Chapter 14 The view from the top floor of StrathOne's headquarters stretched across downtown Atlanta, all glass, metal, and money. On paper, from up here, I should've felt like a king. In reality, though, I couldn't stop checking my goddamn phone. I sat at the head of the boardroom table while half a dozen department heads updated me on projections, ad performance, and cargo margins. I heard every word, but none of it stuck, it just passed through me and disappeared out the other side. Instead, my head was too focused on her. Sienna. The way she'd laughed in the candlelight at that restaurant. The way she'd spun Zach on the dance floor, not a care in the world for who was watching her, breathless and grinning. The way she'd looked up at me from the bed after the third time I'd undone her, her eyes heavy and her mouth parted, far too much hidden behind her irises. Worse-the way she'd sobbed my name into my neck in the dark, trusting me with every inch of her body like I'd earned it, like I deserved her. I closed my eyes for a second, just long enough to hear her voice in my head again. It's not an invitation to sleep with me, Matt. I'd meant to prove her wrong. But not like that. "Matt?" someone said. Marketing-Emily, maybe. I blinked, forcing myself back to the present. "Yeah. Continue." She didn't look convinced. I wasn't sure I cared. I left the meeting early, pushed the door open before the PowerPoint had even gotten to anything useful and ignored the shuffle of chairs and hushed voices behind me. I could feel a migraine building behind my eyes, a pulsing throb that had been there since the moment I'd gotten on my plane back in Tulum. No. Since the moment I'd left her bed. I'd told myself it was better this way, cleaner, leaving before it got messy, before it blurred into something I couldn't fix. But I'd fallen asleep with her in my arms. I never did that. Not with anyone but Zach, not in years. And instead of waking her gently or saying goodbye or letting her see me in even one honest moment outside of my cock being in her, I did what I'd trained myself to do so well - I'd left. Disappeared. Cold sheets, no note, nothing. Normally, I could do that. I could leave and feel nothing. But this was too much, too long, and she was lingering. I'd known she would the moment I'd slipped out of the bed, second-guessed myself as I'd pulled away from her as gently as possible and heard her whimper of protest in her sleep, hated myself as I'd stood there and watched her until I was sure she wasn't going to wake up fully. And now there was nothing. No response to the first text I'd sent a few days after, just a hesitant text asking if the money went through. None to the second text I'd sent, following up. I'd tried calling, and it had gone straight to voicemail. It shouldn't have mattered. She'd received it - I knew she had, just wanted a reason to reach out, but that had been the agreement. A clean break, neatly paid for. But Zach had asked about her last night over grilled cheese and broccoli. "Is Sienna coming over soon?" I'd told him no. Not why, just no, and he'd managed to pick up on my tone enough to not bring it up again. I unlocked my phone again, stared at the texts I'd sent, days old now. Still nothing. ---- Traffic on Marietta crawled so slowly that I wanted to slam my head against the steering wheel. I loosened my tie with one hand, cracked the window with the other, letting the warm air rush in and ground me with its humidity and heaviness. I didn't think about it this time. I'd embarrassed myself enough already, I might as well add more fuel to the fire. I grabbed my phone from the passenger seat and typed out a text. Me: Please just talk to me, Sienna. My throat almost closed when I saw the three little dots pop up, dancing across the bottom of the screen like a threat. Sienna: leave me alone. you're just as bad as ryan. I stared at the words, each one hitting like a slap. She meant it. I could feel it in the punctuation and the lowercase carelessness, in the bitterness bleeding through every character. Low anger, high dismissal, high resignation. Like I was already filed away in the same drawer as my brother. That stung far more than I'd expected. I set my phone in my lap as I crawled forward approximately half a car's length, my jaw aching from how hard I was clenching my teeth. She thought I was like him. She'd looked me in the eye, gave me her body, her trust, her fucking laughter, and still ended up believing the one person who'd destroyed her. Because I'd made it easy to. I slammed my palm into the steering wheel, huffing out a breath of anger. I hadn't told her anything, not really. Hadn't corrected the story. I'd let her believe what she wanted because I'd figured she'd walk away anyway, but she hadn't. I had. Fuck, I had. My thumbs hovered over the screen as I picked it back up, forcing myself to breathe before I typed, drafting and deleting in my head before I sent something I regretted. Me: If you come over, I'll tell you everything. The full story. Ryan, the inheritance, all of it. Anything you want to know. I stared at it, hoping to God she'd reply, before adding: Me: I'm heading home now. I can send a car. Just say yes, Sienna. I waited. Waited through the red light, then the next green, then the next red, my car moving at a snail's pace. My hands curled around the wheel as I finally broke free from the traffic, away from the chaos, toward home. Ding. Her name again. I glanced down, just briefly. Sienna: fine.