5. Sienna
5
SIENNA
Shortly after I arrive at the gallery the following morning, I receive a delivery of flowers. A hundred white roses. The card reads simply: Kyle .
I take them through to the office, place them on my desk, and sit back in my seat. The fragrance fills the room, and I find myself turning the card round and around between my fingers. They’re beautiful. Pure and innocent and delicate.
But I wish he hadn’t sent them.
I don’t want flowers. I cover my face with my hands and press my palms into my eyes making them burst with firework displays of color.
I don’t know what I want but sending me flowers isn’t going to change anything or help me to make up my mind.
Is he trying to buy me? I mean, isn’t that what people like the Murrays do, buy whatever they want, including people? Do they ever stop to consider that there are people out there who want different things? People who maybe don’t want to live in a glass tower and eat Michelin-starred food every night and get photographed by the paparazzi every time they step foot on the sidewalk?
“Ugh!” I groan out loud and then catch my reflection in the mirror.
The glow I felt when Kyle was here yesterday has vanished, and with what happened after, I can’t even rekindle it with vivid memories of his face buried in my pussy. Because whenever I think of Kyle, a warning sign flashes in my head: He was investigating Nick’s background .
Why? If he’d discovered anything incriminating, he’d have told me, wouldn’t he? Or he’d have threatened Nick to keep his distance. So now, I can’t help wondering if he somehow knew that I was going on a date with Nick and came here to distract me.
My face floods with heat. Was yesterday just a game to him? Making the first move before Nick arrived. Filling my pussy with his cum and my head with promises to take me anywhere in the world I want to go.
I move the roses onto the floor. I can’t think straight with them winking at me in the glare of the overhead light. Then I take my tablet out of the drawer and power it up.
Into the search engine, I type the name Nicholas Morris. I’ve seen the framed certificates on the walls of Nick’s clinic, highlighting his qualifications, the years of studying that preceded his current position. Trust me . That’s what those certificates say to his clients. Your life is safe in my hands .
So, why did I feel so uneasy while I was with him yesterday evening?
Sure, the conversation flowed. Okay, so it was mostly about Nick, but there were no awkward silences bringing the date to a standstill. He spoke about his collection of handmade Venetian mirrors (from Venice), his favorite vacation (skiing in Vermont), his golf handicap (twelve). And I listened.
If I’m honest, I was grateful not to have to talk about myself. My thoughts were still spinning after the altercation between him and Kyle, so it wasn’t Nick’s unwavering ego and relentlessly charming smile that grated on my nerves. Kyle sowed the seeds of mistrust, and I bought it without questioning why.
“What am I doing?” I tilt my head backwards, close my eyes, and inhale deeply.
Turning back to the tablet, I wiggle my fingers above the keyboard. I know what I’m doing. I’m not lowering myself to Kyle’s level, I’m giving Nick the benefit of the doubt. At least that’s what I tell myself, when I ignore his professional website and dig deeper.
Thirty minutes later, I slide my tablet away from me and sit back in my seat.
Of course I didn’t find anything. What did I expect? To find his name on an old-fashioned wanted poster with a sketched caricature of his gleaming teeth and aquiline nose? WANTED, NICK MORRIS, SERIAL SMILER.
If it wasn’t for Kyle, I would never have even checked him out. I allowed Kyle’s jealousy to infect a perfectly acceptable surgeon-patient relationship, when I should’ve just let his comments wash over me.
Kyle is the first person to touch me since the accident. I’ve never even come close to wanting anyone else, but all he had to do was look at me, whisper “ Leoin ” in my ear, and there I was opening my legs and pulling him inside me like my entire future depended on it. I let him in. I dropped my guard and played right into his hands where Nick is concerned.
So, why do I still feel like I’m missing something important?
I replay snippets of last night’s date in my head. Nick was a perfect gentleman. He held the door open for me, he pulled the seat out at the table and tucked it under me, he didn’t expect me to pay half the bill. He didn’t even pressure me for a kiss when he dropped me off outside my apartment.
I reflexively flinch when I get to the part where Nick tried to kiss me.
The car engine was still running. He unfastened his seatbelt, checked out his teeth in the rearview, and then leaned closer. “I’ve enjoyed tonight, Sienna.” His voice was suitably low, the perfect pitch for following up with a goodnight kiss.
“Me too,” I said. It wasn’t a complete lie; it simply wasn’t the whole truth.
His face moved closer. I saw the faint shadow of stubble on his upper lip and jawline, pale freckles across his nose and the tops of his cheeks that were not visible from a distance, smelled his cologne and coffee on his breath. It made me feel nauseous.
I turned away from him, opened the passenger door and tried to climb out without unbuckling the safety belt. It pulled tight across my chest, the edge of the strap slicing into my neck, and my hand brushed his as we both tried to free me at the same time.
“We should do this again,” he said, moving back into his seat. If he realized how desperate I was to get away from him, he covered it well.
“Yes.” I was already on the sidewalk, my apartment building looming behind me. I leaned into the car, forced a smile, acted like I didn’t almost strangle myself on the passenger seat belt. “Thank you.”
In the safety of my apartment, I guzzled a glass of cold water from the tap and waited for it to cleanse me of the experience.
It didn’t.
I leaned against the counter breathing heavily and tried to regulate my pulse. He has the classic looks and charm of a Hollywood movie star from the 50s. Dark hair, high cheekbones, smoldering eyes. So, why, in the heat of the moment, had I found him so repulsive?
As if sensing where my thoughts are wandering right now, my phone vibrates with a message. I slide it out of my pocket and unlock it.
Kyle. Can we talk? It’s important.
Not even an apology for the way he behaved with Nick.
I wish they would both leave me alone. It’s obvious that I’m not attracted to Nick in the same way that he is attracted to me. It’s equally obvious that I can’t be trusted to be alone in a room with Kyle without wanting to rip his clothes off and fuck him on every available surface.
Which is why I’m better off single.
I message Kyle back: I don’t think that’s a good idea.
I massage my temples. I want to lock myself in my studio, drag an acrylic-splattered shirt over my clothes, and paint until nightfall. Creating art clears my head. Twenty-four hours of me and my canvas, and I might be able to see things a little more clearly.
My phone vibrates a second time.
I open the message, expecting to see Kyle’s name, and realize, too late, that it’s from an unknown number.
Sienna, it’s Dad. I’m back in NYC and would really like to meet up .
I stand outside the Rinse, hands shoved inside my coat pockets, and peer at my reflection in the window. The glass is tinted a smoky brown, making me look like some kind of dirty ghost, the outline of my face distorted and hazy.
I shouldn’t be here.
I don’t want to be here.
So, why am I still standing on the busy sidewalk, avoiding the staring gazes of passers-by, unable to make the decision to turn around and walk away?
My father left us the day after my sixth birthday.
I remember how he walked into the kitchen, saw the remains of the chocolate cake Mom made for me, six used candles still lying on the side of the plate, and turned his face into a rubbery mask of pure hatred. I didn’t even see it happen. One moment, my mom was sitting next to me at the small table where we ate dinner, and the next, she was on the floor, eyes bulging, face turning puce while his fists tightened around her neck.
I can still hear the screams now. My screams .
Maybe that’s why he let my mom go and walked out. Or maybe he was scared that if he stayed any longer, the cops would come for him, and he would have to take his punishment like a man.
That was the last time I saw him. His face stopped appearing in my nightmares a long while ago, and I’m not even sure I’d recognize him if he was standing right beside me. I don’t even know how he found my number, but I guess he heard about my gallery, and his curiosity was piqued. Perhaps he thinks that I’ve come into some money, and I’ll be generous enough to share it with him.
I turn around and walk a few steps away from the Rinse, head down, hands balled into fists inside my pockets.
My mom never spoke about money; she didn’t need to; it was obvious she struggled her whole life to keep us going. She never mentioned my dad at all once he was out of our lives. But it doesn’t take much to figure out that he’s the kind of man who would accept handouts from his own daughter.
I’m torn.
I don’t want, or need, him in my life, but if I don’t give him the benefit of the doubt just this once, it will always haunt me. Be the bigger person, that’s what my mom would say if she was here.
Deep breath.
I turn around, open the door, and step inside.
I’ve never been inside the Rinse before—I know it’s owned by Kyle’s brother Bash—but my dad had already booked a table. I walk through the lobby wide-eyed at the Hollywood-style glamor, the huge gilt-edged mirrors, the spanking clean black-and-white tiled floor, the sleek gold reception desk.
I’m struck once again by how different Kyle’s life is to mine. This is normal for him. He wakes up every morning in the sheer black-glass monument that is the Wraith, makes coffee, takes a shower, and never once thinks that someone in the city is staring at his home, gap-mouthed at the unimaginable opulence of a lifestyle like his.
My dad is waiting at a table in the Rinse’s glitzy restaurant when the concierge asks me to follow him.
My stomach lurches sickeningly when I see him. I thought I wouldn’t recognize him after twenty years. I was wrong.
He raises brown eyes to meet mine, and my body reacts from muscle memory. My pulse races. Heat spreads through my body and sets my cheeks on fire. My legs tremble so violently, I almost collapse onto the seat pulled out for me by the concierge.
“You came.”
His shoulders are round and hunched, his neck jutting out at a ninety-degree angle like the retro nodding dogs people used to put on the parcel shelf of their car years ago. He hasn’t aged well. His skin is slack and pasty, his bottom lip juts out, and there are deep creases across his forehead and around his mouth. My gaze drifts to his hands which are folded in front of him, and I swallow bile at the sight of his long uneven fingernails.
He looks like a man who has abused his body all his life. But my body is refusing to listen to my brain. I’m still the little girl who hid in her room whenever he came home drunk and cried herself to sleep with a pillow over her head to drown out the sounds of her mom’s screams.
The server comes to the table to take my drink order, and I ask for water.
“How have you been?” my dad asks when the server has walked away.
Um, I’ve been alone since Mom died. Struggling to make enough money to pay the rent. Or how about undergoing more surgeries than I can remember, to repair the burns I suffered in a car accident one fateful New Year’s Eve .
“Fine.” I can’t meet his eyes.
“Sweetheart.”
Fucking sweetheart?
Anger starts to creep in, slowly replacing the anxiety triggered by his reappearance.
He isn’t here to apologize; he is probably unaware that he has anything to apologize for. He’s here because he thinks that popping up uninvited into my inbox and calling me sweetheart will erase the years he’s been missing and give him a fresh start. I don’t for one second believe that this has anything to do with me, unless he wants a piece of my gallery.
Well, I’d like to see him fucking try.
“What do you want?” I ask.
We’re not the only people in the restaurant this lunchtime, but it feels as if I’m trapped inside a bubble with him, one that I need to pop as quickly as possible so that I can escape before he seals it.
He swallows a mouthful of his drink. Is it whiskey? Dutch courage. Not that men like my father need it—they’re bullies, and bullies only ever pick on people who are weaker than they are.
“I wanted to see you. I know I’ve not been a part of your life, and I don’t expect to waltz back in and pick up where we left off.”
Thank fuck for that.
“But, well…” Tears well in his eyes. “…I’ve realized what I’ve been missing. I know I can’t turn back the clock, but it isn’t too late to put things right. Is it?”
The server returns with my glass of water, eyes up the untouched menu, and backs off again.
I raise my eyes; I need to see this. “How?”
The frown lines across his forehead deepen, his eyebrows lower. He looks genuinely perplexed, as if he expected to say, “Surprise! I’m back!” and receive my undying gratitude while we do some sightseeing and catch up on old times.
“How will you put things right?” I repeat.
“I thought we could spend some time together, you know. Get to know one another.” His voice is infuriatingly calm, placating, like he’s talking to a six-year-old who doesn’t understand what they’ve done wrong. My shoulders bunch up tighter with every word. “I’ve missed you, sweetheart.”
“Hell, no!” The words are out in the open before I can stop myself, and I hear the chair legs scraping the floor as I stand up. “You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to sit there and call me sweetheart, and you certainly don’t get to tell me that you’ve missed me.”
“Sienna, I…” He shakes his head; his bottom lip is still rolled out like a petulant child. “I know I fucked up.”
“You don’t say!” My chest is heaving. I know the people sitting at the other tables are probably gaping at us, but I’m past caring about what anyone else thinks. “You didn’t at any point over the last twenty years wonder how I was? Didn’t it occur to you to pick up the phone and call me? Or maybe apologize to Mom for what you did to her?”
He nods and sniffs loudly, twisting his nose from side to side. “I know I should’ve, Sienna. You can’t tell me anything I haven’t already figured out for myself. I was a selfish asshole. I’ll hold my hands up to that.” He shows me his palms to prove the point. “I wanted to see you. I don’t expect you to believe me, but I did. I just … didn’t think your mom would allow me back into your life.”
His voice is clogged with emotion, but something inside me, the tiny piece of my heart that was probably afraid to let go of my father, solidifies. I feel it resting deep inside me like a pebble on the riverbed.
“You still can’t do it, can you? You still can’t accept responsibility for your actions and say sorry.”
“I…” Brown eyes blink back at me. “Sit down, sweetheart. Please?”
I sit heavily in my seat. Not because it’s what he wants but because the adrenaline pumping through my veins is making me feel lightheaded, and I refuse to let him see how his presence is affecting me. I will not give him that.
I swallow a mouthful of water and instantly feel it trying to eject itself from my trembling body. “I’m listening.”
“Despite what you think of me, there hasn’t been a day go past that I haven’t thought about you.”
I suck in a deep breath and hold it in my lungs. I’m starting to see a pattern here: everything that comes out of his mouth is about him. Not me or Mom. Just him.
“I was a fucking idiot. I had everything I ever wanted, and I let it slip through my fingers. I was too self-absorbed to realize what I had until it was gone.”
That old cliché.
“I was young, Sienna. Too young to be a father, I know that now.”
“Is that your apology?”
His lips twitch into a half-smile. “I’m sorry. There, I’ve said it. I’m sorry. I regret what I did, but I’m not the same person I was then.”
“You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.” I watch him sip his whiskey, and wish I’d ordered alcohol too.
“I know.”
It’s still there, the condescending tone. I’m the grown-up, and you’re the child. I’m right, you’re wrong. I’m clever, you’re stupid. Like a scene from Matilda .
“You know Mom’s gone, right?” I ask.
His eyes grow large with fresh tears. He’s good. He knows how to switch it on for the desired effect, but it feels like this is all for show. There’s nothing underneath the surface.
“I heard.”
“Why didn’t you look for me then?”
“I thought it would all be too raw. I thought… I thought you’d blame me.”
“You’re right. I did blame you.”
He smiles. “At least you’re being honest.”
That makes one of us.
“But you said you did blame me. Past tense. I’ll take that as a win.”
I want to get up, walk out, and never look back, but I have one more burning question. “Why now? You didn’t try to find me when Mom died, so why are you back now?”
“I heard about your art gallery.” He strokes the side of his almost empty whiskey glass. “I’m proud of you, Sienna. But it made me realize that you are your own person now. I thought that if you at least heard me out, you’d make up your own mind about me, and then perhaps we could move forward.”
Predictable. I guessed it was the gallery that had drawn him out of the woodwork.
“You still haven’t said how you want to put things right.”
“It’ll take time, sweetheart, I know that. Just, please, give me a chance. That’s all I’m asking.”
I swallow. “Are we done here?” I can’t sit across the table from him and eat lunch. He’ll instinctively believe that he has won.
“Is that a yes?”
“I’ll think about it.”
He drains the rest of his drink in one mouthful and raises the glass to me in a toast. “That’s all I wanted to know, that you’ll give me a chance.”
Before I can reiterate that I only said I’d think about it, a man approaches the table. My father’s face smooths into an expression of pleasant greeting, and I turn around expecting to find the server waiting to take our order.
“Kyle?” I can’t hide the surprise from my voice.
No point asking him what he’s doing here; the Rinse belongs in the family.
“Everything okay here?” His gaze takes in the empty whiskey glass, my barely touched water, and the lack of food.
My heart is racing. Nick. My father. Kyle. I feel like they’re all closing in on me.
I grab my purse. “I was just?—”
“Everything’s great,” my father interjects. He extends his hand for Kyle to shake. “Hooch. I’m Sienna’s father.”
I don’t know if it’s sheer bravado or if he simply has no conscience because he introduces himself as if he and I have been meeting for lunch every week for the past twenty years.
Kyle’s eyelids flicker between me and my father, but his expression remains neutral. The professional demeanor automatically kicks in. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Kyle. Kyle Murray. My brother owns the Rinse.”
This information doesn’t register in my father’s eyes. “So, how do you know my daughter?”
I balk at his use of the word daughter. Has he still not learned that his name on my birth certificate doesn’t make him my dad? He relinquished that title long ago, long before he even walked out on me and my mom.
“Sienna’s best friend is my sister-in-law.”
Maybe Kyle has sensed the tension between us as the response is instantaneous and noncommittal. He’s giving nothing away.
“You’re almost family then.” The crocodile tears are gone, and the smile firmly fixed in place is all for Kyle. “It’s great to see my baby girl surrounded by people who’ll look out for her.”
My flesh crawls all over the baby-girl endearment. What the actual fuck!
It’s a step too far, and I stand up, grateful when Kyle steps aside for me to leave.
“I’ll call you, Sienna,” my father says as I walk away.
I want to yell at him not to bother, to stay the fuck away from me, but Kyle is right behind me, and I just need to hold it together until I’m outside.
“Sienna?” Kyle’s voice is gentle as he reaches for my hand in the lobby of the Rinse, and that’s when the tears start spilling.