Page 199 of A Vicious Love

I deserved a chapel.

A statue.

At minimum, a commemorative plaque.

JAMISON CROW: DID NOT TAKE HIS FIANCÉE AGAINST A WALL AFTER SHE ALMOST DIED AND SHE LOOKED FUCKING BEAUTIFUL IN HIS ARMS.

Heroic.

Entirely underappreciated.

Sienna shivered again. My arm tightened carefully beneath her thighs. Her face tucked closer to my neck.

“Sorry,” I muttered, loosening at once.

Her head lifted a fraction. “You keep saying that.”

“Don’t make it strange.”

“It is strange.”

“Then stop noticing.”

She was topless, her sweet little body pressed in to me. I wanted to put her against the nearest tree.

Which was why I kept walking.

Saint.

House Alder appeared through the trees a few minutes later, and I understood immediately why Sienna had been placed there.

It was the prettiest cage on the estate. Modern wealth pretending to be simple.

Glass doors opening onto a wide terrace that overlooked the lake through a break in the trees. Expensive outdoor furniture arranged beneath linen umbrellas. A private plunge pool along one side, because apparently one body of water trying to kill her wasn’t enough.

The whole place was elegant, obscene in that Bellemere way where money didn’t shout because shouting was for people still trying to prove they had it.

And flowers.

Christ.

Flowers covered the terrace.

The entire stone path from terrace to patio had been swallowed by pale roses, blush peonies, white orchids, and soft pink hydrangeas arranged in ridiculous abundance. Buckets, urns, low ceramic bowls, trailing garlands wound through the railings.

One of the vans had beaten me here.

Sienna lifted her head fully, her eyes widened.

“What is that?”

“Flowers.”

“I can see they’re flowers.”

“Then why ask?”

Her gaze shifted from the terrace to me. “Jamison.”