“When are you due?” I ask again, softer now.
Her eyes hold mine for a moment, and this time when she answers there is less defense in it. “Soon.”
That is not a date, but it is more than refusal.
I accept it. For now.
Another kick presses into my palm, smaller this time, almost a roll, and I smooth my hand over the spot again on instinct. Sienna lets out a breath, and for a second her face loses all its strain. She looks tired. Beautiful. Vulnerable in a way I know she hates being.
I would destroy anyone who used that against her.
The thought comes so quickly and so naturally that I don’t even bother being alarmed by it anymore.
She glances down at my hand, then back at me, and says quietly, “You really shouldn’t do this if you don’t mean it.”
“I mean all of it.”
The air between us changes a little after that.
I’m just getting to my feet when a shout cuts across the lawn.
I turn.
Camille is coming toward us from the chapel side, skirts gathered in one hand, veil forgotten behind her, face stripped of every last trace of bridal poise. There is nothing polished about her now. Nothing careful. She looks wild.
And she isn’t looking at me. She’s looking at Sienna.
That hits me a second before the words do.
“I’m going to kill you, bitch.”
The lawn seems to stop around us.
Voices drop away. A chair scrapes somewhere in the distance. One of the bridesmaids gasps. I feel Sienna go still beside me, and then all of my attention narrows to Camille crossing the grass with murder written plainly across her face.
I step in front of Sienna without thinking.
“Camille.”
She doesn’t slow. Her eyes stay locked on Sienna, burning with a hatred too naked to mistake for anything else. Not wedding nerves. Not jealousy dressed up as outrage. This is something worse. Something that has finally slipped its leash in public.
Behind me, I hear Sienna draw a quick breath.
Camille gets close enough now that I can see she’s shaking.
Not with fear. With rage.
“She did this,” Camille says, voice breaking under the force of it. “She’s been doing this from the beginning.”
I don’t take my eyes off her. “Stop where you are.”
For the first time, she looks at me.
Only for a second. Then her gaze slides past my shoulder to Sienna, and I understand immediately that whatever is happening in Camille’s head right now has gone beyond reason.
“I said stop.”
That reaches her a little. Not enough to calm her. Enough to make her hesitate.
