Page 72 of Accidental Mile High Daddy
“I know I’ve fucked up,” I said carefully. “But you have to understand that I’m simultaneously fighting my own problems with this while trying to keep in mind what Ryan did to you. I’ve never gone out of my way to actively hurt you, and I’ve never hidden anything. I’m not him, Sienna.”
The bitter laugh that crawled from her throat made my chest cave in. “No. You’re not him. You’re worse, because I actually let myself believe that you were completely different.”
That one hit hard, cleaving its way through my sternum. “You know how I am with Zach,” I countered, trying to keep my voice steady despite the ache tightening my throat. “You’veseenhow I am. I’ve had him since he was six months old, and not once have I looked for a way out. I stayed.”
“You—”
“No. Let me talk,” I insisted, pulling into her apartment complex. “I stayed. Every night, every bottle, every meltdown. Istayed. You think I’d abandon my own kids? You think I’d walk away from this willingly? You think there is a single part of me that could stomach that, could stomach leavingyouto pick up the pieces and fend for yourself?”
“You don’tknowthat?—”
“I will fucking fight for this,” I snapped, shoving the car into park in her driveway. “Iamfighting for this.”
She unbuckled her seatbelt with shaking hands, pushing open the door. “No, you’re just hoping I roll over and let you back in again.”
I reached for her, but she was already climbing out. “Wait.”
“No,” she said, brushing me off. “I’m not doing this right now, I have enough to come to terms with.”
The door slammed, shaking the car and Zach’s car seat in the back, and I wrenched my seatbelt off, pushing out clumsily for the first time in my goddamn life just to catch up.
I wasn’t walking away from this.Fuckthat.
“Sienna,stop,” I called, not bothering to shut my door as I stepped hard across the concrete, my longer legs eating the distance. “Please, for the love of God, just listen to me for two goddamn seconds without throwing my failures at me.”
I grabbed her by the wrist as I reached the bottom of her stairs, gentle but firm, pulling just enough to drag her attention back to me. “There’s no point?—”
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”
She froze, gaze meeting mine.
“I mean it,” I said, voice hoarse. “Every second of every fucking day for the last few months, I haven’t stopped hating myself for what I made you feel. I haven’t stopped wondering what you were doing. I haven’t stoppedwantingyou.”
Her throat worked, her jaw tensing, her pulse fluttering in her wrist beneath my fingertips.
“Not since the flight,” I continued, my voice shaking just enough to make me hate how broken it sounded. “Not since you sat in the lounge in that goddamn yellow sundress like you knew exactly what you were doing and didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought. Not since I realized you were the first woman in probably more than a decade who made me want anything more than what I had.”
Sienna blinked at the sky, the sun reflecting off her eyes too much, too shiny. “You were the one who pushed me away,” she rasped, slowly bringing her gaze back to mine.
“I know.”
“Twice, Matt.Twice.”
I dropped her wrist, my hands balling into fists at my sides instead, and I exhaled hard through my nose, forcing myself to calm down enough. “I go over that every goddamn night, Sienna,” I whispered. “I lie there, awake, wondering how the hell I ever let myself hurt you like that. I hate myself for it.”
She didn’t blink, didn’t move, just watched me with parted lips and quickening breaths like I was doing it again, like she was expecting everything to fall apart if she let herself believe me.
“I was scared,” I admitted, the words clawing their way out. “It’s not an excuse and I’m not expecting you to take it like one, but it’s the truth. I haven’t had anything like this, I’ve neverletmyself. There have been women I’ve fixated on a little longer, but none of them have been anything close to this, anything close toyou.”
I took a single step forward, my feet touching the step she stood on. Even a few inches taller, she still had to look up at me, and the way her eyes glistened now told me I was either making progress or about to be shut out forever. I had to gamble.
“I panicked. I pulled back, both times,” I swallowed. “But not because you didn’t mean something, but because youdid, and I didn’t know how to keep myself from ruining it. I didn’t think I could handle it without hurting you or me or Zach in the process, and it scared the living shit out of me. But I’d rather fuck it uptryingthan spend the rest of my life wondering if I missed the only thing besides my kid that’s ever actually mattered.”
The air between us felt like it had teeth, like it was seconds from snapping me in its jaws and tearing everything down.
“I texted you, Icalledyou, last week,” I continued, my voice raw, the words spilling out now. “The day I saw you. The night youanswered,and I ended up right fucking here. That was before I knew, before the twins, before any of this. And it was because I wanted to fix it, Sienna. It was because I missed you so goddamn much that it made me sick, and then I saw you there at that goddamn cafe looking like the world was caving in on you, and Zach spoke about ten times as much as he normally did, and I couldn’tbreathebecause of it.”
She blinked, two tears falling free, a choked little sound breaking from her throat.
