Page 68 of Possessive Mafia Vows

Caleb’s eyes flicker my way. He’s thinking the same as I am.

“The opportunity never arose.” Sienna shrugs. “I never thought…”

“You never thought that he would propose to you one day,” I complete the sentence for her.

“What did you say to him, Si?” Victoria poses the question that I’ve been trying to swallow.

“I didn’t. He didn’t give me a chance. He told me to take as much time as I needed to think about it, and then he took a shower. That’s when I came here.”

Victoria furrows her brow. “He took a shower? The jerk proposed to you and then jumped in the shower? What the actual fu—” She sucks on her bottom lip and swallows the expletive. “What did you do with the ring?”

“I left it on the kitchen counter.” Sienna peers at the baby in her arms, a wistful smile appearing on her lips. “I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

Yes!

I stop myself from fist-pumping the air.

He proposed, and Sienna isn’t there; she’s here, with us, and I’m not letting her out of my sight again.

“That’s your answer then, Si,” Victoria says. “You know my motto: if it isn’t a definite yes, it’s a no.”

“What should I do?” Sienna puffs up her cheeks and releases a steady breath.

I’m hoping Victoria will tell her to say no. Let him down gently, or not so gently; either way, the answer should remain the same.

Instead, she says, “I think you should take some time out, Si. Caleb and I have been talking about it.”

She deliberately avoids making eye contact with me, because whatever it is they’ve been discussing, no one thought to include me.

“We’ll pay for you to go to Ireland.” Before Sienna can protest, Victoria continues, “You need some time and space to breathe. Without anything getting in the way.”

“There’s an annex connected to the Murray family home,” Caleb joins in. “You can have the entire place to yourself. No one will interfere.”

“You can paint all day and all night if you want.” Victoria smiles. “This is what you need, Si. You’ve needed it for a long while, only I couldn’t help you before. But I can now. Go to Ireland. Paint. Sleep. Drink Guinness every day if you want.”

“It’s full of iron,” Caleb adds.

“Just learn to exist again, and everything will fall into place.”

Sienna’s eyes fill with tears again. “I don’t know… I’m not sure I have the energy…”

“Which is exactly my point!” Victoria’s lips press together in the kind of stern expression I always associate with one of my middle-grade school teachers. She turns to me. “Kyle, help me sell it to her, will you?”

Where do I start?

“It’s the best place in the world to relax, Sienna. Fresh air. Green fields. More cows than people.” I can’t contain my smile when I see her mouth curving upwards.

“I’m grateful,” she says, “truly I am, but I can’t.”

“Why not?” Victoria is still wearing her school marm look.

“The gallery?—”

“Is taken care of,” I say. “Apart from the artwork, and you’re the only person who can solve that problem.” I pause, picking up on Victoria’s enthusiasm. “Try to imagine setting up your easel with a backdrop of snowy mountains, trees, and streams filled with salmon.”

“I won’t find many clients in an Irish field filled with cows.”

“They have Internet in Ireland too.”

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