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21
The gyro made her want to throw up.
Sienna wanted to throw up all her hate and anger on Tamryn, as if she was to blame.
But if her fears were correct, her mother was to blame.
Beside her, Carter asked softly, “Are you okay?”
She jumped up then. She couldn’t sit there, couldn’t look at the food or the drinks or Tamryn or Carter’s friends. Not even at Carter himself. As she marched down the beach, she thought she heard Tamryn laughing.
Carter caught up, his hand on her arm. “Sienna.” Her name was his only plea.
Her voice was hushed. “My father never liked me. He always preferred my brother.”
He murmured agreement. “It hurt you that he never let you go on any trips, always making them just for father and son.”
“I thought he didn’t like me because I was a girl, and he only wanted a boy who would take over the business. That’s why I refused to work at his company.” She turned, unable to see him clearly through the tears scarring her eyes. “But what if he resented me? And that’s why he shut me and my mom out. Why everything fell apart. Because he knew.” She put her fingers to her temples, trying to recall every detail, thinking until her head hurt.
“What are you saying, Sienna?”
She wanted to shout at him so badly that she forced her voice to barely a whisper. She didn’t want Tamryn to hear her scream. “I don’t think I’m my father’s daughter.” She pointed into the hills of Santorini, to her mother somewhere out there. To that man. “He’s my father.”
She expected Carter to wrap her in his arms, so she could pour out all the things Tamryn made her think. And Carter could tell her it wasn’t true.
But he did none of those things. “Would it be so bad? You told me your dad made you feel second best. Maybe this could be good.”
She backed away from him, her face rigid, as if her muscles had frozen. She wanted to run, but her feet wouldn’t move. Carter closed the space between them, put his hands on her arms, said her name again, just her name.
She closed her eyes, tapped her head. “My mother was here on Santorini in June. I was born at the beginning of March. She always said I was premature. But what if I was right on time?” She opened her eyes, stared at Carter’s handsome face, the mouth she’d kissed only an hour ago. “What if my dad always hated me because I wasn’t his daughter?”
Carter didn’t let her go, as if he was afraid she might run. “Sleep on this. Don’t rush to judgment.”
She thought of the look in her mother’s eyes when she gazed at Xandros. About the looks he gave her mom when he didn’t think anyone was watching. What if it had been far more than a flirtation on a tour all those years ago?
“I have to get out of here,” she whispered.
“I’ll take you back to your villa.”
She shook her head, her hair flying. “I can’t go back there, not after she’s been with him. I can’t bear to look at her.”
Carter laced his fingers through hers. “You can stay with me. There’s a sofa in my room. I can sleep on that. I want to be there for you.”
She couldn’t even thank him for his gracious offer. “I can’t stay there either, in case she comes looking for me.”
“Then we’ll get a hotel room with two beds. I won’t tell the others where we’re going.” He squeezed her hand. “But you have to talk to her at some point. What if it’s not true?”
She looked at him, gazed into his beautiful, trustworthy eyes. “You weren’t surprised when I said it. You’ve been thinking something too, just like Tamryn.”
He muttered under his breath, a swear word that included Tamryn’s name. “I don’t know anything,”
“But you’re suspicious.”
He closed his eyes as if he couldn’t handle her pain. “There was just something familiar about his face that first night.” He rushed on to add, “But that sense of familiarity disappeared the more I got to know him.”
“You don’t have to tell me lies to save my feelings. You see him in me, don’t you?”
She’d always thought her olive skin and dark curly hair came from her family. But what she’d thought was an Italian nose could be Greek. She touched it now as if she could somehow learn the truth from her face.
