19. Jamison #5
I was going to start rewarding entire neighborhoods for amusing her.
I glanced toward Reeves, who had arrived in a second car and was already speaking to one of the fire marshals. Good. Someone needed to find me a responsible adult to blame.
“Who is in charge here?” I asked.
Sienna’s eyes widened slightly. “Jamison.”
“What?”
“You don’t need to scare anyone.”
“I disagree.”
“It was an alarm, probably just a drill.”
“It was not a drill.”
She tilted her head. “How do you know?”
Because I had caused it. A minor detail. Which was completely irrelevant.
“I know things.”
Her expression changed. Suspicion again, softer this time but there.
Damn.
She was getting smarter around me. I liked that when it involved other men and hated it when it involved me. Reeves approached before she could ask anything more inconvenient.
“Sir,” he said.
I did not look away from Sienna. “Report.”
Reeves was professional enough not to sigh. “Electrical fault in the connected building. Contained. Re-entry approved in stages. Studio staff are being told they can return in ten minutes.”
Sienna glanced at him, then back at me.
“Electrical fault,” she repeated.
“Yes,” I said, as if I had not been informed of that before weaponizing it.
Her eyes stayed on mine for one second too long.
Then she looked away.
Fuck.
I preferred when she believed my lies because they were better structured. The truth was becoming very inconvenient.
A sharper gust of wind came down the street. Sienna shivered again, even inside the coat. My control snapped in the smallest possible way.
I reached for her.
One hand went to her upper arm, the other to the opposite side of the coat, pulling it closed around her like my body had decided she was still cold and therefore the world was failing.
She went still beneath my hands.
“Relax,” I said, then immediately wanted to punch myself in the mouth.
Brilliant.
Tell the frightened woman to relax. A revolutionary strategy. I forced my hands to loosen.
“You’re shivering,” I said, lower.
“I’m just cold.”
I drew her a fraction closer, because apparently I had decided to set my self-control on fire in public.
She did not step away. My chest did that flutter thing again. Reeves had told me wasn’t a medical emergency. It was still inconvenient.
Very carefully, I adjusted the coat collar higher around her neck and held it there with both hands so the wind couldn’t get in.
The gesture felt intimate in a way that had no right to affect me. I had tied women up and felt less.
Of course, those women had not been Sienna Bellemere standing wearing a coat I had bought like a lunatic because my fiancée shivered on a camera feed.
“Better?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Good.”
Stopped before I added girl.
There.
Another achievement.
Someone should write this down.
Reeves stood a small distance away, looking at the building.
“Where do you practice?” I asked.
Sienna blinked. “What?”
“The studio. Which room?”
“Usually Studio Two. Sometimes Three.”
I looked toward the entrance.
The building was older than I liked. Brick facade. Pretty windows. Terrible security angles. Too much glass near the front. The door had an electronic lock, but the frame looked like it could be kicked in by an enthusiastic teenager.
Unacceptable.
“Show me.”
Her eyes widened a little. “Now?”
“Yes.”
“They haven’t cleared everyone to go back in yet.”
I looked at Reeves.
Reeves immediately turned to the marshal.
“Jamison.” Sienna said softly.
“What?”
“You can’t just—”
The marshal looked over, saw me, and seemed to age three years in one second. Reeves spoke quietly to him.
The marshal nodded.
I shrugged. “Cleared.”
“That was not a normal clearance.”
She looked at me for a moment. Then, to my great personal satisfaction, she shook her head slightly like she was trying not to smile.
Excellent.
The evacuation was now a success.
We went inside.
I kept one hand at her back, for safety. A fiancé making sure his recently cold fiancée did not slip.
The front hall had posters along the walls. Performance notices. Donor names. I noticed Marcel and Emmeline Crow listed too many times. Along with Harrison. I paused when I saw Alistair. That wall suddenly needed demolition.
The schedule board had Sienna’s name in several places.
Sienna Bellemere — lead variation rehearsal.
I looked at the board too long.
“That’s for the winter piece,” She expected me not to care and had already forgiven me for it before I failed.
“Tell me.” I turned my head toward her.
Her expression went blank with surprise.
“What?”
“The winter piece. Tell me.”
Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bag. “Now? In the hallway?”
“Is the hallway sacred?”
“No, but…” She looked uncertain. “You hate ballet talk.”
I deserved that.
“I don’t hate ballet talk.”
She gave me a look so small and sad it almost qualified as a medical injury.
“Fine,” I said. “I have behaved as though I hate ballet talk.”
One eyebrow moved. That was dangerously close to attitude. Baby. Don’t tempt me.
I wanted to kiss her.
Instead, I stood there like a civilised man, which was deeply unnatural, and waited.
She looked at the schedule board. “It’s the Harlan Winter Ballet Society gala piece. There’s a guest choreographer from St. Cross. The role is… not really a story role. More emotional. It’s about restraint and fracture.”
Of course it was. The universe had a sense of humor and deserved consequences.
“Fracture,” I repeated.
She nodded. “The turn sequence starts controlled, almost too perfect, then gets harder. The pause on pointe before the fall is the important part.”
“Why?”
She glanced at me, as if checking whether I truly wanted the answer.
“The audience has to feel the break before the music does,” she said. “Madame Aveline says if I hold it long enough, it should look like I’m choosing not to collapse until I can’t choose anymore.”
The words went through me sharp. Sienna looked away quickly, maybe hearing what she had said only after she said it. Choosing not to collapse until she couldn’t choose anymore.
People began to flow back into the halls. Deeply fucking unwanted. I was a saint and did not threaten anyone’s bloodlines. Instead, I asked Sienna to show me where she practiced.
Looking at daddy learning restraint.