oldest brother.
    “Not everyone handles things the same way.”
    Scott stood at the sink, head dipped, shoulders tight, arms braced on the counter. It was obvious he didn’t repeat this story often and he hated the telling. Yet he’d opened up for her. She wanted to ease his pain. To take him in her arms and soothe him, the way he’d done for her.
    On impulse, she stepped behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her head against his back. “I’m sorry.”
    He accepted the gesture with a low groan. Then, taking her off guard, he spun around, and she found their positions reversed, her back against the counter, his arms bracketing her body, closing her in. He cornered her with his big frame, and her heart rate picked up speed, the serious conversation at odds with the heat passing back and forth between them.
    “But you like your other … siblings?” she asked, managing to hang on to the thread of conversation although his heat and delicious scent were distracting her. Consuming her.
    His lips turned up. “Yeah. They’re okay.”
    She shook her head and laughed. “You’re a good guy, Scott Dare.”
    His smile slipped, and that sexy mouth turned downward in a frown. “That presents a