Page 352 of A Vicious Love

I stared at my reflection in the dark window. Token ring still on my finger, mocking me with every bit of light it caught.

“Sienna.”

“I mean it. Leave me alone. I never want to see you again, and I’ll make sure I don’t.”

He spoke after a long moment. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“No, baby, you don’t.”

My anger came alive then. Hot, bright, easier than grief. “Stop calling me baby while you’re engaged to my cousin.”

“I am not engaged to your cousin.”

Then I hung up.

The phone rang before the screen even settled.

Jamison.

I let it ring.

A message appeared.

Jamison: Open the gates.

Jamison: Sienna, answer me.

Jamison: I should have told you. I was going to. You need the whole truth.

I stared at that one until my eyes burned. He was going to. The anthem of every man who arrived after the wound.

Another call.

Jamison: Baby, do not do this through a gate.

Jamison: Let me see you.

He did not leave the gates. At first I thought he would. Anger had always been his cleanest language. He would order, threaten, wait one minute longer than his patience allowed, and then punish someone for the inconvenience of being refused. But the car stayed outside the Bellemere estate.

I saw it from my bathroom window. My phone lay on the marble beside the sink, lighting up over and over while I sat on the floor in my dress with my knees drawn to my chest.

Jamison: Sienna, answer me.

Jamison: Baby, I’m still at the gates.

Jamison: Your father is about to learn how little I enjoy being delayed.

Jamison: Tell Adrian to stop screening calls.

Jamison: I will burn through every polite layer of this house if that is what it takes.

Jamison: I should have told you.

Jamison: Let me in.

Jamison: Please.