16. Sienna #3
Both men looked at me. I hated being the place their tempers met. For no reason. Why was Jamison upset after pushing me to spend time with his cousin.
“It’s okay,” I said, though it wasn’t. “I’ll speak to him.”
Weston studied my face for a moment. Then he nodded once.
We moved to the side of the terrace, near a line of potted citrus trees and white curtains moving in the harbour breeze. It was not private enough for scandal, but private enough for words.
Jamison stopped near the rail. He still held a whiskey glass, though it looked forgotten in his tattooed hand.
His mouth hardened.
I folded my hands around my purse and looked up at him.
“Yes?”
Jamison stared at me as if I had slapped him with it. For a few seconds, he said nothing.
The silence stretched until I had to look away. Jamison dragged a hand through his hair. He looked furious with himself.
That was new.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he said.
I looked back at him.
“What?”
“At the table.” His jaw moved. “What I said.”
I waited.
He seemed to be fighting every word before it left his mouth, as if saying something kind required him to drag it over broken glass first.
“You asked a question,” he said. “I was rude.”
Rude was such a small word for how small he had made me feel.
“It’s fine.”
His eyes sharpened. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Say it’s fine when it isn’t.”
I looked at him for a long moment. He had no right to sound irritated by the very habit he had helped create.
“It is fine,” I said, gentler than I felt. “I understand now.”
“Understand what?”
My fingers tightened around my purse. I should have stopped. I knew I should have. But the hurt had been sitting in my chest since he said it. I was drunk. Don’t make it into something it wasn’t. The words had been turning over inside me cutting little new places each time.
“I understand the kiss was a mistake,” I said.
“What?”
My throat tightened, but I made myself keep going because if I did not say it now, I would carry it home and let it become another thing I blamed myself for wanting.
“You were drunk.” I forced a tiny smile because my face did that when I was trying not to cry. “You said so. I shouldn’t have made it bigger than it was.”
His eyes darkened. “Sienna.”
“It’s okay. Really. I know you probably kiss women all the time.”
His face changed.
I had never seen that expression on Jamison before. Shock, maybe. Then something worse because it looked almost like hurt, and I did not know what to do with Jamison Crow hurt by something I said.
“I don’t,” he said.
I looked down.
“You don’t have to explain.”
“Yes, I fucking do.”
The sharpness made my shoulders tighten.
“I mean—” He stopped, breathing hard through his nose. “Fuck. I’m trying to say this right.”
That made me look up.
Jamison looked almost lost.
But unsteady in a way I had never seen from him. His hands flexed at his sides like they wanted to reach for me and knew better.
“I shouldn’t have said it like that,” he said. “About being drunk.”
“But you were.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“It does. It means you forgot it was me.” I finished before I could lose courage. “You forgot it was your fiancée you were kissing. I didn’t.”
Jamison looked past me toward Weston, who waited near the cars with his brothers and their wives.
“You’re not leaving with him.”
The tiny, fragile hope inside me disappeared. Not I’m sorry or it mattered.
Only an order.
I smiled because sometimes smiling was the last wall left standing.
“I am.”
His eyes narrowed. “Sienna.”
“No.” The word surprised both of us. It came softly, but it came. “You wanted me to sit where my place card told me to sit. I did. You wanted me not to make it a crisis. I tried.”
His face tightened.
I swallowed around the ache in my throat.
“Now I want to go swimming.”
The space between us felt full of things he had not said and things I had finally stopped asking for.
Jamison stepped slightly closer.
“Sienna,” he said again, but this time my name sounded rougher. Almost broken. “Don’t go with Weston because I was an asshole.”
“I’m not going because of Weston. I’m going because they invited me.”
I wondered if he understood the difference.
I stepped back, turned before he could answer.
Weston saw me coming and opened the car door himself. Before I got in, I looked once toward Emmie.
“We’re going midnight swimming,” I told her, as if she had not just watched the whole terrible thing happen.
Her smile trembled. “That sounds fun.”
“I might only swim.”
“That still sounds fun.”
I stepped closer and hugged her. Emmie held me too tightly.
“You deserve a beautiful night,” she whispered.
When I pulled back, Amara came to stand beside me.
“We’ll look after her,” she told Emmie gently.
Lucille nodded from near the car. “Promise.”
Emmie looked at both women with an expression I did not understand.
“I know you will,” she said. “Have a good time, Sienna.”
I smiled, though it hurt.
“I will.”
I hoped I would. Weston offered his hand. I hesitated for only a second before taking it. His fingers closed around mine gently as he helped me into the car.