Page 80 of Accidental Mile High Daddy
“—to him willingly. You know why?”
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to hear, especially not fromRyan’smouth.
“Because he cheated on her,” Ryan said, each word sharp, each word measured. “Repeatedly. Lied straight to her face throughout her entire pregnancy, just like he’s probably doing to you. She couldn’t handle it when she found out. She couldn’t evenlookat Zach without seeing him.”
I blinked, once, twice, three times, faster. “That’s not?—”
“She was a mess, spiraled hard. She gave up everything. Said she didn’t want anything to do with him and couldn’t keep Zach ‘cause it was fucking her up. And Matt… he played the part of the hero, obviously. Took the kid, cleaned up the wreckage he caused. That’s what he does.”
I wanted to laugh, wanted to call it bullshit, but the words caught in my throat.
Matt had never once mentioned Zach’s mom. Not in any conversation we’d had about parenting, about life, about the things that had shaped him or the things he wanted to fix this time around. And I hadn’t questioned it — I thought it was painful, or private, or something he’d mention when the time was right. I thought?—
Fuck.
I said nothing. I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to think. Matt didn’t seem like that kind of person, but neither had Ryan, and I knew damn well now that both of them were more than capable of hurting me.
Ryan pushed off the pillar and adjusted his sleeves like he hadn’t just flipped my world on its side. “Figured you deserved to know what you’re getting into before you tie yourself to someone worse than me,” he said casually, then let his eyes dropto my stomach again. “Apparently I’m a bit too late for that, though.”
He walked off without another word, down the steps to his car, and slammed the driver’s side door behind him.
And I…
I felt like the world was caving in.
Chapter 26
Matt
The Tokyo skyline stretched endlessly beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows of the hotel suite, but it didn’t mean shit when the screen of my phone was still black.
No notifications. No texts, no missed calls, just the same photo of her and Zach playing in the living room filling my lockscreen like it could anchor me from halfway around the world.
Two days. Two goddamn days of silence.
I stared down at the screen like I could will her to answer me. Like maybe if I just looked hard enough, something would change, that little typing bubble would pop up, and she’d send one of her usual dry and sarcastic check-ins.
I checked her location even though I’d told myself I wouldn’t. She was still at her place, not at the hospital, not vanished — but that didn’t make me feel better. Silence from her wasn’t normal, not after everything, not after the way she’d curled into me on that flight back from Massachusetts, not after I’d touched her the night before I had to fly out here and she’d whispered something half-asleep that sounded far too close to“please stay.”
I stood from the suite’s desk and shoved a hand through my hair, pacing the wide, lush space like I hadn’t built my entire life on composure. I had meetings lined up with our Japanese partners, expansion talks that could shift profits wildly higher. I’d flown out without really thinking of anything other than thelogistics—make sure Sienna and Zach were both safe and cared for—but hadn’t considered what normally happened to me with Zach, happening to me with Sienna as well.
I missed her. I missedthem, all of them, Zach, and Sienna and the two little ones she was growing, so much that it cracked my chest open.
Mornings weren’t right without her texts about weird cravings or morning sickness. I couldn’t fall asleep properly without the knowledge that she wasn’t more than a thirty-minute drive from me. I’d built a life on keeping people at arm’s length and somehow, someway, she’d slipped right past every defense I had, and the spaces without her now feltbrutal.
By the fifth day of the trip, I was making excuses to cut meetings short. By the sixth, I didn’t even pretend anymore.
I skipped dinner with our execs and arranged to fly home instead. They’d understand, or they wouldn’t, and I wasn’t entirely sure if I cared either way. I just wanted to be home.
The second the wheels hit the tarmac in Atlanta, I texted her again.
Me:
Landing now. Coming to you. If you need space, tell me to back off.
Still nothing.
The city looked odd when I hadn’t slept. It wasn’t the first time I’d come back tired, but there was stress now, anxiety ashitty blanket on top of the exhaustion that blurred the edges of everything, filled my ears with static, made every light too sharp in the dark. But the moment I saw her front door, some small piece of me relaxed.
