Page 50 of Accidental Mile High Daddy
I waited. Waited through the red light, then the next green, then the next red, my car moving at a snail's pace. My hands curled around the wheel as I finally broke free from the traffic, away from the chaos, toward home.
Ding.
Her name again. I glanced down, just briefly.
Sienna:
fine.
Chapter 15
Sienna
The ride to Matt’s house was silent, smooth, and far too long for comfort. I sat in the back of the black car he’d sent, the windows tinted and leather soft, every inch of it expensive and impersonal, and tried to convince myself that this wasn’t a mistake.
I wasn’t going over to see him. I was going to hear him out.
Closure.
That was it. The truth about Ryan, the inheritance, the tangled history between two brothers who somehow managed to destroy everything in their goddamn path, including me. Curiosity was theonlything that drove me. Had to be.
But that wasn’t the whole truth. I knew that.
I could have said no. I could’ve blocked his number, ignored the offer, slammed the door on whatever this had turned into, and lived my life one hundred thousand dollars richer. But I hadn’t. I’d gotten in the car.
Not for closure, not entirely.
Because ofhim.
Because I still remembered the way he’d looked at me in the dark, like I was one of the only real things in his life. Because I still felt the warmth of his hands on my skin, still heard thesoftness in his voice when he’d asked me if I was okay. Because despite him giving me every reason not to, part of me still wanted to believe in him.
The gate opened without a sound after the driver punched in a code, the car gliding onto the property with ease. His house was all dark stone and glass, two stories, modern and clean, if it weren’t for the toys on the front porch. Every other part of it was intimidating and imposing, like him.
I stepped out of the car with my pulse thudding hard, already rehearsing exit lines in my head in case this went sideways. But it would be fine. It had to be. Margot would be here, and Zach. We had buffers, reasons not to say something stupid, reasons not to scream at each other.
The door opened before I could knock.
Matt stood there, his hair styled but his clothes casual—just a t-shirt and jeans, barefoot—like he’d come home from work and immediately changed out of whatever he wore to the office. His stubble was longer, his eyes tired, his face unreadable.
My throat closed.
“Where’s—”
“They’re not home,” he said, his voice like gravel. He stepped to the side, motioning for me to come in. “Margot took him to the aquarium. He wanted to see the tiger sharks.”
I didn’t know why that hit me so hard. I blinked too quickly, looking away, my jaw steeling. I should’ve gotten back in the car. I should have turned and walked?—
“He’s been asking about you.”
I froze.
That wasn’tfair. He knew it wasn’t, knew he was hitting on a nerve, knew damn well without even asking that I’d grown a soft spot for Zach.
I swallowed down the lump forming in my throat and shouldered past him, stepping inside.
The house smelled like cedar, laundry, andhim. Dark floors and slightly lighter walls, everything in its place as I stepped into the living room. Expensive leather furniture and trinkets up on the shelves beside the massive television, a gold airplane that looked like some kind of award next to an Atlanta Fire hockey stick and a framed stick figure drawing in crayon. Lived in, but not quite homey.
He came up beside me, gesturing toward the doorway to the kitchen on the other side of the living room, walking in front of me with an expectation that I would follow. And I did. Warily.
