Chapter 16 – Sienna
As soon as the door shuts behind Sebastian, I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. It leaves me shaky. Exposed. I curl onto my side, knees drawn in, heart hammering like it’s trying to break free of my ribs.
There’s an ache inside me. It’s sharp, confusing, and unwelcome.
Why do I feel like this?
Why does regret sit so heavy on my chest, pressing down until it’s hard to breathe?
And why—of all things—does it sting that he chose not to sleep beside me?
I turn away from the door, facing the window instead, and punch the pillow until it’s just right. The city lights glow faintly through the glass, distant and cold. Detached. Exactly how I should feel.
But I don’t.
The last hour crowds my mind, relentless. His hand on my arm. His voice tight with fury. The way his body went rigid when he talked about me dancing.
Jealousy.
The thought slips in before I can stop it.
I scoff quietly into the pillow. What right does Sebastian Rusnak have to feel jealous? None. Absolutely none. He forfeited that right five years ago.
And yet—
My stomach flips traitorously, heat curling low and slow at the memory of his eyes on me. Dark. Possessive. Like he wanted to lock me away from the world and keep me all to himself.
I hate that my body remembers what my heart swore to forget.
I squeeze my eyes shut. This isn’t softness. This isn’t longing. It’s an old reflex. Old wounds. Old habits that haven’t quite died yet.
He doesn’t get to confuse me.
He doesn’t get to make me feel seen and unwanted at the same time.
And still…the empty space beside me feels louder than it should.
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, jaw tight, forcing the ache down where it belongs. Tomorrow, I’ll be colder. Smarter. Sharper.
Maybe I should let myself feel sorry for myself for just one moment. Just one. Then tomorrow, I’ll bury it. I have to.
My thoughts betray me anyway, drifting—circling—until they land where I’ve been trying not to look.
The envelope.
Hidden beneath the bottom drawer of my wardrobe. Tucked away like a secret I pretend doesn’t breathe when I’m not watching it.
Viktor.
The memory of his voice makes my skin crawl. The weight of that envelope felt like a blade pressed to my throat—sharp, intimate, inescapable. And the worst part? I put it there myself. I leaned into it. I welcomed it.
I sought him out with a clear head. With purpose. With vitriol burning hot and clean in my veins. I was so sure of my hatred then. So certain Sebastian deserved whatever came for him.
So why does it feel like this now?
Why does my chest feel tight, like I’ve swallowed something too big to breathe around? Why does the thought of what I’m planning pull me toward a dark, yawning abyss instead of the relief I expected?
This was supposed to feel like justice.
Control.
Power.
Instead, it feels heavy. Like gravity. Like once I take the next step, there will be no turning back—and some small, traitorous part of me knows it.
I press my palm to my sternum, as if I can physically hold myself together.
No.
Sebastian hurt me. And it matters—it matters—that I hurt him too. That I make him feel even a fraction of what I felt. I want to dismantle him slowly, thoroughly. Ruin him harder than the first betrayal ever did.
I cling to that thought like a lifeline.
But my body betrays me.
I can still feel his hands on my skin, the memory vivid and unwanted. I hate how easily he disarms me. Hate that every time I sharpen my resolve, my mind drags me back to the way he kissed me—like a man starving, like I was the only thing keeping him alive.
Last night proved something I wish it hadn’t.
He still knows my body.
Still knows exactly where to touch, how to look at me, how to unravel me until I forget what I came armed with. He made me feel wanted. Desired. Like a woman, not a wound.
“Ugh.”
I shove my face into the pillow, muffling the sound, squeezing my eyes shut as if I can force the thoughts out along with the air in my lungs.
Sleep.
I just need sleep.
It comes, but it doesn’t stay.
When my eyes open again, the room is still dark. The clock on the nightstand glows 4:02 a.m. My body is restless, humming, awake in a way my mind hates. I know instantly there’s no going back to sleep.
I dreamed of Sebastian.
The kind of dream that leaves heat pooling low in my belly, the kind that makes me press my thighs together as consciousness returns. I curse softly under my breath and roll onto my side, staring at nothing.
Idiot.
Weak.
I push myself out of bed before I can spiral, grabbing my robe and tying the sash tighter around my waist. My throat feels dry. Water. I need water. Something cold. Something real.
The living room is dim and quiet when I step out, the city lights bleeding faintly through the windows. I take two steps forward and hear the elevator beep.
Soft. Controlled.
I freeze.
My gaze snaps to it, pulse ticking faster. The sound echoes in my head, dragging a memory with it. Yesterday morning. Sebastian. Standing right there. His fingers moving with practiced ease as he entered a code and floor number, something that looked private.
I don’t know where it leads.
But I know it’s not meant for me.
The thought should stop me. It doesn’t. Curiosity coils through me, sharp and insistent, drowning out the need for water, for sleep, for sense.
It won’t hurt to know.
I turn away from the kitchen and walk toward the elevator, bare feet silent against the floor. My reflection stares back at me from the mirrored doors—hair loose, eyes too bright, something dangerous waking behind them.
I key in the code.
Then the number.
For half a second, nothing happens.
Then the doors slide open.
My breath catches as I step inside.
Whatever Sebastian is hiding, I’m about to find it.
The elevator doors slide open into a studio.
The smell hits me first—oil paint, charcoal, turpentine.
Familiar. Intimate. The kind of scent that seeps into your clothes and refuses to leave.
Light pours in through tall windows, pale and quiet, catching dust motes that drift in the air like suspended memories.
Canvases line the walls—some blank, some half-finished, some turned inward like they’re ashamed of what they hold.
I blink, thrown.
This isn’t what I expected.
I thought the elevator would lead to something darker. Something useful. A vault of secrets I could turn into weapons. Instead, it’s…this. A studio. Open. Honest. Almost vulnerable.
If it were truly secret, he wouldn’t have entered the code in front of me.
Disappointment flickers. I turn, ready to leave, already annoyed with myself for letting curiosity win—
Then I see it.
A large easel at the far end of the room, taller than the rest, draped with a cloth like a body under a sheet. My steps slow without my permission. Curiosity sharpens into something tighter, more dangerous.
Sebastian is a talented artist. I know that much. I’ve always known.
I walk closer.
My fingers hesitate for half a second before I grab the cover and yank it away.
The air leaves my lungs.
My heart slams so hard it hurts.
It’s me.
Not a suggestion of me. Not a memory softened by time. Me. My face, my eyes, the exact curve of my mouth when I’m not smiling but not quite guarded either. Charcoal strokes carve me into the canvas with brutal precision—every shadow deliberate, every line intimate.
My throat tightens.
He didn’t draw me as a fantasy.
He drew me as truth.
As if he knows me.
As if he’s been carrying me here, in this room, all this time.
The thought hits harder than I expect.
I’ve only been back in Sebastian’s life for days. Days. There’s no way this was drawn recently. No way he could have captured this—me—from a handful of stolen glances and guarded conversations.
My gaze drifts over the charcoal lines again, slower now. The confidence of the strokes. The intimacy of them.
He drew this before I returned.
Before the marriage.
Before he knew fate would shove us back into each other’s orbit.
Which means he carried me when I wasn’t there.
The realization settles into my chest, heavy and unwelcome. My breath trembles, shallow and uneven. He didn’t paint me from reference or fantasy. He painted me from memory. From the version of me that lived in his head for five long years.
Five years of distance—and I never left him.
Heat crawls up my neck, pleasure tangling with something far more dangerous. Something soft. Something aching. My fingers curl at my sides as if I might reach out and touch the drawing, trace the line of my own cheek.
I hate that my eyes sting.
Hate that my heart is doing this.
No.
I straighten, forcing steel back into my spine. This doesn’t mean anything. It can’t mean anything. People cling to memories all the time. Regret has a way of masquerading as devotion.
He hurt me.
He walked away.
He shattered me—and no amount of charcoal and shadow rewrites that truth.
I step back from the easel, dragging my gaze away as if it’s a living thing with claws in my skin.
It means nothing, I tell myself again.
But the echo in the room doesn’t believe me.
“You weren’t supposed to see that.”
His voice comes from the doorway.
I turn sharply.
Sebastian stands there barefoot, shirt unbuttoned, hair still tousled from sleep.
He looks softer like this—unguarded in a way that makes my chest tighten—but his eyes give him away.
They flick to the easel, tense, as if he’s bracing for impact.
As if he expects me to tear the painting down and walk out with it in flames behind me.
I swallow. Hard.
“You painted me?” I ask, even though the answer is right there, staring back at us.
“I tried to forget you,” he says quietly. “This was the closest I got.”
My heart stumbles. Actually stumbles. I feel it in my throat, in my palms, in the way my breath turns uneven. I shove the reaction down ruthlessly.
“It doesn’t change anything,” I murmur.
“No,” he says. “But it should.”