Page 22 of Accidental Mile High Daddy
Of course he’d flaunted our last name.Of course.
Finally, forcing myself to come to terms with my decisions, I stepped out of the car, rolling my shoulders as I circled thevehicle. Palm trees swayed overhead, the humidity wrapping around me like wet silk, and I opened Zach’s door carefully.
“Hey, tiger,” I murmured, brushing my thumb against his cheek. “We’re here.”
Zach stirred, squinting and blinking from the sun I was trying to block with my head. His dark little curls were flattened on one side, his voice all raspy from sleep. “Tulum?”
A smile broke across my cheeks. “Mhm. Good job on the pronunciation,” I said, unbuckling the seatbelt from his car seat. “Come on, you’re gonna love the pool.”
He rubbed his eyes. “Will there be smoothies?”
“Nothingbutsmoothies.”
He grinned sleepily and held his arm out, his dinosaur still clutched in his grasp. I lifted him into mine and carried him through the breezeway, nodding to the concierge who stammered out a welcome in Spanish. Inside, the air conditioning prickled against my already slightly damp skin like a reprieve, and I shifted Zach on my hip as he babbled about the best kind of fruit to put in a smoothie.
Margot, bless her, stood near the concierge desk already, tapping a card against the counter and trying her absolute best to speak Spanish with the woman behind the desk. Sixty-five, smart, and blessedly unflappable, she spotted us in an instant.
“Zachary!” she chimed, stepping toward us with her arms outstretched, her loose linen trousers and shirt flitting about her short frame, her wide-brimmed hat flopping dramatically. “Come here, little man.”
I passed him off to her, Zach practically launching himself into her arms with a sleepy but desperately excited hug as if he hadn’t seen her last night before she helped put him to bed. Margot deserved at least quadruple what I paid her to nanny for me, but every time I tried to up her salary, she refused.
“Can we go swimming?” Zach asked, his legs kicking on either side of her hips.
“You know what? How about you and I take a little walk around and check things out while your dad checks us in, and then we can dosomuch swimming that you’ll grow gills by dinner,” she promised.
He beamed at her.
I ruffled his hair, fixing the flattened side. “Be good for Margot, bud.”
“Iamgood,” he said seriously.
“Is she coming?” Margot asked, arching a brow at me.
I swallowed.Sienna.“Yeah. She’s flying into Cancun later this evening. Had to teach this morning, so she’s flying StrathOne.”
“You’re not sending the jet back for her?”
My jaw ticked before I took a deep breath and leveled it out. “She refused the offer.”
Margot nodded as if that explained far more than it did and turned, shifting her attention to Zach, and stepped out the back doors toward the beachfront area of the resort, Zach already babbling about working on his cannonball.
Check-in was easy when they realized that everything had been booked in my name, but I nearly popped a vein in my forehead when they’d asked me if I wanted to approve the upgrade for Ryan’s villa to have masseuses come in the mornings. I’d declined, tried to control my breathing, and asked for a singular masseuse tomorrow morning formyvilla as an added reward for Sienna instead.
But the moment I turned away from the front desk, I stopped dead.
Ryan was standing by the entrance to the bar, a cocktail in hand, his head thrown back in faux laughter at something a short, older man was saying to him. He looked almost exactly thesame as the last time I’d seen him almost a year ago — expensive sunglasses perched high in his tousled, mousy brown hair, a perfectly tailored linen shirt that likely cost as much as some people’s rent hanging open around his chest, his skin already tanned like he’d hit a sunbed a few days ago at my expense and fallen asleep inside.
And from the way he moved as he turned toward me, I could tell he was absolutely tipsy.
“Matthew,” he drawled, flashing that bleached white grin at me that he reserved for when he wanted something. “Was wondering when you’d show up.”
“Ryan.”
He stepped forward, his arms outstretched like we were friends, but I didn’t move.
The hug didn’t happen.
His mouth twitched like he wanted to roll his eyes at me. “Fine, don’t hug me,” he muttered. “What do you think? Swanky enough for ‘ya? Had them add extra bits of that gauzy curtain shit by the doors, looks awesome.”
