Page 28 of Possessive Mafia Vows

Her cell phone rings, cutting her off. She pulls it out of her pocket, checks the caller ID, and averts her eyes. “I should take this.”

Walking away from the window, she keeps her back to me as she takes the call.

My hackles are up when I hear her say, “Hello, Nick.”

The man chooses his moments. I’m starting to think he has his own people trailing me.

“Sorry,” Sienna keeps her voice low and her head down. She still has her back to me; it’s obvious that she’d rather be taking this call anywhere but in my apartment. “I met my father for lunch.”

I try to imagine Nick’s reaction. Has Sienna told him about her father? I can’t bear the thought that the man knows more about her than I do, but I guess that’s his professional style: get to know the patient so that they trust him with a scalpel.

“Twenty years.”

Sienna’s shoulders are already bunched up around her ears. An hour ago, she was relaxed in my arms while I fucked her. I fight the urge to snatch the phone out of her hand and hurl it out the window.

“No, it was completely out of the blue.”

She freezes, and my pulse picks up speed.

“Do you think?” She glances at me then, catches my eye, and turns away.

Whatever Nick Morris is saying at the other end of the call, it concerns me, and I’m angry with myself for not telling her sooner what I know about him. Because if I tell her now, it will sound like I’m retaliating. Again.

I’m not playing Nick Morris at his own game.

I need to rewrite the rules, get one step ahead of him, and stay there.

7

SIENNA

There must besomething unnatural in the water. Either that or the universe has decided it’s time to throw some more curveballs my way. I can picture the stars huddled together up there, murmuring, “Sienna Walker has had it too easy for a while. Let’s liven things up a bit.”

After Nick’s phone call yesterday evening, I didn’t even finish my coffee. I had to get away from Kyle. I needed the time and the space and the oxygen to think.

He knew something was wrong. Maybe it was the way I couldn’t meet his eyes, or how I grabbed my purse, coat, and boots, and finished dressing in the elevator as if we were running through an emergency fire drill. He still insisted on his driver taking me home, so I sat in the back of the car, my purse clutched to my chest like a lifebelt.

Outside my apartment building, I waited for the black car to merge back into the traffic before I started walking.

Head down. One foot in front of the other. Nick’s words replaying inside my head like captions on a social media video.

Don’t you think it’s a coincidence that Kyle comes back from Ireland and then your father is on the scene again?

It would never have occurred to me. Maybe my brain doesn’t think about things logically or laterally or whatever. I’m an artist, not a problem solver. I look for beauty not ugliness. But now I can’t unsee it.

This morning, Central Park is decorated with a fine film of sparkling frost. I walk to work—I wasn’t lying when I told Kyle that I like to walk—my breath forming delicate white clouds in front of my face. I let myself into the gallery and lock the door behind me. I don’t have any appointments until this afternoon, so I’m going to drink coffee, eat croissants, and paint. On repeat.

I’ve barely shrugged my vintage Afghan coat over my shoulders when my phone vibrates inside my purse. I don’t need to open it to know that it’s from my father. He hasn’t stopped messaging me since I walked out of the Rinse with Kyle yesterday.

The anticipation of picking up a paintbrush and transferring my emotions onto canvas seeps through my pores, leaving me feeling bone-weary and wooly-brained from lack of sleep. I read the messages. Plural.

I have a surprise for you, sweetheart.

I’ll swing by the gallery later to tell you all about it.

I know this is hard for you. It’s hard for me too. But I told you I’ve changed, and I’m determined to prove it to you.

He’s fucking persistent, I’ll give him that.

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