Page 203 of A Vicious Love

“Yes. A system I am now reviewing.”

Her mouth pressed together, fighting something that looked dangerously close to amusement.

I shifted her carefully, lifting her off my lap and onto the couch beside me. She clutched my jacket closed with both hands, and I stood before I could change my mind and put her back where I wanted her.

Another medal for me.

Possibly two.

I found a folded throw on the back of a chair. And wrapped it around her shoulders over my jacket.

She stayed sitting, I went upstairs to find a towel.I found the bathroom in the main bedroom floor was open.

The bedroom itself made my mood worse. Huge bed, unmade from her morning, white sheets, a pale blue robe dropped over the edge of a chair, a book open facedown on the nightstand.

I stood there for one second, absorbing the fact Sienna slept here alone. With unlocked doors, and windows that covered half a wall.

I was going to have a stroke.

The bathroom was modern luxury like the rest of the cottage. Cream stone. Walk-in shower behind smoked glass. A huge oval tub beneath a window that looked toward trees because apparently Bellemeres enjoyed bathing in sniper-friendly architecture.

I grabbed towels from a shelf, then paused when I saw things that made her a person outside ballrooms.

I had known Sienna for three years and had never seen where she slept.

That realization shamed me more effectively than any speech Reeves could have given.

When I returned, she was still on the couch. Her gaze moved to the towels.

I placed one over her wet hair and began drying it gently.

She watched my hands as if trying to reconcile them with every memory she had of me using them badly.

“I brought gifts,” I said.

Her eyes lifted. “The flowers?”

“And other things.”

“What?”

“Several. Other things.”

“Jamison.” Her suspicion deepened, slowly, her attention drifted to the patio, where flowers crowded the glass like the garden had advanced on the cottage. “Why are you buying me things?”

I lowered the towel.

She would hear Celeste’s name and somehow turn the whole thing into evidence that she hadn’t been enough. She would apologize for a contract her family mishandled and a cruelty I allowed. She would carry my failure because carrying blame had been trained into her so well.

I would not put that on her.

“I came to work on us,” I said.

“Us?”

“Yes.”

“There’s an us?”