33. Sienna #3
“I have the corrected documents ready. Your family had no right to issue that release. Your father’s office filed the amendment with Celeste’s name under pressure. I was undoing it. I had it handled before the retreat finished.”
“Before the retreat finished,” I said quietly. “So you had weeks.”
“I was waiting for the right time to tell you.”
“You touched me before telling me.”
I heard the moment he understood he had no good answer for that.
“I fucked up,” he said.
“Yes.”
“But this is fixable.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It is. Baby, listen to me. New paperwork is already done. It puts you back on the merger, restores your position, voids Celeste’s designation, and—”
“I’m not signing it.” The words left my mouth softly.
He went silent.
I stood slowly, because sitting on the floor made me feel too much like the girl he had left outside ballrooms. I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand and walked to the mirror.
“I’m not signing another document agreeing to marry you,” I said.
“Sienna.”
“I signed once.”
“That contract was interfered with.”
“I signed three years ago.” My voice shook, but I kept going.
“You had three years to marry me. Instead you humiliated me. You made sure the whole world knew you hated me. Every event, every car, every door, every time you said out loud that you needed whiskey to deal with me. Well, congratulations. You got an upgrade to the blonde.”
“Do not call yourself less than her.”
“You did.”
“No.”
“Yes. Every day for three years, Jamison.”
The line crackled with his breathing.
“I’m done,” I said.
His voice lowered. “No, you’re angry.”
“I am.”
“Good. Be angry in front of me.”
“I don’t want to be in front of you ever again.”
“That isn’t an option.”
The coldness in his voice, reminded me of who he was. Jamison Crow did not lose. But the gates were still locked, and he was still outside.
“You’ll sign,” he said.
I stared at my reflection. “I won’t.”
“You will. I’ll hold the pen for you if I have to.”
“That would mean we were in the same room.”
“Sienna.”
“And that won’t happen.”
“You think locked gates make you unreachable?”
“No. I think the law does.”
He went quiet again. I touched the token ring with my thumb. It looked absurd now. A dead promise.
“If I were truly yours,” I said, “if you had legal right, you would already be through the gates. You’d storm this house, drag me out, and everyone here would look away because Crows get their brides. But you can’t.”
His breathing changed.
“Celeste is your fiancée.”
“No.”
“She is.”
“She is a name placed where yours belongs.”
“And that name is enough to keep you outside.”
“Sienna, don’t.”
The warning in his voice wrapped around my name. It would have worked on the girl from the car. I had left her somewhere between the gates and the bathroom floor.
“When I end this call,” I said, “I’m blocking your number. Then I’m turning my phone off. The estate is receiving no visitors. I have no plans to talk to you.”
“You will talk to me.”
“No.”
“Baby.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Never.”
My hand trembled harder, but my voice steadied. “You are my cousin’s fiancé.”
“I am the man who was inside you last night.”
Pain split through me so cleanly I had to grip the sink.
“You don’t get to use that.”
“I’m using every truth I have.”
“You should have used the truth before.”
He said nothing. I breathed once, then again.
“You kept saying I was your wife. Your house. Your bed. Your ring. And all this time, every legal piece that mattered had her name on it.”
“I had the corrected merger ready.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should. It fixes this.”
“It fixes nothing. It asks me to sign myself back into a place you let them erase me from.”
“I didn’t let them.”
“You knew.”
His silence answered again.
I wiped my face, furious with the tears because they made everything harder to say. “I will not sign another contract. I will not agree to marry you again. Whatever plan you have, stop it.”
“No.”
“Jamison.”
“No. This ends with you as my wife.”
“You don’t decide that.”
“I do, actually.”
I smiled at my reflection with wet eyes. It looked horrible. “Then come decide it in person.”
A faint sound came through the line. A crack. His neck, maybe. I could picture it too easily: Jamison outside the gates, jaw hard, phone at his ear, Reeves watching every guard in the drive as if calculating how many men could be spared.
“Baby,” he said, very softly, “do not bait me. It is very bad for Harlan. You know Daddy has anger issues.”
“I don’t know you.”
“You do.”
“No. I don’t know the man who stood beside Celeste at Veyr House and then got into my bed.”
“I was never in your bed as anyone’s fiancé but yours.”
“Legally, you were hers.”
“I don’t give a fuck what the legal fiction said.”
“I do.”
“You care now?”
“Yes.” My voice cracked, then hardened around the crack.
“I’m single now. That’s what your documents mean, don’t they?
Released from the merger. No current arrangement.
No bride obligation. I could receive another offer tomorrow.
I could plead to another dynasty without even choosing a man myself, and no one could stop me. ”
“You won’t.”
“I will.”
“You fucking won’t, because you are mine.”
“Then I’ll make sure I do.” The tears came faster, but I spoke through them. “I’ll marry someone. I’ll give him heirs. Eventually I’ll love him.”
The last sentence destroyed something in the silence.
“Do not say that again.” his voice sounded less human.