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“Is everything okay?”
I exhaled deeply. I didn’t even know where to start or what to say.
“Yeah, it’s fine. Tell the Hallstons and Keely I’m sorry about dinner.”
We said our goodbyes and I hung up the phone just as Joe walked over with a greasy brown box of fresh, hot fries.
I nodded my thanks and went back to my office.
But I paused at the door. Something curled like talons in my chest at the thought that in the twenty minutes I’d been gone and distracted Sierra could have slipped out and taken off again into the night.
But when I opened the door, she was still there.
I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and extended a hand to her.
“Come on, let’s go upstairs. Do you have anything in the car?”
“Just a suitcase.”
“That’s all you brought with you?”
Her being a rich girl, I guessed I expected her to be loaded with things—multiple suitcases filled with jewelry and shoes, maybe.
But even now she was dressed plainly in shorts and a loose shirt, her hair a bit tangled and falling over her shoulders.
“I don’t have much,” she said in response. I bit back the questions I had for her as she shakily stood and glanced at the brown to-go box.
“It’s just fries,” I assured her. Guilt washed over me as her soft gray eyes met mine and I saw the pain there. But I was also fighting some other emotions as I led her out of the bar and to the stairs leading up to my apartment. The last time I’d taken her up here I’d had her pinned to the wall. I’d also gotten her pregnant.
Now I was leading her inside again for a totally different reason and everything between us—that once magnetic pull I hadn’t felt with anyone else—felt hollow.
I was… angry about it. Not angry about her needing my help. Not her being pregnant with what was possibly my kid. This situation putting a mountain between us I was unable to scale and nothing that had been there before would ever be the same.
It didn’t stop me from wanting her, though. But she wasn’t what I thought she was. I didn’t know her. I wasn’t sure if I could trust her.
“I’ll get you something to drink,” I said, and left her in the front hallway.
Chapter Eight
Sierra
Never in my life had I cried in front of anyone.
I’d been trained like a pretty little dog to sit, stay, and obey, all with a nice smile on my face. Breaking down in front of a man I barely knew was a first. Now I sat in Pete’s living room gripping a cold can of ginger ale just… looking at him. He looked at me, neither of us saying a thing.
I wasn’t super thrilled that he’d already started bossing me around, but I wasn’t in a position to argue. I’d just dropped a bomb on him. Now, it seemed, we both needed a moment to adjust.
I sipped the soda and looked around. I’d only seen the hallway and his master bedroom. For whatever reason I imagined his apartment would be like the bar downstairs—rustic, a bit cluttered, smelling of smoke and dust and leather.
But his apartment was immaculate. Modern, tasteful, andhuge. It had been completely renovated at one point I assumed. Thebuilding itself was decades old—brick and stone and stoic like something out of an old western movie.
But the twin dark leather sofas and the handmade coffee table juxtaposed against the soft cream-colored walls was a startling contrast to the exterior and the bar below.
I wouldn’t even hear the bar. It was quiet enough I could hear the carbonation fizzing and popping in my soda can.
The kitchen was open to the living room with a long dining room table in between. Everything was sleek and clean.
The man in front of me, however?
