Page 6 of A Vicious Love

Again.

He was on the phone, his back half turned to me, one hand tucked into his pocket. His guards formed a loose perimeter around him that made it impossible for anyone to approach without permission.

I had been standing there for ten minutes.

My car waited at the club entrance two streets over with my driver. I could have left already.

But every night, I made Jamison hug me goodbye.

I needed those few seconds where his arms went around me and I could pretend he was grumpy instead of cruel. Tired instead of uninterested. Scary to everyone else but secretly careful with me.

Some nights he tolerated it. Other nights he stood stiff as stone while I wrapped my arms around his waist and said goodbye into his jacket.

Once, years ago, he had patted the back of my head.

I’d thought about it for two weeks.

Tonight, he seemed determined to avoid me.

I watched him pace several steps away, phone pressed to his ear.

“Not tonight,” he said. “No. I said not tonight. Move the car and get the⁠—”

Someone cleared his throat beside me.

“Is that your brother or your boyfriend?”

I turned to find a man standing a few feet away, probably in his mid-twenties, wearing a navy suit with loosened confidence and too much curiosity. I vaguely recognised him from one of the lesser Harlan families. He was probably drunk enough to think talking to me was charming.

I smiled automatically. “Fiancé.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Damn. You look too young for that.”

Heat crept into my cheeks. “I’m not. I’m twenty.”

He laughed under his breath. “Like I said. Too young.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

Technically, I was too young for a lot of things. Too young to know how to read a room by where the guards stood. Too young to understand merger language better than love language. Too young to keep whiskey stocked at charity events for a man who had never once asked me what my favourite drink was.

But twenty wasn’t a child, and I’d been promised to Jamison long enough to stop feeling young about it.

“I’m fine,” I said.

The man looked past me toward Jamison before returning his attention to me. His expression changed, amusement fading into something softer. Pity. I hated that more.

“Does he always make you wait like that?”

I opened my mouth.

“Sienna.”

Jamison’s voice cut across the pavement.

I turned.

He had lowered the phone without ending the call, his expression irritated enough to make my stomach dip.