Chapter 22 I couldn't sit still. My foot tapped restless patterns into the floorboard of my Range Rover. Every red light, every turn, every second felt too slow, like the world was dragging its feet around me and all I wanted was to sprint-not away, but head-on. My chest was full, but not with panic, not even with nerves. It was fucking hope. The real kind, the kind I hadn't let myself feel in years for anything other than Zach. I was going to be a dad again. From the start this time. From the first breaths they took, with her. "I've already started a list." I glanced to my right. Sienna was curled in the passenger seat after agreeing to let me drive her home instead of having her friend do it. I wanted the time with her, wanted to figure this out together. "Not names," I clarified. "But-you know, prep schools. There's one in Buckhead that starts at sixth grade. Zach's on the waitlist already. It feeds right into Yale and Princeton like clockwork, it's got a full IB curriculum, a gifted program, everything." She didn't answer. "We could look at Montessori for the first few years of school, too. Zach loves it already. We could get them on the waitlist for that, too, if you want. Whatever they need, we'll make it happen." She stared out the window, her feet perched on the dash, her knees up toward her chest. I didn't know what to make of that. But I couldn't stop myself from talking now that the words were coming. "We should start thinking about nurseries, too," I said, realizing that I'd just put myself in an awkward situation because neither of us knew what we were doing yet - whether she was going to stay living in her apartment or move in with me, whether we were co-parenting or trying to do it together. "We can-shit, we can handle it however you want to. I could bring in contractors to your apartment if you have a spare room, get the whole nursery built and fix up the whole place, add a clean-air system, noise-dampening walls, anything that could help you sleep, or them sleep, whatever's harder." I swallowed, bracing myself for what I was offering. "Or I could have it all set up at mine, if you'd rather," I rasped. "Or have a guesthouse built for you and them, or I can add an extension to the ground floor⁠-" "Matt." The single word stopped me cold. It wasn't loud, wasn't angry, just tired. I hesitated. "Yeah?" "You don't get to do this." My heart thudded hard against my ribs. Please don't mean that like I think you do. "Do what?" Her head turned, his gaze finally meeting mine for a fraction of a second as I tried to keep my attention on both her and the road. They weren't cold, not really, but there was a dullness behind them that made my stomach knot. "Throw money at this. Throw plans. You don't get to decide we're a we just because you showed up one time. This isn't some grand Matt Strathmore project, this is two-fuck-three people, me included." I lost the air from my lungs. "That's not-Christ, Sienna, that's not what I'm doing⁠-" "Isn't it?" she asked. "Because it kind of feels like you're trying to build something out of plywood and blueprints and hoping that I won't notice the foundation's already cracked and crumbled and fucking rotting." I steeled my jaw. "That's not fair. You know it isn't. I'm trying." "No," she snapped, lowering her feet from the dash, turning in her seat toward me. "What's not fair is you showing up now, acting like everything's fine because you decided to be involved. Like that erases the fact that you fucking left, apologized, and then left again." I gripped the wheel tighter, my knuckles going white. "I came back. Both times, Sienna. And I haven't run from this⁠-" "Sure, but what happens next time you panic, Matt?" I flinched. "What happens when it's the middle of the night and both of them are crying and I have a mental, fucking breakdown because the man who is supposed to be their father ran away again because he thought we looked too much like a family for his peace of mind⁠-" "You don't get to say that," I cut in, my voice rising, something akin to anger but far more broken building alongside it. "You don't get to decide how I'll feel down the line." "But you don't get it, Matt!" she snapped, her eyes shimmering as she stared me down, my gaze flicking to her every chance I could find. "I don't have the ability to walk away from this if that want were to hit me. But you do. And you've walked before, twice. So, I have to sit here with some kind of blind faith that you won't just up and leave and fucking break me again when I know damn well you wouldn't be sitting next to me if it weren't for them⁠-" My chest felt like it had cracked open. "Sienna⁠-" "Do you honestly believe that showing up to one appointment and promising prep schools and Montessori when you know I'm a teacher myself is enough? Am I just supposed to forget the last, what, four-ish months of knowing you? Am I supposed to wholeheartedly believe you won't bolt the second it gets real again just because you say that's the case?" My jaw clenched. "I'm not going anywhere." "You say that now," she laughed, but the sound was broken, jagged, hollow, her breath catching halfway through. "But you made me think that in Tulum. And again, in your house when you fucked me like I mattered and then basically shoved me out of your bed two seconds after catching your breath." "I never shoved you⁠-" "You left. Whether that's what you want to think happened or not, you pushed me away the moment you felt something. And don't try to tell me you didn't feel something, Matt, because I swear to God⁠-" "I did. I never tried to say that I didn't." "Then tell me what the hell happens when one of them gets sick and I can't cope," she croaked. "Tell me what happens when I'm up at three in the morning, crying, and I don't even know why. Tell me what fucking happens when I beg you to tell me what we are, and you don't have answer." Silence fell thick between us, the tires humming over the road the only sound filling the space between her jagged breaths. I didn't know how to make her believe me. I didn't know how to fix it, how to show her I wasn't going anywhere, how to even broach that request without opening wounds I'd stitched up years ago. "I know I've fucked up," I said carefully. "But you have to understand that I'm simultaneously fighting my own problems with this while trying to keep in mind what Ryan did to you. I've never gone out of my way to actively hurt you, and I've never hidden anything. I'm not him, Sienna." The bitter laugh that crawled from her throat made my chest cave in. "No. You're not him. You're worse, because I actually let myself believe that you were completely different." That one hit hard, cleaving its way through my sternum. "You know how I am with Zach," I countered, trying to keep my voice steady despite the ache tightening my throat. "You've seen how I am. I've had him since he was six months old, and not once have I looked for a way out. I stayed." "You-" "No. Let me talk," I insisted, pulling into her apartment complex. "I stayed. Every night, every bottle, every meltdown. I stayed. You think I'd abandon my own kids? You think I'd walk away from this willingly? You think there is a single part of me that could stomach that, could stomach leaving you to pick up the pieces and fend for yourself?" "You don't know that⁠-" "I will fucking fight for this," I snapped, shoving the car into park in her driveway. "I am fighting for this." She unbuckled her seatbelt with shaking hands, pushing open the door. "No, you're just hoping I roll over and let you back in again." I reached for her, but she was already climbing out. "Wait." "No," she said, brushing me off. "I'm not doing this right now, I have enough to come to terms with." The door slammed, shaking the car and Zach's car seat in the back, and I wrenched my seatbelt off, pushing out clumsily for the first time in my goddamn life just to catch up. I wasn't walking away from this. Fuck that. "Sienna, stop," I called, not bothering to shut my door as I stepped hard across the concrete, my longer legs eating the distance. "Please, for the love of God, just listen to me for two goddamn seconds without throwing my failures at me." I grabbed her by the wrist as I reached the bottom of her stairs, gentle but firm, pulling just enough to drag her attention back to me. "There's no point⁠-" "I haven't stopped thinking about you." She froze, gaze meeting mine. "I mean it," I said, voice hoarse. "Every second of every fucking day for the last few months, I haven't stopped hating myself for what I made you feel. I haven't stopped wondering what you were doing. I haven't stopped wanting you." Her throat worked, her jaw tensing, her pulse fluttering in her wrist beneath my fingertips. "Not since the flight," I continued, my voice shaking just enough to make me hate how broken it sounded. "Not since you sat in the lounge in that goddamn yellow sundress like you knew exactly what you were doing and didn't give a fuck what anyone thought. Not since I realized you were the first woman in probably more than a decade who made me want anything more than what I had." Sienna blinked at the sky, the sun reflecting off her eyes too much, too shiny. "You were the one who pushed me away," she rasped, slowly bringing her gaze back to mine. "I know." "Twice, Matt. Twice." I dropped her wrist, my hands balling into fists at my sides instead, and I exhaled hard through my nose, forcing myself to calm down enough. "I go over that every goddamn night, Sienna," I whispered. "I lie there, awake, wondering how the hell I ever let myself hurt you like that. I hate myself for it." She didn't blink, didn't move, just watched me with parted lips and quickening breaths like I was doing it again, like she was expecting everything to fall apart if she let herself believe me. "I was scared," I admitted, the words clawing their way out. "It's not an excuse and I'm not expecting you to take it like one, but it's the truth. I haven't had anything like this, I've never let myself. There have been women I've fixated on a little longer, but none of them have been anything close to this, anything close to you." I took a single step forward, my feet touching the step she stood on. Even a few inches taller, she still had to look up at me, and the way her eyes glistened now told me I was either making progress or about to be shut out forever. I had to gamble. "I panicked. I pulled back, both times," I swallowed. "But not because you didn't mean something, but because you did, and I didn't know how to keep myself from ruining it. I didn't think I could handle it without hurting you or me or Zach in the process, and it scared the living shit out of me. But I'd rather fuck it up trying than spend the rest of my life wondering if I missed the only thing besides my kid that's ever actually mattered." The air between us felt like it had teeth, like it was seconds from snapping me in its jaws and tearing everything down. "I texted you, I called you, last week," I continued, my voice raw, the words spilling out now. "The day I saw you. The night you answered, and I ended up right fucking here. That was before I knew, before the twins, before any of this. And it was because I wanted to fix it, Sienna. It was because I missed you so goddamn much that it made me sick, and then I saw you there at that goddamn cafe looking like the world was caving in on you, and Zach spoke about ten times as much as he normally did, and I couldn't breathe because of it." She blinked, two tears falling free, a choked little sound breaking from her throat. "I wanted to try before I knew about them," I reiterated. "I don't-I didn't-want to give you a half-assed version of what I thought I could handle. I wanted you, just you." I hesitated, my breath a little ragged, my hands shaking, but I took her face in them before I could let myself overthink it. My thumbs dragged across her cheeks, wiping away the damp, and thank God, she didn't fight me on it. "I get it if you don't trust me," I rasped, pressing my forehead to hers. "I do. I'd hate me, too. But I'm not backing out this time, sweetheart, not from them, not from you." Her eyes squeezed shut, another few tears spilling free. She sucked in a breath that sounded more like a sob, her fingers digging into the sides of her upper arms, her shirt catching on the small bump of her stomach as the wind picked up around us. "Matt⁠-" "I will show up every time," I murmured. "Whether you want me there or not. Whether you scream or cry or slam the door in my face. I'll keep trying until you believe that I'm not running. Until you believe me⁠-" She surged upward, cutting me off with the press of her mouth on mine. There was no warning, no words - she kissed me like the air between us had become unbearable, pushing my hands off her face and wrapping her arms around my neck, like she'd been trying to stop herself from doing it, like she was furious, heartbroken, and still somehow mine but was angry about it. I nearly stumbled back from the surprise. She stole the breath from my lungs with it, from the need in it, as if she didn't know whether to kiss me harder or shove me back onto the concrete. But I grabbed her waist and hauled her into me, held her against my chest, drank her in the way I'd been aching to for months now. Warm, desperate, honest, with everything I was capable of giving her. And still, throughout, I clung to the hope that maybe, just maybe, this was me finally doing something right when it came to her.