Page 53 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

“So, have you been seeing anyone lately?” her mother asked.

Siena instantly said, “No.”

She didn’t consider mentioning Johnathan. She hadn’t spoken to him since that night two months ago when they slept together. He didn’t leave her with a way to contact him, and she left the rest up to him.

The whole three strikes thing, after all. He hadn’t contacted her again, and he didn’t try to seek her out.

Siena figured that spoke for itself.

Despite the way it hurt at first—rejection always hurt—the pain ebbed. She threw herself into work, and forgot the darkly grinning man with his lost hazel gaze.

She clearly hadn’t been anything to him.

Why would she let him be something to her?

If only shit was that easy.

It never was.

“Shame,” Coraline said. “You’re going to be a lonely woman for the rest of your life at the rate you’re going, Siena.”

“Ma.”

“I’m just saying. Why don’t you go check on your father and brothers for me?”

“For what?”

“See if they would like a drink,” her mother suggested.

“They can get their own drinks, Ma.”

Coraline shot her a look. “Not in this house, Siena.”

Great.

“Sure, Ma.”

Men were the kings.

Women were meant to serve them.

Or, that’s what her mother liked to believe.

Siena didn’t wait on her brothers and father outside of this house, but if it gave her a chance to get away from her mother for a minute, she would do it. At least it gave her an excuse not to see every single one of her decorations redone.

The party was still a couple of hours away yet. She wouldn’t be able to blend into the people until the house was full, and her parents stopped looking for her.

Same with her brothers.

“Nothing, you’re sure?” she heard her father say down the hallway.

Siena headed to the kitchen where Matteo was discussing something with her brothers at the table. Like always, Matteo sat at the head of the table while her brothers sat on the right and left sides.

None of them paid her much attention other than a look.

Her father did make sure to say, “Make us coffees, Siena.”

Like she had come in there to do anything else.