1. Sienna #2
The piece had been measured to Emmie’s throat. It sat too precisely to twist or slip, and there was no visible clasp at the back. The lock was hidden beneath the largest emerald at the centre, exactly where Marcel’s thumb rested now.
It was her collar.
Elegant enough for charity dinners, and royal halls. Permanent enough that only her husband could remove it.
Emmie leaned into his touch without thinking, her blush deepening beneath Marcel’s attention.
My thumb stopped against Jamison’s hand.
“Back to Sienna’s performance,” Emmie said, turning to me. “Where was it streamed? I have to watch it.”
“It was only local programming. Not a big thing. Just the youth scholarship showcase and then the closing piece.”
“I’m still watching it.”
I smiled. “Thank you.”
Beside me, Jamison was still talking to Marcel.
I looked down at the tattooed hand resting between mine.
During the next break in conversation, I tried again.
“How was your day?”
His thumb tapped once against his glass. “Fine.”
I waited in case more came.
Nothing did.
“Oh. Good.” I ran my thumb along the side of his finger. “I had my last ballet performance last night. I think I told you about it. It was the one for the scholarship—”
Jamison lifted his free hand and caught a waiter by the sleeve as he passed.
“Whiskey. Double.”
The waiter froze.
This was a wine event. A carefully paired, donor-catered wine event where everyone had been given an embossed card explaining the vineyards, tasting notes and which wealthy family had sponsored each bottle. The waiter opened his mouth as though he might explain that.
Then he looked at me.
I gave him a tiny smile and nodded once.
“Of course, Mr. Crow.”
Jamison released him without noticing the exchange.
He didn’t know I’d made sure there would be whiskey here for him. I did it at every event. I spoke to the staff beforehand, checked the bar, made sure they stocked the brand he liked, the glass he preferred and the ice he didn’t complain about.
Jamison hated wine events.
So I made sure he had whiskey.
The waiter returned quickly with a double in a heavy glass. Jamison took it without looking up.
He drank his whiskey without looking at me, his attention already moving back to the conversation with Marcel. I traced the edge of his tattoo with my thumb while security rotations, contracts and merger clauses moved around the table.
A family I vaguely knew was discussed as though they were pieces of meat on a butcher’s table.
I ate a few bites of my entrée and kept Jamison’s hand tucked in my lap until his phone lit up. He pulled away to check the message, leaving my fingers curled around nothing.
I clasped my hands together instead.
These events terrified me more than I ever admitted.
Every ballroom reminded me how easily everyone else seemed to fit into this world.
They knew when to laugh, what to say and how long to hold someone’s gaze.
I had been trained in the same rules my entire life, yet somehow it always felt as though everyone else had received an extra page of instructions.
After a while, I tried again. “What are you doing this weekend?”
Jamison didn’t look away from his phone. “Normal shit.”
His sigh said the rest.
I nodded and turned toward Harrison when he asked if the performance had gone well.
“It did,” I said, finding my smile again. “One of the little girls forgot her steps and then remembered right at the end, and everyone clapped so hard for her.”
Harrison listened.
Emmie did too.
Marcel even asked what age group the scholarship covered, and I answered in far too much detail because when someone gave me their attention, I had a terrible habit of pouring every unused word into the space before they changed their mind.
Jamison drank whiskey and checked his phone. Every time his glass emptied, another appeared. Because I had made sure it would.
The dinner stretched on forever. Speeches blurred into applause, donations were announced in beautiful voices and Harlan families smiled at one another across tables covered in flowers.
I laughed when I was supposed to and clapped when everyone else did.
I asked Harrison’s date about her dress, told Emmie her earrings were gorgeous and thanked Marcel when he quietly shifted the dessert plate closer after noticing I couldn’t reach the sugared berries without leaning across the table.
By the time the night ended, my cheeks hurt from smiling.
Outside, the temperature had dropped. Drivers waited beside black vehicles while security teams moved through the crowd in quiet patterns. Women in diamonds kissed cheeks, and men made promises about lunches they would cancel tomorrow through their assistants.
I stood beside one of the stone pillars and waited for Jamison.
Again.
He was on the phone, his back half turned to me, one hand tucked into his pocket. His guards formed a loose perimeter around him that made it impossible for anyone to approach without permission.
I had been standing there for ten minutes.
My car waited at the club entrance two streets over with my driver. I could have left already.
But every night, I made Jamison hug me goodbye.
I needed those few seconds where his arms went around me and I could pretend he was grumpy instead of cruel. Tired instead of uninterested. Scary to everyone else but secretly careful with me.
Some nights he tolerated it. Other nights he stood stiff as stone while I wrapped my arms around his waist and said goodbye into his jacket.
Once, years ago, he had patted the back of my head.
I’d thought about it for two weeks.
Tonight, he seemed determined to avoid me.
I watched him pace several steps away, phone pressed to his ear.
“Not tonight,” he said. “No. I said not tonight. Move the car and get the—”
Someone cleared his throat beside me.
“Is that your brother or your boyfriend?”
I turned to find a man standing a few feet away, probably in his mid-twenties, wearing a navy suit with loosened confidence and too much curiosity. I vaguely recognised him from one of the lesser Harlan families. He was probably drunk enough to think talking to me was charming.
I smiled automatically. “Fiancé.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Damn. You look too young for that.”
Heat crept into my cheeks. “I’m not. I’m twenty.”
He laughed under his breath. “Like I said. Too young.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
Technically, I was too young for a lot of things. Too young to know how to read a room by where the guards stood. Too young to understand merger language better than love language. Too young to keep whiskey stocked at charity events for a man who had never once asked me what my favourite drink was.
But twenty wasn’t a child, and I’d been promised to Jamison long enough to stop feeling young about it.
“I’m fine,” I said.
The man looked past me toward Jamison before returning his attention to me. His expression changed, amusement fading into something softer. Pity. I hated that more.
“Does he always make you wait like that?”
I opened my mouth.
“Sienna.”
Jamison’s voice cut across the pavement.
I turned.
He had lowered the phone without ending the call, his expression irritated enough to make my stomach dip.
“I don’t have time for your shit tonight. Get in the car.”
The man beside me went still. So did two women near the curb.
My face burned so quickly I felt dizzy. “I wasn’t—”
Jamison looked past me at the man.
“Walk away.”
The man did.
Jamison was already turning from me, the phone returning to his ear.
My driver’s car pulled up to the curb, and one of Jamison’s men stepped forward to open the back door. I walked toward it carefully because if I moved too fast, everyone would know I was upset.
I climbed inside.
Jamison stepped toward the open door, still on the phone.
My heart lifted anyway.
Maybe he’d remembered.
Maybe I could ask for my hug quickly.
“Jamjam,” I said softly. “Can I—”
He slammed the door in my face. The sound was loud enough to make me flinch. Through the tinted window, I watched him turn away, already speaking into his phone again as his guards closed around him.
The car pulled away from the curb. I sank back into the seat and stared out the window as the Conservatory disappeared behind us.
Just another night of being the fiancée of Jamison Crow.