Page 132 of Mile High Ex's Dad
Viktor takes one step toward me. “Then why hide it?”
I open my mouth and close it again, because there are too many answers and none of them sound good enough. Because I was ashamed. Because I didn’t want him looking at me and seeing Ethan first. Because I knew exactly how disgusting it would sound once he realized I’d been with both father and son, even if one of those things belonged to the past and the other did not.
Because I wanted one part of this not to feel ruined before it even had a chance.
He sees the hesitation and something in him gives way. He closes the distance between us and grips my arms. Not brutally, but hard enough that I feel it.
“Sienna.”
I flinch before I can stop myself.
He lets go at once. The shift in his face is immediate. Anger drops out of it, replaced by something more awful because it’s more human. Regret. He looks down at where his hands were on me, then back up.
“Did I hurt you?”
The answer should be simple. No. Not really. Not more than the day already has.
But the truth is that everything feels tender right now. My body. My nerves. My patience. The place in me that still wants him no matter how careful I’m trying to be.
“A little,” I say softly.
He steps back at once, as if giving me room can undo it.
For a moment neither of us speaks.
Then I say, “He didn’t mean anything.”
Viktor looks at me, not cold now, just tired and deeply wounded in a way I hadn’t expected to see from him. “That isn’t what I said.”
I stare at him.
He exhales slowly. “I said you didn’t tell me the truth.”
There it is.
Not jealousy, exactly. Or not only that.
Something else.
The fact that I kept a piece of myself back while taking everything else from him. My body. My fear. My nights. My trust in broken pieces.
And he has a right to feel that.
“I know,” I say.
He looks away down the dark hall for a second, then back at me. “Do you?”
“Yes.” The word comes out small.
Because now that I’m standing here looking at him, I do know. I know exactly why this hurts him. Not because Ethan matters now. Because he mattered once, and I let Viktor walk blind into that without warning him. I let him hear it from a drunken man in a hallway.
If our places were reversed, I would hate that too.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want this to become about him,” I say.
Viktor’s eyes come back to mine. His face changes just a little.
So I keep going, because there’s no point stopping halfway now.
