Page 294 of A Vicious Love

“You can teach me without making me cruel.”

I lifted the cigarette to my mouth to buy time, then remembered she was naked beneath bubbles and watching me as if she wanted the parts of me no one had asked for properly.

“What do you do?” I asked, partly because I wanted the focus off me and partly because I wanted the answer.

“When I’m alone?”

“Yes.”

She thought about it. “I dance, even when I’m meant to rest. I read old gallery catalogues. I watch films I’ve seen too many times. I collect stationary, never use most of them. I make playlists for moods I’m too embarrassed to admit I have.”

She looked pleased by the admission and tried to hide it. Failed. I was learning all her failures and becoming fond of every one.

She tilted her head. “Where do you live in Harlan?”

“I have a lot of places.”

“I’m asking where you go when the work stops. Where is home?”

Home.

A dangerous word from a woman in bathwater with her face tipped toward mine and my ring still absent from her finger.

“Old side of Harlan,” I said. “Estate near the ridge. Large grounds. High walls. Close enough to the city, far enough from people.”

“Do you live there alone?”

“Yes.”

She went quiet.

The bathwater shifted around her shoulders as she drew one knee slightly closer to her chest beneath the bubbles. The bubbles thinned, sliding over her and I had to force my eyes to stay on her face.

Her fingers traced a small circle along the marble edge.

“Are you seeing anyone?”

My body stilled with the glass halfway to my mouth.

Sienna saw the reaction and lowered her gaze immediately, as if she had stepped on a wire and expected the room to explode. “I mean now,” she added quickly. “Not before. Not… years ago. I don’t have any right to ask about that.”

“You have every right to ask.”

Her eyes lifted, cautious.

I set the whiskey down beside the ashtray. “No, baby. I’m seeing no one.”

“I always assumed you were.”

My jaw flexed. “Why?”

“Because you were always at the clubs.” She looked down again, and her hair slipped loose from the knot, a dark strand clinging to her cheek. “People talked. I heard things,about private floors. The women. The rooms no one spoke about properly. And you were never… with me. Not really. So it made sense.”

“No, it didn’t.”

“It did to me.” She smiled faintly, too understanding, which made it worse. “I thought maybe you had someone at the estate. Or in one of the apartments. Maybe someone who knew not to ask too many questions. Someone who suited you.”

“Sienna.”