Page 59 of Siren

The screen dimmed in my hand, but I didn’t move to lock it. Just pulled the blankets higher, clutching them to my chest like they could keep the truth from spilling out of me completely.

That track was mine but now it was something else. Something more.

Just like him.

He wasn’t just a feature anymore. He was the melody I couldn’t stop humming in my head. A vibration under my skin I hadn’t asked for but could no longer ignore.

My thighs still held the memory of his hands, his mouth, the way he’d sung my name without needing a mic.

I should’ve felt powerful. But instead, I felt like a woman caught in a verse she didn’t write… but couldn’t stop singing.

TWENTY

The next morning, before I’d had a chance to shower, my phone lit up with Brielle’s name.

“You free?”

“Definefree.”

She laughed softly, but I could hear the undertone.That edge. “I just got off a call with Jalen and the rest of the suits. They want to move.”

I sat up. “Move how?”

“The song, Sienna. The one Amir recorded. They think it’s… transformative. They said it sounded like your soul grew wings and flew through the speakers.”

I was quiet.

“You don’t sound excited,” she added.

I leaned my head back against the headboard. “Because it wasn’t supposed to beforthem.”

“I know. But it’s already done. It’s on their radar, and they’re salivating. They’re talking campaign visuals, a deluxe release, a roll-out with Taraj standing behind you in a damn silk shirt like y’all just woke up in love.”

I let out a low groan.

“They’re serious,” she added. “The whole ‘romance’ thing? They want to run with it hard now. Because they want to connect this sound that you released inEchowith this budding thing you got going on with him. I mean, girl, yourbare feetwere caught in that video still. Somebody zoomed in.”

I sat upright. “What video?” I didn’t know there was video!

Brielle exhaled. “The hallway footage. You leaving Raj’s room. It’s got over 800k views already on one of those gossip accounts.”

That was me. So damn dick drunk that I tiptoed out of his suite with my pumps in one hand, and my coat in the other.

I closed my eyes. “This is spiraling.”

“It is. But you’ve always known how to center yourself when shit spins. I trust you to do that now.”

“I’m not sure I can.”

“You can,” Brielle said. “And Sienna?”

“What?”

“I think what’s scaring you isn’t that they know. It’s thatyou do.That what you sang, what you gave him—what y’all shared—was real. And the truth is, real makes better art.”

I couldn’t even argue.

She was right. Even if I hated that she was.

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