Page 98 of A Vicious Love

I hated that the contract review had changed enough that even men in my own club felt safe wondering aloud whether she belonged to anybody.

“You misunderstand me,” the man said quickly. “I didn’t mean⁠—”

“You did.”

I picked up the phone. For one second, I looked at the photograph properly. Sienna’s posture. The precision of the turn. Three years of her talking about ballet and I still did not know enough to name what she was doing. She had told me. Probably more than once. I had treated every explanation like noise.

I set the phone facedown on the table.

“She is not club conversation.”

The man nodded immediately. “Of course.”

“No dynasty woman is.”

“Yes.”

“Especially one attached to Crow blood.”

His face paled.

Good.

I leaned back and reached for my whiskey again.

“If I hear her name at a table like this again, the person saying it leaves without enough teeth to repeat the mistake.”

Nobody answered. The bass filled the silence. Reeves moved one hand subtly toward the table, took the phone, and passed it to one of the security men behind him.

The man who owned it opened his mouth. Then thought better of it. Smart. I took another drag of the cigarette.

The anger stayed.

That was inconvenient.

I did like Sienna? The question had started appearing too often lately. At stupid times.

Inside cars.

During meetings.

While drinking whiskey.

Every time someone mentioned her name near Weston’s.

Every time my phone lit with a Veil notification of her.

I had spent years wishing she would stop talking. Now I noticed when she gave her words to anyone else. That was not liking her.

It was irritation… an annoying habit.

Possessiveness attached to a contract that should have ended cleanly before it started becoming something else.

Nothing more.

I drank again.

The whiskey helped less each time.