21. Sienna
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SIENNA
Iloved the Bellemere summer retreat. The first morning, everyone gathered on the eastern terrace for breakfast.
My father sat at the head of the long table beneath a cream umbrella, reading messages on a private tablet that somehow had service even though the rest of us had been told the ridge had no reception.
My cousins were already bickering.
“I would rather be legally dead than merged into a dynasty marriage before twenty-five.” Aurelia said, dropping a piece of toast onto her plate.
My aunt Celestine, who was Aurelia’s mother and one of the richest women in the Bellemere line, did not look up from spreading jam on her croissant.
Aurelia’s sister, Cosima, rolled her eyes.
“Oh, here we go.”
Aurelia turned on her. “What?”
“You read one political essay on the drive and now you want to dismantle bloodline structure before breakfast.”
“It wasn’t one essay.”
“No, sorry. You listened to a podcast too. That changes everything.”
A few of my uncles laughed.
Aurelia flushed. She was twenty, clever in a way that made adults uncomfortable because she asked questions before they had finished explaining why questions were unnecessary.
“I’m not trying to dismantle bloodlines before breakfast,” Aurelia said. “I’m saying daughters should not be treated like corridor agreements with uteruses.”
Uncle Marc laughed into his coffee. “Christ, Aurelia.”
“That language is unnecessary.” My mother’s mouth tightened.
“It’s true,” Aurelia said.
Cosima leaned back in her chair. “It’s dramatic.”
“It’s true.”
“It’s one version of true.” Cosima picked up her juice.
“Here’s another. I’m going to marry once, someone rich with a old-name.
And tolerable enough if Father negotiates well.
I’ll have the expected children. Bloodline heirs, clean genetics, whatever everyone needs to stop panicking.
In return, I get the best life this world can give me. ”
Aurelia stared at her. “That doesn’t bother you?”
“No.”
“How does that not bother you?”
“Because I’m not stupid.” Cosima shrugged, as if the whole thing were simple. “Dynasty wives have homes, money, staff, medicine, protection, access, influence, and enough private luxury to make freedom look like an underfunded hobby.”
Aurelia looked horrified.
“After I produce heirs, I’ll have access to the best biotech the dynasty has to offer.” Cosima took a sip of her tea. Enjoying her sister’s shocked expression. “The kind of private medicine regular women don’t even know exists unless a rich man accidentally tells his mistress.”
Aunt Celestine finally looked up. “Cosima.”
“What?” Cosima smiled. “Am I wrong?”
Daughters born to dynasties were given a choice.
That was what everyone said.
A choice.
You could be part of the bloodline or you could be cut off.
It sounded clean when spoken by lawyers. Almost generous. No one technically forced a dynasty daughter to merge. No one dragged her to an altar by her hair and called it mercy.
They simply placed the whole world on one side of the table and exile on the other.
Most daughters agreed.
Though, a lot of us agreed so early we forgot there had been a question.
Because the truth was more complicated than Aurelia wanted it to be and uglier than Cosima cared to admit. For many women, dynasty marriage was not terrible.
Some married once and built a good life inside it. Some had agreed divorce dates written into private terms before the first engagement dinner. Three children, ten years, clean public separation, two properties, trust access, continuing medical cover. Everyone smiled, got what they needed.
No one called it romantic unless the press required it.
Some women loved their husbands.
Some tolerated them.
Some treated marriage like a luxury prison and decided there were worse cages in the world.
And some of us—
I looked down at my tea.
Some of us were promised to Jamison Crow.
“You’re proving my point,” Aurelia said to Cosima. “You’re making it sound like a transaction.”
“It is a transaction.” Cosima’s voice sharpened for the first time. “You think rebellion makes you free because you haven’t priced freedom yet.”
Aurelia’s face flushed deeper. “I want a life that belongs to me.”
Uncle Remy groaned. “Every daughter says that at least once.”
“No, they don’t,” Aurelia snapped. “Most daughters get trained out of saying it before sixteen.”
Julian set down his knife. “Careful.”
Aurelia turned to him. “Of what? Saying out loud what everyone knows?”
“Of confusing volume with argument.” Julian’s expression remained cool.
Adrian’s mouth twitched beside me. I pressed my lips together to hide a smile.
Aurelia noticed anyway. “You think this is funny?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I just—Julian always sounds like he’s chairing a trial.”
“He should,” Liora said dryly from farther down the table. “He’s been practicing on us since childhood.”
That got a small laugh.
Julian gave our sister a look. “I prefer not having every family breakfast turn into a revolution.”
“Revolutions often start over bread,” Adrian said.
Our father looked up from his tablet. “Not in this family.”
A few people laughed again, but the air held tension under it.
My aunt Celestine took a slow sip of coffee. She was beautiful and emeralds in her ears that could probably fund a small island’s education system.
Her branch of the family owned private clinics, and a biotech stake no one mentioned unless they wanted something.
“So,” Aunt Celestine said, “what would you want so badly?”
Aurelia blinked. “What?”
Celestine set her cup down. “If mergers are so awful. Every daughter before you has been cowardly, or too stupid to see the cage, what is it you want instead?”
Aurelia’s throat moved. Cosima stopped smiling.
The table quieted.
Celestine leaned back, diamonds catching in the lake light. “Tell us.”
Aurelia looked suddenly younger. She had been fearless while attacking the system, but wanting something aloud was different.
“I want to study law,” she said.
My uncle Gerard, Aurelia’s father, lowered his newspaper.
“Then you can.”
Aurelia turned toward him.
He folded the paper neatly. “I’m serious. You can study law.”
She stared. “Just like that?”
“Yes.”
“But the merger—”
“All opportunities are open to daughters of dynasties,” Gerard’s voice stayed calm.
“That is the point. Education, art, medicine, law, governance, business, philanthropy, foundations. You want law? Study law. Be excellent at it. Make yourself impossible to ignore in a negotiation room. No one here has said you must be decorative.”
Cosima lifted her glass slightly. “Some of us enjoy being decorative.”
Aurelia shot her a look.
“But you will still merge, and carry your bloodline obligations.” Gerard added.
There were conversations in our world where any opinion turned into a confession. If I defended the system, I sounded like Cosima. If I hated it, I sounded like Aurelia. If I admitted I was frightened, then someone might ask of what.
Or whom.
Liora leaned forward, her bracelets chiming. “I think both things can be true. The system gives women extraordinary access. It also prices that access through our bodies.”
Mother’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Amabel nodded. “And not every merger is equal.“
“I love my husband.” Sabine touched her stomach and said quietly.
No one spoke over her.
Sabine had married two years ago. Her husband was gentle and almost painfully devoted to her.
He sent her flowers on random Tuesdays and walked slower whenever she was tired. Their merger had been profitable, yes, but it had also become something soft.
“I know I’m lucky,” she added. “I gained a house that listens when I speak.”
Cosima smiled at her. “Exactly. That’s what I mean. Use the system instead of pretending it vanishes if we insult it loudly enough.”
Aurelia looked miserable. “I don’t want to be used by it.”
“Then become useful in a way that gives you leverage,” Celestine said. “Study law.”
Aurelia looked at her mother.
“Really?”
Celestine’s face softened by one degree. “Really. I’ll fund it myself if your father annoys me.”
Gerard scoffed. “I just said she could study.”
“Yes, but you said it with that fatherly tone men use when they expect applause for opening a door they installed the lock on.”
The tension eased a little after that.
That was another Bellemere tradition.
We rarely resolved things.
Breakfast continued.
Conversations started about the afternoon boating list. Complains about the archery field being moved closer to the old orchard. My father returned to his tablet. My mother began discussing dinner seating with Liora.
Aunt Solene looked at me from across the table.
“Sienna, is Jamison attending this year?”
I felt every head turn.
He had been invited to the Bellemere retreat every year since our engagement became public. Every year, his office declined. Once, he had apparently written absolutely fucking not across the schedule and sent it back.
Everyone knew that story.
I placed my cup down carefully.
“No.”
Aunt Solene tilted her head. “Has he said that directly?”
My fingers curled lightly around the napkin in my lap. “There’s no reception here.”
“That wasn’t my question, darling.”
A little heat rose to my cheeks.
Mother stopped discussing seating. I wished she hadn’t.
“No,” I said. “He hasn’t said anything directly.”
“So Jamison didn’t tell you anything before you left?”
The table became horribly still.
“No,” I said again.
Aunt Solene sighed softly.
“Shame.”
My brothers shared a look. Something unspoken, passed between them. My stomach twist at the same time.
“What?” I asked.
Adrian looked at me too quickly. “Nothing.”
I looked between them. “Did something happen?”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.” Mother spoke before either of them could.
Aunt Solene took another sip of coffee, watching me over the rim like she had meant to stir the whole table and was pleased with the result.
Sabine reached for my hand under the table. Her fingers squeezed mine once.