“Please talk to me.”
And that was just it. No anger. No fury. Just…oh, her eyes filled.
He frowned a moment, then took her hand. They moved quietly down the stairs together, Sierra painfully aware of his presence beside her in the darkness.
Yeah, no way around it, this was going to hurt.
“Can I heat up some hot cocoa for you?”
She spotted the pot already on the stove.
He walked over to it. “Figured if I was going to be awake, might as well make something useful.”
The gesture hit her harder than it should have. He remembered. After all these years, he remembered that hot cocoa was her comfort drink of choice.
“You don’t have to take care of me.”
“Maybe I want to.” He poured the steaming chocolate into two mugs, adding marshmallows without asking. Because he knew.
Sierra accepted the mug with shaking hands, wrapping her fingers around the ceramic for warmth. They stood on opposite sides of the kitchen island, the silence heavy.
Rowan’s eyes searched her face in the soft overhead light. “Sierra…”
“Yes.” The word came out barely above a whisper.
Rowan went very still. “Yes what?”
Sierra lifted her chin, meeting his gaze directly for the first time all evening. Her heart hammered against her ribs. “Yes, he’s yours.”
Silence. Rowan’s face went through a dozen expressions in the space of a heartbeat—shock, hurt, anger, wonder, grief. All of it flickering across his features before he locked it down behind his careful control.
For a long moment then, he just stared at her. Sierra held her breath, waiting for the explosion, the accusations, the demands for explanations.
Instead, Rowan set his mug down with deliberate precision, turned without a word, and walked out of the kitchen.
Sierra stood alone in the soft light, listening to his footsteps retreat down the hall and the quiet click of his bedroom door closing.
The truth was finally out.
And he’d just…walked away?
He had a son. A ten-year-old son who didn’t know he existed, who’d been growing up without him.
Ten years of birthdays, first days of school, scraped knees, bedtime stories—gone. All of it gone.
Rowan’s hands shook as he sank onto the edge of the bed, his chest tightening until each breath felt like swallowing glass. The moonlight streaming through the window painted everything silver and cold.
And yes, he’d suspected it, but…
Oh, he hadn’t expected the simple yes to shut him down, stop his breath, take out his heart. Or for the heat—the fury, really—to rush into the cold, open space.
He shouldn’t have left her there. But he didn’t know just what might come out of his mouth.
He hung his head, spots dancing at the edges as his heart hammered against his ribs.
Breathe. Count. Control.
The Delta Force training kicked in automatically. Four counts in, hold for four, out for four. Again. The shaking in his hands slowed, then stopped.
