Page 124 of Mile High Ex's Dad
A pause.
Then, very mildly, “I wasn’t aware I had one.”
I laugh despite myself, then immediately regret it because now I’ve let the mood soften and that’s the last thing I need.
I turn toward him again. “Why are you here?”
He doesn’t answer right away. His gaze moves over my face once, as if checking something. Making sure I’m steady. That I’m really here. That I’m not avoiding him so much as trying very hard not to fall into him again.
The answer, when it comes, is simple. “I wanted to see you.”
That shouldn’t hit as hard as it does. I look down at my shoes for half a second, just to break the force of it. Then I say, “That’s not a good enough reason.”
“It was for me.”
The worst part is that I know he means it.
I hear footsteps on the path before I can answer. One of the florists, arms full of greenery, coming our way.
I step back at once.
His eyes flick to my face, then to the extra space I’ve put between us.
“I have to work,” I say, a little too quickly. “Nadine needs me on the lawn.”
He looks past me toward the lawn, then back at me. “That isn’t the reason.”
I force a small shrug. “It’s one of them.”
He says nothing.
I can feel him waiting again, reading too much, seeing too much, and all I can think about is Camille standing in my room last night with that photo on her phone and that ugly, pleased little smile on her face.
The last thing I need is a scandal.
“There are people everywhere,” I say. “And if we stand here talking too long, someone will notice.”
Then, because he is still Viktor and apparently incapable of letting a thing go entirely, he says, quieter, “Did something happen last night?”
I hate how direct that is. I hate more that for one weak second I want to tell him. About Camille. About the photo. About the threat. About how quickly everything around him turns into leverage.
So I shake my head. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
He gives me a look that says he doesn’t believe that for a second. “Sienna.”
“I mean it.”
That part, at least, is true. I can handle it. I’ve handled worse. Maybe not better, but worse.
He exhales, slow and controlled, and I can see the effort it costs him not to push. “You keep making that sound like reassurance,” he says.
“It is reassurance.”
“For you, perhaps.”
I almost smile at that, but it fades quickly.
Because he’s still standing there, still too close even with the distance I made, still looking at me like he wants to reach for me and is choosing not to. And that is somehow more intimate than touching would be.
