Chapter 26 The Tokyo skyline stretched endlessly beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows of the hotel suite, but it didn't mean shit when the screen of my phone was still black. No notifications. No texts, no missed calls, just the same photo of her and Zach playing in the living room filling my lockscreen like it could anchor me from halfway around the world. Two days. Two goddamn days of silence. I stared down at the screen like I could will her to answer me. Like maybe if I just looked hard enough, something would change, that little typing bubble would pop up, and she'd send one of her usual dry and sarcastic check-ins. I checked her location even though I'd told myself I wouldn't. She was still at her place, not at the hospital, not vanished - but that didn't make me feel better. Silence from her wasn't normal, not after everything, not after the way she'd curled into me on that flight back from Massachusetts, not after I'd touched her the night before I had to fly out here and she'd whispered something half-asleep that sounded far too close to "please stay." I stood from the suite's desk and shoved a hand through my hair, pacing the wide, lush space like I hadn't built my entire life on composure. I had meetings lined up with our Japanese partners, expansion talks that could shift profits wildly higher. I'd flown out without really thinking of anything other than the logistics-make sure Sienna and Zach were both safe and cared for-but hadn't considered what normally happened to me with Zach, happening to me with Sienna as well. I missed her. I missed them, all of them, Zach, and Sienna and the two little ones she was growing, so much that it cracked my chest open. Mornings weren't right without her texts about weird cravings or morning sickness. I couldn't fall asleep properly without the knowledge that she wasn't more than a thirty-minute drive from me. I'd built a life on keeping people at arm's length and somehow, someway, she'd slipped right past every defense I had, and the spaces without her now felt brutal. By the fifth day of the trip, I was making excuses to cut meetings short. By the sixth, I didn't even pretend anymore. I skipped dinner with our execs and arranged to fly home instead. They'd understand, or they wouldn't, and I wasn't entirely sure if I cared either way. I just wanted to be home. The second the wheels hit the tarmac in Atlanta, I texted her again. Me: Landing now. Coming to you. If you need space, tell me to back off. Still nothing. The city looked odd when I hadn't slept. It wasn't the first time I'd come back tired, but there was stress now, anxiety a shitty blanket on top of the exhaustion that blurred the edges of everything, filled my ears with static, made every light too sharp in the dark. But the moment I saw her front door, some small piece of me relaxed. I didn't knock. I used the key she'd given me in case of emergencies. The air left my lungs the second I saw her. She stood in her small kitchen, barefoot and wearing one of my shirts, her phone on the counter next to a half-eaten bowl of oatmeal, her palms flat down and her shoulders hunched. She didn't even look at me as the door clicked shut. "Sienna," I said warily. She stiffened, her shoulders straightening just a little, but she didn't turn. I took a step closer, narrowing the gap between us, desperately trying to keep my erratic heart from beating out of my chest, stress rising. "You've been ignoring me, sweetheart." She still didn't speak. "I've been in Tokyo losing my fucking mind. Do you know that?" My voice cracked, just barely, and I took a deep breath, trying to rein myself in. "I couldn't focus. I couldn't sleep. I kept checking my phone, hoping you'd just-hoping you'd say something." "I saw your texts," she said, too calm, too cold. I blinked at her. "Why didn't you answer?" She finally turned to face me, expression unreadable. There wasn't anger, or hurt, or anything else I could pick up on - just emptiness. "I needed time." "For what, Sienna?" She looked at me for a long moment like she was weighing words up in her mind, blinking as though it was obvious. "Were you really in Tokyo for business, Matt? Or were you just off fucking another woman?" I didn't know how to do anything other than stare. That question, that stupid fucking question, hung there in the space between us like a live wire, crackling and angry. For a terrifying second, I couldn't speak, couldn't move, just looked at her, heart slamming against my ribcage, wondering what the fuck had happened while I was gone to turn her into someone who could even ask me that with a straight face. "Of course I wasn't," I rasped. "Sienna. No." She didn't soften in the slightest. I took a slow breath, trying not to let the frustration erupt. A part of me knew that fears of this were likely to pop up at some point after what happened between her and Ryan, but I couldn't wrap my mind around why now. "I'm not him," I said softly. "I would never do that to you. You don't have to be afraid of that with me." The laugh that bubbled up through her was bitter. "That's not what Ryan said." Ice prickled down my spine. "What?" Her jaw clenched. "You want to know why I haven't answered your texts?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "While I was building a pillow fort with Zach, Ryan showed up at the door uninvited." I took another step forward, pulse pounding in my ears. "He what?" "He came looking for you. Noticed I'm pregnant, obviously. Told me I shouldn't trust you," she said, her gaze flicking away from me. "He said I was gullible. Told me I was tying myself to someone worse than himself. Told me about Zach's mom." Zach's mom? "What do you mean? How is that related?" "He said you cheated on her while she was pregnant and postpartum. Repeatedly. Said she couldn't even look at Zach afterward, that you broke her so badly she gave you full custody just to get away from you." I felt the blood leech from my face. What the fuck? "And considering you've never told me anything about her⁠-" "Because there was nothing to tell," I snapped, taking a step back. I didn't know how to look at her, let alone process this. Wrong, wrong, all of it wrong. "You believed him." She blinked at me. "You believed him," I repeated, my voice a little lower, the disbelief coating each word. "After I've been doing everything in my power to show up, over and over, even when it's scared the shit out of me. After going to every doctor's appointment, spending every evening possible with you, fucking admitting to myself that I want this - you believed him." Her mouth popped open, an unsteady breath crossing her lips. "What am I supposed to think when you haven't told me what⁠-" "You're supposed to fucking trust me, Sienna!" I said, the words exploding out of me harsher than I'd intended. I didn't take it back. "He's my son. I was waiting until I knew that you trusted me so you wouldn't think it was a goddamn sob story for your affection, but that moment's never coming, is it?" Her face twisted. "I don't know how you expect me to trust you when I'm still terrified that you're going to leave at any second. I don't know what you want me⁠-" "I want you to stop putting me on trial for things I haven't done because of what my brother says," I rasped, my chest rising and falling too quick, too angry. "I want you to look at how I've treated you since I let myself want you and maybe give me more credit than the man who fucked your best friend for a year behind your back." Silence. Deafening silence. I shook my head, jaw tight, fingers curling into fists. "But if, after everything between us, you still think I'm the kind of man who is even capable of what you're accusing me of, then what's the goddamn point?" This wasn't fair. This wasn't okay. This was every single thing I'd tried to shield myself from for years, almost every single thing I was worried about happening if I even let myself consider the idea of 'family' again. This was every argument with my parents. "I'm not going to stand here and defend myself against his bullshit when you actually believe it." My voice dropped, my anger surging. I took a single step back toward the door. "I'm done." Her mouth opened, but I kept going before she could get a sound out. "I'll be there for the twins. Always. But I'm not going to spend the rest of my fucking life hoping you'll eventually choose to believe me over your piece-of-shit ex and my piece-of-shit brother. You want to think I'm like him? Worse? Fine. I'm not going to beg you to see me for who I actually am." I turned before I said something worse. The door slammed harder than I meant it to.