Page 84 of Accidental Mile High Daddy

“I am,” I murmured, but I didn’t believe it.

Her hand brushed my forearm, light,deliberate. She wasn’t subtle and I wasn’t blind. Normally, I’d have leaned in, flirted back, let the game play out — but instead, I froze.

The second she touched me, all I could see was Sienna.

The way she looked when she was fighting back a smile. The way her lashes had fluttered when I woke her up gently on the flight home from Massachusetts, her voice thick with sleep andtrust. Her hands curled over her stomach, her nose crinkling at something I’d said. Her laugh. Herpresence.

And I realized, too late and too deep, that I was in love with her.

It sucked all of the air from the lungs the moment the realization hit.

I pulled back, practically sucking in oxygen like I was suffocating, offering some half-formed apology that probably sounded like gibberish, and stepped outside without waiting for a response from her. The city sprawled out below me, glass, motion, and light, but none of it registered.

I was still angry with her. Horribly, brokenly angry. But God, I fucking loved her, and she waspregnantwith my kids and hormonal and struggling?—

I shouldn’t have broken it off. I could have walked out, taken time to come back, and walked into a new conversation with a clear head. But I hadn’t.

I slipped my phone from my jacket pocket. I needed to text her, or call, orsomething.I didn’t know. I just needed her.

But when I unlocked the screen, her name was already there. A text, timestamped ten minutes ago, sat unread on my screen.

Sienna:

I’m sorry. Can we please talk?

I didn’t answer her text.

I didn’tneed to. Some things didn’t deserve to be sorted through a screen, especially not after a week of silence and the mess Ryan had left in his wake.

I left the lounge without a word to anyone, climbed into my car, and drove the entire way across the city with her messaging burning a hole in my goddamn chest.

I wasn’t wired to ignore her. Not when I couldn’t fall asleep without her invading my dreams, not when I saw her face every time I closed my eyes, not when I fuckingloved her.

Throwing the car into park at an angle in her driveway, I left it running and took the stairs up to her door two at a time. My heart pounded erratically in my chest, not with anger—at least not entirely—but with something tighter and more desperate.

I hadn’t realized just how much I missed her until she opened the door.

She looked tired, pale, her eyes squinting against the glare of my headlights. Her hair was thrown up in a bun, one of my sweaters hanging loosely around her shoulders but clinging to her stomach, which Isworehad grown again, her breath stuttering as she looked up at me.

“Sienna,” I rasped, breathing a little heavy. “Get in the car.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Shoes. Jacket. Let’s go.”

“You didn’t text me back.”

“No,” I said, my jaw flexing. “I didn’t.”

She took half a step back. “You’re still mad.”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “But that’s not why I’m here. Just—just get in the car, sweetheart.”

“Is Zach okay?—”

“He’s fine, justplease. Get in the car.”

Something in my voice must’ve cut through her hesitation. She slipped on her cardigan hanging by the door, shoved her feet into a pair of slides, and followed me without another word.