Kenzo rolls his eyes.
“What’s going on?” Millie asks in a stage whisper.
Sienna smiles. “Jaxon suspects that Kenzo read his book.”
“He did!” snaps Jaxon, leveling the pool cue like a gavel.
“Innocent until proven guilty,” declares Kenzo, lying back down.
“Speaking ofguilt,” growls Malcolm, and Sienna knows her husband well enough toseehim working himself up, a train threatening to go off the rails.
“Malcolm,” she says through gritted teeth, but it’s too late.
“You tell me,Sisi,” he presses on. “Did you always plan to knife me in the back?”
Jaxon and Cate stop playing. Everyone’s attention swivels toward Sienna.
“What’s this about?” asks Priscilla.
“Go on, Sisi,” sneers Malcolm. “Tell them.”
Sienna bristles in annoyance. She wanted to wait until she had her ending, something to show for herself. But Malcolm never lets her get what she wants. “You want to do this?Fine.” She looks around, raises her voice so everyone can hear it loud and clear. “We split up.”
Millie’s hand flies to her mouth.
Jaxon cocks his head. “Like, personally? Or professionally?”
“Both.”
“When?” asks Cate.
“Don’t make any rash decisions,” says Priscilla. “Pressure makes people say and do things—”
“Oh, no, we called it quits last month.” She looks around. “Malcolm made me come along because he worships Fletch, wanted one last hurrah, but Penn Stonely was over way before we got here.” She shakes her head. “I tried to make it work, I really did.” She’s talking about this book, sure, but also them. She holds Malcolm’s gaze. “But I can’t.”
He stares back, wounded. “You could have tried harder.”
You, notwe, notI, and that’s the problem, isn’t it? Suddenly, Sienna feels unbearably tired.
“You know when you’ve been working on a story for months, or years, and it’s just...notcoming together? No matter what you do, or how hard you try to force it? Maybe it’s the plot, and maybe it’s the characters, and maybe it’s all of it, or none of it, but at some point you know, even if it’s hard to accept, that you can’t save it. You have to start over.”
Malcolm’s cheeks are red, but before he tears his gaze away from hers, she sees the glassy shine.
“Does that mean you’re dropping out?” asks Cate.
“I’ll toast to that!” says Jaxon, raising his beer. No one joins him. “What? It’s one less person gunning for the prize.”
Sienna crosses her arms. “Actually, it’s not. BecauseI’mnot dropping out.”
“Neither am I,” says Malcolm.
Annoyance curdles into rage. “When’s the last time you wroteanythingwithout my help?”
Everyone else retreats, but Priscilla steps between them, a referee in pink.
“I think,” she says, “it’s been a long day, and everyone’s tired. Let’s get some food and sober up.” This last with a pointed look at Malcolm, who responds by swiping the bottle of Macallan from the bar and tucking it under his arm, scowling like a bratty child as he marches out.
* * *
