11. Jamison #2
I didn’t give a fuck. I said it again after they left. Out loud. The room did not believe me.
Neither did I.
The conversation haunted me for a week. I did not break into the Bellemere estate and drag her out like the worst parts of me wanted to do at three in the morning when sleep wouldn’t come and my mind kept offering me the same image.
Sienna with Weston.
Sienna in Harrington.
Sienna wearing another Crow’s ring.
Sienna’s saying someone else’s name because mine had become something she survived.
The thought made me vicious.
I tore through work. I took two clubs, that had shit profit and worse foot traffic. My fists took one judge’s dignity. I spoke to no one unless required. I answered Marcel in one-word texts. I ignored Harrison completely after he sent, how’s not giving a fuck going?
I considered having his cars towed into the river.
The week stretched.
No formal announcement came from Damius, and Bellemere replacement contract never appeared on my desk.
Waiting made it worse.
By the time the next event arrived, I had convinced myself of several things.
One, Sienna was not mine.
Two, I did not care.
Three, if Damius ended the merger, good.
Four, if Sienna married Weston, I would not care, but Weston would have a tragic accident involving stairs, water, or his own spine.
Five, none of that contradicted point two.
The event was a private dinner for Harlan preservation donors at the Ashmere Hall.
Small by society standards.
Forty people.
One long table under painted ceilings. Candles. Old portraits. Gold-rimmed plates. Men who wanted Crow money. Women who wanted Crow proximity. Harlan pretending history could be restored while everyone in the room contributed to ruining the present.
Sienna arrived before me.
That annoyed me.
Everything annoyed me. But seeing her already seated when I entered did something worse.
She sat beside Emmie, hands folded in her lap, listening to something Marcel said.
Until her eyes met mine.
“Jamison.”
My name again. Every time she said it, I wanted to break something expensive enough to matter.
“Sienna.”
She looked down first.
I took the seat beside her because the arrangement demanded it. I didn’t care.
I told myself that when my knee almost brushed hers under the table and she shifted half an inch away.
I didn’t care.
She might not be mine in a few weeks.
So fucking what.
She might wear another ring, walk beside another Crow, ask some cousin for his hand if he treated her well enough to make asking feel safe again.
So fucking what.
My hand curled on the table.
Dinner began.
Conversation moved around us in polished waves. Marcel spoke with an older donor about estate restoration. Emmie included Sienna gently, as always. Harrison, seated across from me, watched everything with a level of interest that made me want to stab him with a dessert fork.
Sienna answered when spoken to.
Small answers. No comments about the flowers, or observation about the ceiling with the carved angels
I knew she noticed those things. That was what pissed me off. She still saw them. She just no longer gave them to me.
My hand rested beside my plate.
Her lap was inches away beneath the table. For three years, that had been where my hand went.
Not because I liked it.
No.
Habit.
She would ask. I would give it. She would set it in her lap and trace the tattoos over my fingers.
It had been distracting, and embarrassing.
I missed it. No. No. I didn’t miss it. I noticed the absence.
That was different.
The first course was served. Sienna picked up her spoon and ate because Emmie was watching her.
The merger might end. Fine. Let it. Sienna would be free of me. I would be free of her. About fucking time. The Bellemere debt would move elsewhere, and I could go back to business without thinking about her.
So fucking what.
My hand moved before the thought finished. Under the table, I rested it on her lap. I had done a hundred times after she asked.
Except she had not asked.
Sienna went completely still. Her spoon paused halfway to the bowl. The table kept talking.
No one saw at first.
Three years of habit.
Nothing more, not because I liked her. Or that my chest had been tight for a week imagining Damius writing her name next to someone else’s.
Habit.
She was afraid. I felt it in the way she did not move. I should have removed my hand. I knew that. I was not completely without sense.
Instead, my thumb shifted once.
My throat tightened. I kept my face empty.
Because I was Jamison Crow. I didn’t care.
She might not be mine in a few weeks.
So fucking what.
Sienna’s fingers moved then. For one suspended second, I thought she might place them over mine.
My pulse hit once, hard.
She folded both hands tightly in her own lap, beside my hand but not touching it.
A refusal so quiet no one else in the room would understand.
I understood.
Something inside me tightened.
My fingers flexed once against her dress.
Sienna did not move. Her eyes stayed on her plate.
I leaned back slightly and removed my hand. The cold hit my palm immediately.
Ridiculous.
It had only been there a minute. Still, the absence felt physical. Harrison watched me like he could hear every lie in my head.
I picked up my glass and drank.
Marcel started a conversation about the preservation trust. Emmie gently redirected the table. Harrison kicked my shin beneath it hard enough that I looked at him.
He smiled.
The dinner went on.
Sienna Bellemere could belong to someone else and my empire would keep growing, and all of this would become one more irritating chapter in a family debt I had never asked to inherit.
I did not care.