Page 81 of Accidental Mile High Daddy
I didn’t knock. I used the key she’d given me in case of emergencies.
The air left my lungs the second I saw her.
She stood in her small kitchen, barefoot and wearing one of my shirts, her phone on the counter next to a half-eaten bowl of oatmeal, her palms flat down and her shoulders hunched. She didn’t even look at me as the door clicked shut.
“Sienna,” I said warily.
She stiffened, her shoulders straightening just a little, but she didn’t turn.
I took a step closer, narrowing the gap between us, desperately trying to keep my erratic heart from beating out of my chest, stress rising. “You’ve been ignoring me, sweetheart.”
Shestilldidn’t speak.
“I’ve been in Tokyo losing my fucking mind. Do you know that?” My voice cracked, just barely, and I took a deep breath, trying to rein myself in. “I couldn’t focus. I couldn’tsleep. I kept checking my phone, hoping you’d just—hoping you’d saysomething.”
“I saw your texts,” she said, too calm, toocold.
I blinked at her. “Why didn’t you answer?”
She finally turned to face me, expression unreadable. There wasn’t anger, or hurt, or anything else I could pick up on — justemptiness. “I needed time.”
“For what, Sienna?”
She looked at me for a long moment like she was weighing words up in her mind, blinking as though it was obvious. “Were you really in Tokyo for business, Matt? Or were you just off fucking another woman?”
I didn’t know how to do anything other than stare.
That question, that stupid fucking question, hung there in the space between us like a live wire, crackling and angry. For a terrifying second, I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, justlookedat her, heart slamming against my ribcage, wondering what the fuck had happened while I was gone to turn her into someone who could even ask me that with a straight face.
“Of course I wasn’t,” I rasped. “Sienna. No.”
She didn’t soften in the slightest.
I took a slow breath, trying not to let the frustration erupt. A part of me knew that fears of this were likely to pop up at some point after what happened between her and Ryan, but I couldn’t wrap my mind aroundwhy now. “I’m not him,” I said softly. “I would never do that to you. You don’t have to be afraid of that with me.”
The laugh that bubbled up through her was bitter. “That’s not what Ryan said.”
Ice prickled down my spine. “What?”
Her jaw clenched. “You want to know why I haven’t answered your texts?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “While I was building a pillow fort with Zach, Ryan showed up at the door uninvited.”
I took another step forward, pulse pounding in my ears. “Hewhat?”
“He came looking for you. Noticed I’m pregnant, obviously. Told me I shouldn’t trust you,” she said, her gaze flicking away from me. “He said I was gullible. Told me I was tying myself to someone worse than himself. Told me about Zach’s mom.”
Zach’s mom?“What do you mean? How is that related?”
“He said you cheated on her while she was pregnant and postpartum. Repeatedly. Said she couldn’t even look at Zach afterward, that you broke her so badly she gave you full custody just to get away from you.”
Ifeltthe blood leech from my face.What the fuck?
“And considering you’ve never told me anything about her?—”
“Because there was nothing totell,” I snapped, taking a step back. I didn’t know how to look at her, let alone process this. Wrong, wrong, all of itwrong. “You believed him.”
She blinked at me.
“You believed him,” I repeated, my voice a little lower, the disbelief coating each word. “After I’ve been doing everything in my power to show up, over and over, even when it’s scared the shit out of me. After going toeverydoctor's appointment, spendingeveryevening possible with you, fucking admittingto myself that Iwantthis — you believed him.”
