9. Sienna
Sienna
I was running on caffeine, adrenaline, and spite.
My body had no business being upright after the day I’d had.
I’d been up since six this morning, survived a full day teaching eleven-year-olds who would rather do anything else than listen to their teacher.
I rushed to the airport, sat through a two and a half hour flight, rode in a luxury SUV for an hour down to Tulum while fighting nausea from the winding roads and desperately trying to do my hair and makeup.
And then walked into a nightmare with a man I absolutely shouldn’t have been thinking about sleeping with, holding me up.
And now I was having to smile like I didn’t want to scream.
But Matt didn’t leave my side. Not for a second, not since the moment he’d appeared in front of me and kissed me like he had every right to — which, I supposed, right now, he did.
I tried not to think about how I also had the right to kiss him in return.
He moved with me through the crowd like we’d been doing this for years, with his hand low on my back and his voice warm and raspy in my ear when someone introduced themselves.
His touch was casual but constant, guiding, grounding.
Reminding everyone who looked at us exactly who I was with, who I supposedly belonged to.
And he looked like the devil’s gift to women everywhere while he did it.
It was just a suit, just a stupid, tailored suit, but the way it fit him set my veins on fire.
Black, soft, and perfect, with a crisp white shirt and a blood red tie.
I wondered, briefly, how he’d known what I’d wear — but he must have known what I’d had altered at Regale.
Still, though, I could have picked the black dress or the emerald one, and it made my stomach knot when I considered the idea that he knew me well enough to know I’d ramp up my outfits throughout the weekend.
The champagne he’d placed in my hand with a muttered, “Don’t drop this one,” was fantastic, and I took a second glass when the server offered it from a tray a couple of minutes later.
I let it loosen the coil in my chest just enough to feel like I could breathe, let it settle me like a balm.
I still hadn’t looked in Ryan’s direction.
I couldn’t. I knew what direction he was in from the way Matt kept occasionally glancing, and I avoided it like the plague.
“What are they doing?” I asked him as we stood near the open door that looked out at the dark water of the Caribbean, sipping my drink as a smirk crossed his lips.
“She’s avoiding looking at you,” Matt chuckled quietly. “Like you are with her. And Ryan keeps looking like he’s about to strangle one of us.”
“Are they standing with each other?” I didn’t break eye contact with him.
“No. She’s with a few girls over by the fire pit behind you and to your left.
They’re all in oranges, think they’re bridesmaids,” he explained, absentmindedly reaching up to play with one of the waves hanging around my cheeks.
“She’s grinning. I’m pretty sure she’s actively trying to pretend this isn’t happening. ”
I rolled my eyes. It was just like her to ignore me entirely, to keep going as if she hadn’t systematically dismantled my life months ago—or rather, over a year ago when they first started sleeping together—and then erased me from hers. “And Ryan?”
Matt snorted. “Ryan is currently standing alone at the bar for the first time all evening, staring at your back like he’s both confused and mortified all at once. Probably thought you were here to crash the wedding until I walked up to you.”
“Did you warn him?”
He shrugged. “Told him my girlfriend was arriving separately when I got here this morning. Didn’t explain beyond that.”
A laugh bubbled up my throat as I thought about Ryan standing there, utterly perplexed at his brother having some kind of romantic life—because he absolutely would have been, knowing Ryan—and the crash it must have been to see that person be me .
I covered my mouth, trying to suppress it, but Matt’s hand wrapped around my wrist and pulled it down.
“You’re cute when you laugh,” he said, but his voice wasn’t low this time. Part of the act.
My cheeks heated, but I let them, the alcohol making it easier to handle him. “Careful,” I said quietly, tilting my head a little as I looked up at him. “You keep calling me cute and people might start thinking you actually like me.”
Matt’s answering smile was lazy, far too confident, but his voice was lower when he spoke. “Well, we are trying to sell it, remember?”
I blinked up at him, my brain exhausted and fried from work and my body lax from a couple of glasses of champagne, and let my eyes drop to his lips for a split second, to the stubble around them that he wore with pride and didn’t bother to shave down all the way.
“Then kiss me,” I said, the words falling out before I’d thought them through.
His smile turned devious . “Are you asking me because you want me to or because you want him to see it happen again?”
I swallowed. “The latter,” I said. “Obviously.”
Matt held my gaze for a second that felt like hours before he leaned down, his free hand wrapping fully around my waist, his mouth just an inch from mine.
I could smell the whiskey on his breath, the familiar scent of his cologne wrapping around me like a blanket, and just before I could force him to claim the final inch, he shifted.
His lips pressed against my cheek.
Gentle.
Teasing.
“ Liar. ”
I opened my mouth to respond, to tell him he was an asshole and absolutely wrong, but a voice that sent prickles of ice down my spine cut in before I even had the chance.
“Sienna.”
Matt’s hand tightened around the back side of my ribs. Slowly, like he was retreating from a predator, he lifted his head from where it nudged up against mine.
And Ryan took up the entirety of my peripheral vision.
His brown hair was styled and tousled, pushed back from his face for once.
His cream suit was almost atrocious, sickening in a way that made me want to tell him how tacky it looked.
But it was the scowl on his face that made me shrink back just a hair, almost imperceptibly, but Matt caught it.
His fingers dug a little more into my ribs.
“Didn’t think I’d see you here,” Ryan said, his eyes glancing at Matt before sliding back to me.
The image of his legs tangled in the sheets of his bedroom, Lauren under him, her legs bent back like a fucking pretzel — it flashed in my head, just briefly, just enough to do mental damage before I could force a smile on my face.
“Life’s full of surprises,” I said, my voice far steadier than I felt.
Matt tucked me into his side the moment Lauren appeared on Ryan’s right. “Baby, you didn’t tell me you were going to talk to them,” she mumbled, a fake grin plastered to her cheeks as she turned to me. “Hi, Sienna. So nice to see you. Why on earth are you here?”
I gritted my teeth hard enough that I worried I’d crack a molar. Just straight into it, then.
“She’s with me,” Matt said. “If that wasn’t obvious.”
Ryan dragged his tongue over his teeth, looking between us like it was both the most confusing and obvious thing in the world. “So, you’re what, dating?”
“I’m pretty sure I told you my girlfriend was coming,” Matt deadpanned. “So, yes.”
“And how long have you been seeing each other?”
Matt shrugged, looking down at me as if I had a magic answer trapped between my teeth.
“About a month,” I said, which wasn’t exactly wrong . That trip was almost five weeks ago.
“A month,” Lauren scoffed. “That’s not exactly plus one ?—”
“I don’t remember seeing any fine print on the invitation,” Matt countered, lifting his glass of whiskey back to his lips.
“Ridiculous,” Ryan mumbled, dragging a hand down his face before staring between the two of us. “He’s old enough to be your dad. Even with the age gap aside, it’s a little hard to believe, don’t you think?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What, that someone could actually want me without lying about it for an entire year?”
Lauren’s mouth twitched, but she said nothing, turning her attention to Ryan instead, as if she was expecting him to lash out at that.
But he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. Ryan never rose to anything when he was called out. All he did was turn back to Matt, meeting his gaze head-on, but Matt gave him none of that energy — if anything, Matt just looked bored .
“Come on,” Ryan said, chuckling as if all of this was hilarious. “How much did you pay her to be here? Seriously.”
A second passed. Two. Three.
Matt didn’t answer.
“No one paid me,” I lied, words flowing far more easily now. “Do you genuinely think any amount of money would sway me to be here? I’m here so that the man I’m seeing doesn’t have to deal with his shithead brother alone. That’s it.”
Matt smirked into his whiskey as his gaze briefly met mine. I didn’t even have to decipher it — good job was written all over his face.
Ryan looked at Matt again, studying him, staring him down. “You’re fucking?—”
“Do you really want to finish that sentence?” Matt asked, raising a brow. “Because I would suggest neither of you take issue with who I’m seeing.”
Another beat of silence. Ryan just stared up at him, a vein popping in his forehead, his jaw ticking. It wasn’t even a threat, at least not really, but something about it got under Ryan’s skin like nothing else had, something about it I clearly didn’t understand.
“Let’s go,” he muttered, turning to Lauren finally before pushing her toward the bar.
I blinked in confusion.
“What was?—”
“I’ll tell you later,” Matt said, everything about him screaming calm as he leaned back on the door frame again, releasing his death grip on my waist. His knuckle dragged along my arm, his gaze lingering on my lips for half a second before flicking to my eyes. “You did a good job. Held your own.”
I rolled my eyes. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”