Page 18 of Accidental Mile High Daddy
Sienna
The morning sun wasrudeas it clawed through my blinds like it had a grudge. It stabbed right into the center of my brain through my eyes, rattling my skull like coins in a change-counting machine.
I groaned and rolled over, burying my face into the pillow and pulling the blanket over my head as if it would shield me from what had happened last night. Not the amount of drinks I’d had, not the money I’d spent, but the conversation I’d had with Matt.
But my hand still slipped out from under the comforter, found the sleek metal card on my nightstand, and slipped back beneath the covers like I’d be caught for it.
I turned it between my fingers again and again, the sharp edges scratching against my skin.One hundred thousand dollars.It echoed in my mind, taunting me, daring me, over and over and over until it was all I could think about, and the blaring hangover took a backseat.
That kind of money could wipe out my credit card debt. Every lastdollarof it. That kind of money could fix the leak under my shower, could replace my bald tires, could pay off the rest of my student loans. That kind of money could give me thespace I needed to breathe and then some, could give me a life that didn’t involve occasional weekend tutoring gigs and mental math in the grocery store.
It was a trap. But it was a tempting trap.
Matthew Strathmore wouldn’t have offered six figures without strings, even if he claimed there weren’t any outside of making Ryan feel like shit. I knew Ryan like the back of my hand — he hated his brother with a dying passion, and Matt was right that he’d lose his goddamn mind seeing me withhim. So, it wasn’t the money making my stomach twist.
It was the wedding. It was Ryan and Lauren, my ex-boyfriend, and my ex-best friend, and it was seeing them together in a marriage ceremony I’d had the balls to think would be mine. It was seeing them for the first time after walking in on him balls deep inside of her.
But if I did this with Matt…
Ryan would see me. And for the first time in his life, maybe, he’d know he hadn’t gotten the last word.
I stared at the card in the low light under the blankets, dragged my thumb over the raised lettering of Matt’s name and phone number.
I didn’t want revenge. I wanted Ryan to stop existing. But that required either a magic genie lamp, or a life spent in prison, and this…
This was the next best thing.
My phone was in my hand before I’d even thought it through, typing in the numbers and hitting the call button. It rang once. Twice. Three?—
“Sienna.”
Smooth. Low. Confident in that way that made me want to fight him and get his hands back on me at the same time.
I didn’t let myself hesitate.
“I’m in.”
I couldhearhis exhale down the line. “I thought you would be.”
“You don’t know me well enough to assume like that,” I said, but the bite I’d wanted to infuse the words with fell flat. My hangover had filed down my sharp edges.
“Maybe not,” he answered casually, his voice filling one ear while I pressed the other into the pillow. “But I know my brother, know what he does. What hedid.And I know that you’re still angry about it, like you have every right to be. So, I came to a logical conclusion.”
I closed my eyes. “Fair enough,” I murmured. “Is there any other motive here I should be aware of before I throw myself in the deep end?”
“If you’re asking if this is a trick, it’s not. I’m not trying to play you,” he said. “You’ll be paid. You’ll look fucking incredible. We’ll both enjoy watching his jaw hit the floor and his ego deflate.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
I paused, letting my lungs fill and holding it until they burned. “You hate him, don’t you?”
Matt didn’t even hesitate. “I hate what he does to people. What he did to you. What he’s done to me.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’thaveto. We both already knew we were doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, or maybe the right thing for all the wrong ones. But it didn’t matter.
“Okay,” I whispered.
