Page 15 of Mile High Ex's Dad
“Whatever’s in your head,” he adds, “try not to turn the rehearsal dinner into a crime scene.”
“No promises.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
He exhales once through his nose, already defeated by the shape of the night to come. Then he jerks his chin toward the door. “Go get your imaging done before you swan off to family obligations and bad decisions.”
I start for the door.
Behind me, he says, “And, Viktor.”
I glance back.
“If you rip those stitches tonight, I’ll let it hurt on principle.”
I smile briefly. “I’d expect nothing less.”
3
SIENNA
“Well,”Ethan says, looking me over with open amusement, “this is unexpected.”
For a moment, I just stare at him.
He hasn’t changed as much as I would’ve liked.
He’s still infuriatingly handsome in that effortless, expensive way men like him always are. Perfect hair. Perfect suit. Perfect, polished smile that never reaches his eyes. He still carries himself like the world was built with him in mind, like every room should tilt to accommodate him.
And I hate how quickly being near him drags old feelings to the surface.
Not longing. Not regret. Just that awful tightening in my chest. The old instinct to brace myself before he can say something that leaves a bruise no one else can see.
I close the binder and hold it against my chest. “Funny,” I say. “I was thinking the same thing.”
His gaze moves over me slowly, taking in my coat, my dress, my face. There’s something almost lazy in it, and that makes it worse. Ethan never needed to raise his voice to be cruel. He preferred it dressed up in charm, delivered with a smile, as if he were doing you a favor by saying the ugliest thing in the softest possible tone.
“I didn’t know Talia’s emergency replacement would be you,” he says.
“She had to leave town. I’m stepping in for the weekend.”
His mouth curves. “That’s generous of her. I wouldn’t have thought this was your level.”
I smile back because anything else would be surrender. “Good thing I’m not here to impress you.”
He gives a quiet laugh. “No? That would be a first.”
The words slide under my skin with practiced ease, and all at once I’m somewhere else.
Spain. Heat clinging to my body like another layer of skin. A rooftop restaurant washed gold by sunset. A table set with white linen and too many forks. I remember smoothing my dress over my hips before I sat down, already aware of myself in ways I never was before him.
I remember how lovely the city looked from up there. How foolish I felt by the end of the night.
He looked at me with that same expression then. Mildly detached. Barely patient.
“You really could be beautiful,” he’d said, swirling his wine, “if you made more of an effort.”
