Page 38 of Hypnotized By Love

“How is Sierra doing?”

“Fine.”

“No, I mean with everything.”

Whateverythingwas he talking about? “Such as?”

He rested his arms against the front passenger seat, leaning forward so he could talk to me. “With the hospitalization and her recovery.”

I shifted my car into park so that I could turn my whole body toward him. “How do you know about that?”

He didn’t immediately answer, and I ran through possibilities in my head. Sierra had been hospitalized four years ago because she became so weak and so ill my parents were afraid she was going to die. She finally told us the truth—that her ballet instructor had been telling her she was too fat and would never make it professionally with “all that extraweight” and that was why she had been struggling with disordered eating for so many years.

That had completely infuriated me—my sister was perfect just the way she was.

I had flown home from college and spent three days sitting by her bedside, not able to imagine a world without my twin in it.

Fortunately, that had been a turning point for her. My parents and I weren’t the only ones scared. She’d gone to therapy and programs in the past at my parents’ insistence but had always been resistant. She quit ballet, which I knew had been hard for her. She took her recovery seriously, did the work, and focused on the healing she needed. I knew it was something she still struggled with every day, and I was so proud of her for the choices she made on a daily basis.

But it was information that Sierra didn’t want shared around. So I knew my parents hadn’t told Mason. Heather most likely knew, and while she was a chatterbox, she would never let a secret like that slip.

And I hadn’t told him.

Which meant ... “Sierra told you?”

He didn’t confirm or deny it, but I knew I was right.

“You and Sierra have been talking,” I figured out. “Since when?”

Mason finally seemed to realize his mistake and scooted back. “We keep in touch here and there. No big deal.”

It felt like the biggest of deals. Like my twin had betrayed me. I was right back in that headspace where I was freaking out at the possibility that my sister and Mason Beckett liked each other. Why else would she not tell me that they’d been talking? Sierra had some serious explaining to do.

“Uh, the light turned green,” he said, gesturing toward the windshield.

“I don’t care if that light turns into Kermit the Frog and starts singing that it’s not easy being green. Are you ... friends with my sister?”I had to sayfriendsbecause the idea that they wanted to date or might already be dating was overriding my ability to use the correct word.

He didn’t answer.

I couldn’t watch this happen. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be able to be happy for her or support this monstrosity of a relationship. “Are you trying to win me over for her?”

“In what way?”

“In the way that you want to date Sierra and so you need to get on my good side because you know she won’t date you unless I’m okay with it.”

His expression shifted, changing into a knowing, smug smile. “Would it bother you, Sinclair?”

Bother me?Bother me?

I gripped the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles turned white. I would pull this car over to the side of the road and throw a Molotov cocktail in it and let the whole world burn down in a fiery inferno if it meant I could prevent him from dating my sister.

“It would bother you,” he observed.

He didn’t get points for stating the obvious.

“You don’t have to freak out, Sinclair. Sierra and I are just friends. Nothing more.”

I let out a deep sigh that I was unaware I’d been holding in.

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