Page 235 of A Vicious Love

“You offered Celeste because you thought I didn’t care which Bellemere girl settled the debt.”

He swallowed.

“Didn’t you?”

His silence answered.

I felt the sickness again. That strange, ugly twist under my ribs I still could not understand.

The thought of Sienna being removed without knowing. Of Celeste stepping into her place. Her father discussing her future while she lay in that cottage bed in soft pajamas, completely unaware that everyone around her had already decided her pain could be scheduled for convenience.

It made me feel sick.

Not weak.

Sick.

Like something inside me had rejected the shape of my own life.

I hated it.

I hated him for causing it.

I hated myself more because if I had married her when I should have, there would have been no opening for any of this.

“I spent three years with Sienna attached to my name,” I said.

His eyes flicked up.

“You think I don’t know that?”

“No. I think you know exactly that. That’s what makes it insulting.”

His mouth tightened.

“To me,” I continued, “because you thought I wouldn’t notice being handed a replacement. To her, because you thought three years of her public life could be erased with an updated bloodline review and a prettier clause.”

“She is not erased.”

“No? Then what is she?”

“She is freed from a merger you did not complete.”

That hit.

Clean.

He saw it too. For one foolish second, confidence returned to his face.

I stepped in close enough that he lost it.

“I decide what I complete.”

“You had three years.”

“Yes.”

“Three years, Jamison.”