Page 237 of A Vicious Love

His brows lifted slightly. “To you?”

“Yes.”

“Was that offensive?”

“It was intentional.”

He did not answer. Bellemere daughters moved like chess pieces and called it family strategy.

“Keep her away from me,” I said.

“Celeste is attending the retreat.”

“I didn’t say remove her from the estate. I said keep her away from me.”

“And Sienna?”

My jaw tightened.

“Sienna stays in the cottage assigned to her.”

“With you.”

“Yes.”

“That arrangement was made before the formal adjustment.”

“It stands.”

He looked at me for a long moment.

A father, maybe, would have asked if his daughter felt safe there.

The sick feeling in my chest at the thought of someone else’s name replacing mine beside hers.

“You have been cruel to her,” Her father studied me.

The nerve of him.

The fucking nerve.

“Yes. I have,” I continued. “And you still put her beside me. For three years. Because a debt mattered more than whether your daughter came home quiet after events.”

His jaw tightened.

“Do not pretend concern now that you have another girl ready to profit from Sienna’s removal.”

His eyes flashed. “Celeste is not being offered for profit.”

“No? Then for love?” I smiled coldly. “That’s what I thought.”

A gunshot cracked somewhere deeper in the forest.

Both of us looked toward it. One of the hunting groups had found their pointless little moment of triumph. Something died because men needed to feel alive.

I looked back at her father.

“I hate this sport.”