<b>“</b>I swear if you hurt her, Noah, I’ll-”


    I don’t let her finish her threat; the urgency to fix this mess rides me hard. It almost feels like if I don’t fix this, then I won’t find rest. Chloe will turn in her grave and haunt me.


    ***


    The whole ride is a blur, and now here I am standing outside her door.


    I take deep breaths and when I feel more in control, I ring the bell. Secondster she opens the door, arms crossed, face unreadable.


    Her eyes drop to my bruised, bleeding knuckles but she doesn’t ask. Doesn’t invite me in either.


    “I need to talk to you,” I say sharply.


    “I don’t have anything to say to you,<i>” </i>she replies coolly.


    She doesn’t seem like she ns to move so I force my way in.


    A jerk move, but we can all agree that I’m not and will never be a gentleman when ites to Sierra. Besides, I don’t n on having this conversation on her doorstep where somoene or worse, the paparazzi, can hear.


    “Well,e on in<i>,” </i>she says sarcastically.


    I force myself not to snap and focus on why I’m here. “I don’t want anything to do with this.”


    Her jaw tightens. “Excuse me?”


    “I don’t want this baby.”


    There it is. No sugar–coating. Just the harsh truth.


    She stiffens, but she doesn’t speak.


    “I’m not going to be some deadbeat dad showing up out of guilt,” I continue, ignoring the way my stomach knots as I speak. “You’ve tried to get me to want you for years. Now you’re trying to baby trap me, did you think it was going to work and that I wouldn’t see past your schemes?”


    That must be it. She probably had this nned from the moment my mom asked her for help. She thought this was the only way she could finally have me. Well, over my dead body.


    “You bastard,” she breathes<b>. </b>“How dare you?”


    “I’m not going to let you manipte me into a life with you. I don’t love you and I will never love-”


    “Manipte you?” she hisses, stepping closer. “You were the one who came to me. You were the one who kissed me. You were the one who couldn’t keep his hands off me that night. Don’t you dare try to twist what happened just because you hate the consequences.”


    “I don’t hate the consequences,” I growl. “I hate you.”


    The silence that falls after those words is louder than anything else.


    She schools her features, but for a second, I see the hurt and pain in her eyes. I see just how my words


    have affected her.


    She closes her eyes for a brief moment and then she opens them again… and when she does, her blue eyes are cold in a way I’ve never seen them before.


    “You don’t want a lifetime of dealing with me. You said it yourself, you wish it wasn’t mine.” I say, quieter


    this time, watching her reaction “Get rid of it, Sierra and we’ll both be free.”


    Sierra just stares at me, her face unreadable, but I think I’ve gotten through to her… well, that’s until she grabs a ceramic bowl and hurls it at me. If I hadn’t been paying attention to her, it would have hit me


    square in the face.


    It shatters against the wall behind me, fragments flying like shrapnel.


    “Are you fucking insane?!”


    “Get out,<i>” </i>she says, her voice trembling. “Get out and don’t you evere back.”


    I don’t move. The irony isn’t lost on me. A few hours ago I’d kicked her out of my office and now she was


    returning a favor.


    “I mean it, Noah. If you don’t want this baby, fine. But you don’t get toe into my home and talk to me like I’m trash. You don’t get toe here and order me to abort my child.”


    I clench my jaw, rage and regret fighting for space inside me. Why isn’t she getting it? This baby is a fucking mistake. A mistake I want to fix.


    “I’m not going to y house with you, Sierra. If that’s what you were hoping for, then let me be the bearer of bad news: it’ll never fucking happen. Get rid of the thing or you won’t like what I’ll do.”


    Her face goes pale. Then red.


    Her pes hard and fast across my cheek.


    Fuck! Is she always this violent? I swear Sierra has pped me more than my mother ever spanked me as a kid.


    My head jerks from the impact, but I don’t move.


    She stomps past me, opens the door and shoves me outside before mming the door in my face.


    I stand there for a moment, breathing heavily, staring at the door like it might open again. But it doesn’t.


    And for the first time since Chloe died, I feel something new settle in my chest. Something unwanted.


    A guilt that isn’t tied to the past but to the future I might have just destroyed.