Page 53 of Accidental Mile High Daddy
“I know,” he clipped. “That’s the worst part.”
That shut me up.
He let out a breath, slow, tired, and exasperated. “I didn’t want to use you. Not like he did. Not like that. I just—” He cut himself off, his throat working, the words either lost or like he was weighing up whether he wanted to say them at all. “I know you’re upset that I left.”
“No shit,” I breathed.
“I told you I don’t let people in. I don’t do relationships.” He swallowed. “If I’d stayed, I would’ve told you more. Would’ve told you everything. Not just about Ryan, or the inheritance, or how much of aleechhe is, but the parts I don’t say out loud. Like how I stopped believing in family when my parents handed him everything with a smile and told me to be the bigger man, like my success without help was a reward for being forgotten. Like how I’m doing everything in my goddamn power to make sure Zach never feels like that in his life. Like how I can’t fuckingbreathe when I think about him ever having to look at someone and feel like he’s notenough.”
The silence felt too loud.
He hadn’t moved. Neither had I, but it felt like everything had shifted. My chest tightened, cracking. I didn’t know how to respond to that, didn’t know how to handle it, and part of me wanted to accept that he just wasn’t capable of anything past what we’d done, but the other part had seen the way he’d looked at me, the way he’dheldme, and knew that he was. And it stillhurt. He’d still chosen to hurt me instead of being honest, still made me feel used and stupid.
“You made me feel like an idiot,” I said, my voice far smaller than I wanted it to sound.
He hesitated. “I know. Iknow.I fucked that up.”
“You think?”
“I panicked.”
I laughed, then, the sound punching out of me ugly and sharp. “Panicked?” I croaked. “You could have stayed, you could have woken me up and told me that was it and it wasn’t going further, you could haveapologized. Or was I that terrible in bed that you had torun?”
“Don’t,” he bit out, taking a step toward me. “Don’t do that.”
“What, make jokes before I cry? Sorry, forgot I was supposed to be the stable one right now,” I snapped, my eyes burning, my chest aching. “Fuck.”
“I freaked out,” he insisted, his voice rising, another step taken toward me. “I don’t—I don’t sleep in the same bed as anyone. It’s a line I draw. That partition came back up on the flight, you know that. Not since I made that call for myself, since?—”
“Since you became too emotionally unavailable to function like a human being?”
He flinched. “I sleep alone,” he said, his jaw clenching. “I always sleep alone. Except when Zach climbs in after a nightmare or because he’s lonely. That’s it. He’s the only exception. And then you…”
He stopped, breathing hard, pushing a hand into his hair.
“You were still there.” His voice was quieter, a little broken. “Still fucking there when I opened my eyes. I didn’t mean to fall asleep beside you, I didn’t mean tofeel?—”
He looked at me like he wasn’t sure if he should finish that sentence or if I already knew what he meant without me saying it.
“I didn’t know what to do. So yeah, Sienna, I fucked it. I left.”
My throat closed. “You could’ve said something.”
“I know.”
“You could’ve woken me up.”
“Iknow.”
“You let me feel like a fucking one-night stand when youknowme now. You let me feel like I gotpaidfor sex?—”
“That’s not what it was,” he insisted.
“Then what the fuck was it?” The words came out loud, angry,brokenas the dam started to leak. “Because from where I’m standing, it feels like I was just a warm body in a pretty dress you could use to piss off your brother and get your dick wet! It feels like I’minsane, Matt?—”
“You really think that’s all you were to me?” he asked, his face twisting like I’d slapped him.
“Idon’t knowwhat I was to you! That’s the whole fucking point!” My voice broke, the tears hitting, hot, fast, and furious. I tried to blink them back, wipe them away, but it was too late. “I let myself believe for one goddamn night that maybe there was something there. That maybe it wasn’t fake. You said—Yousaid. Fuck.”
