Page 27 of Accidental Mile High Daddy
“‘Course I didn’t,” he said, shaking his head as he downed the last of his whiskey. “Just knew it wouldn’t be easy. Are you all right?”
My brows knit together. “Huh?”
“Are youokay?” he asked, trying to clarify. “That’s the first time you’ve seen him, no?”
“Oh,” I breathed. “I?—”
“You’ve had a long day,” he added, voice low. “I wasn’t expecting them to talk to us, at least not tonight. It’s okay if you’re not all right.”
The look he gave me was anything but a performance. There was no smirk, no heat in his eyes, nothing that told me he was looking for anything but the truth. His hand stilled on my arm, wrapping around my wrist and giving it a soft squeeze.
“Sienna.”
“I’m fine.” It wasn’t a lie. I wasn’t crying, I didn’t feel a building need to scream — it was just blank. Empty. A little lonely, but a little pumped that I’d looked him in the eyes and said what I’d said. “Thought you weren’t the empathetic type.”
A sly little grin tugged at the corner of his lips. “Only when it serves me.”
I rolled my eyes and downed what was left of my champagne. “That wasalmostnice of you. Just had to go and ruin it.”
————
By the time we’d reached the villa, the air had cooled enough to take the edge off the lingering warmth of the day. Moonlight danced off the water of the ocean and the private pool and palm trees framing the lot around it and swaying in the night breeze.
We stepped off the wooden walkway lit by torches between the villas in silence and walked up to the front door. The white exterior and thatched roof gave nothing away, but it was definitely one of the larger ones on the property, if notthelargest.
He opened the door and let me walk in ahead of him, his hand brushing the small of my back again, so lightly I couldn’t decide if it was intentional or just a habit at this point. Inside, everything was quiet, peaceful, like nothing had been disturbed. Like I was in some kind of sanctuary away from the living hell outside of these walls. The soft hum of central air conditioning was the only sound, the low glow of the strip lighting along the floor the only thing giving me some idea of what the space actually looked like.
Matt set his keycard down by the door and shut it behind him. “This way,” he said softly, nodding toward the hall.
We passed a fairly cozy sitting room and an open kitchen, the back door that led out to the pool, a bathroom. He lifted a hand to a door as we walked, his finger gently tapping against it. “Zach’s in here,” he said quietly, then turned to the one across from it. “And his nanny, Margot, is that one. In case you end up wandering in the middle of the night.”
I paused, stopping in the hall to look at him. “Zach’s here?”
Matt’s brows scrunched together for a second. “Did you think I was going to leave my kid for three days if I didn’t have to?”
“I…” I blinked at him. “I don’t know what I thought.”
He studied me for a second before he blew out a breath. “I’ll introduce you in the morning. Come on.”
He ushered me further down the hall, passing another door on his right and briefly mentioning that it was his room, before we got to the dead end with a door right in the center.
“This one’s you?—”
“He’s five, right?” I asked, turning back to him and cutting him off.
Matt huffed out an amused breath. “Five going on sixteen,” he said, his lip curling into a half-hearted smile. “You should lock your door tonight, though. I’m not entirely convinced he knows where my room is, and you probably don’t want a five-year-old gremlin ending up in bed with you if he has a nightmare.”
I snorted. “He’s not the one I’m worried about opening my door at two in the morning.”
Matt blinked at me, his smile morphing into a smirk. “You thinkI’mgoing to be the problem? You were the one asking me to kiss you earlier.”
“I’m begging you not to let that go to your head,” I said, pushing open the door to my room. I stared at the space in front of me — it looked like it belonged in a five-star hotel and not a rented villa on a massive property in Tulum. A king bed with white linen and a woven canopy, a chaise lounge by the glass doors, a view of the ocean so stunning it didn’t lookreal.
Matt stayed in the doorway, not daring to cross the threshold. “Everything you need should be in there,” he said, polite now, all business, his teasing gone and grin faded. “If you need anything specific, just let me know and I can call the concierge.”
I stepped inside, trying to process, but it didn’t seem correct. The longer I saw it, the morenothingabout this wedding made sense, from the location to the villas to the tacky decorations and over-the-topeverything. “How…?”
Matt met my gaze as I turned back to face him.
