Page 179 of A Vicious Love

“Most things are.”

“He should tell her no.”

Harrison laughed quietly. “Marcel? Tell Emmie no?”

“He tells syndicate men no all the time.”

“Syndicate men don’t blink up at him and say they only wanted to make the kitchen feel cheerful.”

I painted THYME on the second marker. “Marriage has ruined him.”

Harrison gave me a look.

“What?” I snapped.

“You’re angry because you’re next.”

“I am angry because the Bellemeres replaced my fiancée with her cousin.”

The brush bent in my hand. I put it down before I snapped it.

There were many things a man could break in Marcel’s disaster room without consequence. A paintbrush was not one of them. If Emmie found a broken brush, she would make that little wounded face and say something horrific like, “Oh, I must have pressed too hard.”

Then Marcel would look at all of us like one of us had shot her.

No, thank you.

“Sienna left this morning? Are you going to tell her?” Harrison’s voice softened by half an inch.

No. I was not going to tell her. Not when this was all my fucking fault.

Sienna would take the information and, think she had been replaced because she had not been enough. She would apologize for no longer holding value to people who never deserved the first piece of her. I could already hear it in her voice.

She’d attended Emmies birthday with me. I’d apologised. She listened. I even messaged her good morning, and good night now. I had too many screenshots of her replies.

The day after Emmie birthday, Sienna left for her families retreat. It was the same day, I’d received notification that Celeste Bellemere was being presented beside me at an event on the weekend.

“I’m going to fix it before she has to carry it,” I painted PARSLEY too hard and made the stem crooked. Harrison silently took the marker and fixed it. “I’ll tell her when I have the solution.”

“It’s still going to suck if Sienna doesn’t come back to us.”

I looked at him. “Maybe you’ll finally pay attention to the dates you bring.”

“I stopped bringing anyone serious years ago.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“Because they got jealous of Sienna.” Harrison shrugged.

Immediately something old and angry took notice of the conversation.

“I’d spend half the night making sure your fiancée wasn’t abandoned, starving.” He added, giving me a sharper look. “Dates didn’t like that. One told me I looked at Sienna more than I looked at her. She wasn’t wrong.”

A strange, ugly feeling moved through my chest. Harrison saw it and looked away first, which was either mercy or him saving himself from my mood.

“Before you get that look. She was just…” He paused. “Ours, a little. Family, even if you were too stupid to act like it.”

My brothers had been kinder to my fiancée than I had. I regretted that deeply and would fix it. I would fucking fix it. Celeste Bellemere was technically being presented beside me tomorrow night. I had every intention, on making it clear that wouldn’t happen. We finished in silence.