Chapter 34 Press conference
Sienna had been reviewing Dante’s therapy notes in the living room, the sound of the waves faint in the distance. She’d been up since dawn, her thoughts looping between exhaustion and things happening since Luca arrived. Dante hadn’t shown up for breakfast, which wasn’t unusual anymore.
When the TV flickered on as she mistakenly touched the remote, the housekeeper must’ve left it tuned to a news channel Sienna barely looked up at first. But the moment the name Dante Varon flashed across the screen, everything inside her went still.
The anchor’s voice carried that smooth, practiced excitement reserved for scandal.
“After months of silence, international model Isabelle Laurent has confirmed her renewed engagement to Monaco’s most elusive athlete, Dante Varon. The couple, who separated a few weeks before Mr. Varon’s tragic accident, appear to have rekindled their romance…”
Sienna’s pen fell from her hand.
On the screen, Isabelle smiled for the cameras with perfect white teeth, flawless hair, her arm draped elegantly over the shoulder of a man who wasn’t even there. Her hand, however, rested exactly where Dante’s had once been, like a cruel imitation of memory.
A reporter shouted, “Miss Laurent, when is the wedding?”
Isabelle’s laugh was light. “Soon,” she said. “He has always been mine.”
The words landed like a slap.
Sienna’s chest tightened. What is this?
The broadcast cut to a slideshow of Isabelle and Dante at galas, red carpets, magazine covers. Old footage of him, younger, unbroken and smiling. She could barely recognize him in those shots.
Her pulse thudded in her throat.
Footsteps echoed down the hall. Dante’s wheelchair turned the corner, and for a moment, he looked confused to see her standing there, pale, the remote trembling in her hand.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She couldn’t answer. Instead, she pointed to the screen.
His gaze followed hers and then stopped. His jaw went rigid. His hands tightened on the armrests.
For a long moment, he said nothing. Only the faint sound of the TV filled the air.
Then, finally, in a voice so low she almost didn’t hear it. “I never agreed to that.”
He looked not angry, not exactly. Something worse. A flash of panic passed over his face before he masked it again.
Sienna stepped closer. “She just said you’re”
“Engaged,” he finished, bitterness curling around the word. “Of course she did.”
“Is it true?”
He laughed once, short and sharp. “Would I be here if it were?”
Sienna blinked, searching his face. “Then why would she?”
“Because Isabelle doesn’t lose,” he said quietly. “She just changes the rules.”
The TV kept playing Isabelle’s voice now confident, almost triumphant. “He needs me,” she told the cameras. “He’s been through enough. It’s time he had someone who truly understands him.”
Sienna’s stomach turned.
She reached for the remote, wanting to shut it off, but Dante beat her to it, his hand striking the power button so hard the screen went black.
For a moment, the silence roared louder than the broadcast.
Sienna spoke softly, almost afraid of his reaction. “You should call your PR team. They need to”
He cut her off. “No. That’s what she wants to see,a reaction. She feeds on it.”
“She can’t just lie like that”
“She can,” he said, eyes still on the dark screen. “And she will. Because no one ever tells her no.”
Sienna hesitated, studying him. “You sound like you know what she’s capable of.”
His lips twisted into something that wasn’t a smile. “I do.”
They sat in silence after that. The air between them had changed, it was sharp, heavy, full of things unspoken.
Dante leaned back in his chair, staring at nothing. Sienna watched him, unsure of what to say. She wanted to comfort him, but the look in his eyes warned her to stay away, that hard, distant stare that said don’t touch what you can’t fix.
Still, she couldn’t stop thinking about Isabelle’s words. He has always been mine.
Sienna wondered if that’s what she truly believed that Dante was something you could own.
Later that afternoon, Sienna found herself in the kitchen, pacing. She told herself she was waiting for the kettle to boil, but really she was trying to calm down. Her thoughts kept circling the same point.Why didn’t he deny it publicly? Why let her say that?
A voice broke her spiral. “You shouldn’t let it get to you.”
She turned. Dante was at the doorway again, watching her. He looked tired more than usual.
“I’m not letting it get to me,” she lied.
He arched an eyebrow. “You’re boiling water for the fifth time in ten minutes.”
She exhaled, her shoulders dropping. “Fine. It got to me.”
“She does that,” he said quietly. “Finds the crack in people.”
“You’re angry,” she said, though his tone was almost too calm.
“I’m tired,” he replied. Then, after a pause: “And angry.”
Sienna wanted to ask why he ever loved someone like that, but the question felt cruel. So instead she said, “Maybe you should talk to her.”
He met her eyes. “You think I haven’t tried?”
“She’s going to keep”
“I know.”
He cut her off again, voice sharp now. “You think I don’t know what she’s doing? You think I don’t remember what it’s like to live in her shadow?”
Sienna bit her lip. “Then tell me why you’re still letting her control the story.”
For the first time, he looked at her face. There was something in his gaze that almost hurt to see. “Because fighting her means letting her back in. And I don’t know if I can survive that again.”
Sienna froze.
It wasn’t anger anymore. It was fear, raw, real, and buried under months of deflection.
She wanted to say something, anything. But the words stuck.
The kettle whistled softly behind them, breaking the silence.
Hours passed. The day dragged into evening, and the villa seemed to shrink around them. Sienna tried to focus on her notes again, but her mind kept slipping back to Isabelle’s voice on that screen.
A shiver ran down her spine.
In another room, she heard faint movement, the soft creak of Dante’s wheelchair, the sound of glass on wood. She almost went to him, but stopped herself. He needed space. Or maybe she did.
When the phone rang, the sound was startling, loud, shrill, echoing through the halls.
Sienna froze. The housekeeper had left hours ago. There was only one phone that rang that late, the private line in Dante’s study.
A long silence followed the first ring. Then another.
She waited. On the fourth, she heard the faint scrape of his chair against the floor then nothing.
The ringing stopped.
Sienna released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
Then, from down the hall, she heard his voice, low, sharp, and trembling like he was afraid of the caller.
“No, Isabelle,” he said. “You don’t get to come here.”
Her heart dropped.
She took a step toward the sound then stopped when she heard him again, quieter this time.
“You’re not welcome here anymore.”
A beat of silence. Then his voice cracked. “Don’t, don’t do this again.”
Her fingers curled around the wall’s edge. She shouldn’t be listening. But the tone in his voice, the exhaustion and bitterness it pulled her in.
Finally, he said only one more thing, barely audible.
“You’ll destroy her too, won’t you?”
The call ended with a soft click.
Sienna stayed frozen in the hallway, her pulse thrumming in her ears.
Her? Who did he mean? Was he referring to her?
Before she could move, a faint sound came from the study, the phone vibrating again. She could see the light flashing from under the door.
She stepped closer, curiosity warring with dread.
The screen glowed through the crack and there it was, in cold white letters
Isabelle Laurent.
And beneath it, a new message notification appeared.” See you soon, darling.
Sienna’s stomach turned to ice.
She didn’t knock. She didn’t speak. She just turned and walked quickly back down the hall, her heart pounding.
In the distance, she could hear Dante’s voice again faint, hollow, like a man talking to a ghost.
And for the first time since she’d met him, Sienna Hale realized that whatever haunted Dante Varon was on its way back.