Chapter 93
Sienna's pov
Harrison’s strong arms locked around me as if he meant to weld us into one body.
I was still in thin clothes, thin enough to feel the hard pull of his muscles, and the sensation startled me.
Harrison was nervous.
“This is on me. I didn’t protect you,” he said, his voice rough, as if forcing the words past something lodged in his throat. “It won’t happen again.”
A laugh pushed up, sharp and bitter. “Harrison, do you really think saying that now matters?” I couldn’t pry myself out of his hold, so I pressed my cheek against his and spoke through my teeth. “There isn’t a future for us. I just need one straight answer. When are we getting a divorce?”
His arms only tightened. “We’re not divorcing. Get that out of your head.”
Pinned like that, I couldn’t even pretend I had room to fight. I didn’t know how many days it had been since I’d eaten; lifting my arm felt like hauling a weight, and my stomach clenched with a dull ache.
“You’re insane,” I whispered. He’d looked at me like he couldn’t stand me, yet he’d still dragged me out of a place like Golden Harbor, and now he wasn’t even bothering to humiliate me.
I smiled, more pain than humor. “Fine. No divorce. Then answer me this—do you love me?”
An old sentence of his rang in my ears: You don’t think I love you, do you? It made my chest hurt, like a wound that never healed right.
“I don’t know what you’re planning,” I said, “but can you be honest with me today, Harrison?”
My head sagged against his shoulder. I couldn’t see his expression, only the shift of his breathing and the tension in his body.
After a moment, he turned me by the shoulders until I was facing him. His eyes held mine, steady and unreadable. “There are things I can’t tell you right now,” he said. “Give me more time. You have to wait for me.”
How much of that was real?
I slipped my hands free, rubbed my wrists once, then placed my hand into his palm anyway. His fingers closed immediately.
“But I’ve already waited five years.”
“I know.” His tone cooled. “Stay for now. When the time is right, I’ll explain.”
I forced myself to be calm, pulled my hand away, and turned my back. “Fine. You can go.”
Did an explanation even matter? And yet, because he’d asked for time like he had any right, I found myself deciding to stay.
Behind me, he didn’t move. I sat rigid, staring at nothing.
Then fingertips—roughened slightly with calluses—touched the center of my back.
I shivered, startled, and slapped his hand away. He caught my wrist and drew me back toward him. “Don’t move.”
The zipper of the leather jacket was down the back. He pulled it slowly. “I’ll help you get this off.”
I inhaled hard, refusing the gentleness. I yanked the half-removed jacket away and threw it to the floor. “I didn’t put this on willingly.”
His breathing turned heavier.
“I was unconscious when they dressed me,” I went on. “I don’t even know if it was a man or a woman who changed my clothes.”
His eyes sharpened, as if someone had struck flint inside him. The look was violent enough that for a second it felt like I was the one at fault.
No man with pride—especially not Harrison—could stand the thought of his wife being handled or displayed, not in that black leather, not in a place where eyes were bought and sold.
I laughed under my breath while my face stayed cold. “I heard someone paid for my photos. The scandal ones. Who knows what else happened while I was out. Harrison, with me like this… are you sure you don’t want a divorce?”
As I spoke, I stepped closer until my body brushed his. Weakness made my arms heavy as I draped them over his shoulders. “Do you want to inspect the goods—”
The rest died under his mouth.
The kiss started rough, all urgency and bite, his teeth grazing my lower lip just enough to sting, but then it shifted—controlled, deliberate, like he was erasing the mess we'd made with the only words he trusted. His mouth broke from mine, trailing hot and insistent down my throat, nipping at the pulse point that hammered under my skin. Lower still, over the swell of my collarbone, his lips and tongue mapping the curve of my breast, teasing the edge of my nipple until it hardened, aching. My body went limp beneath him, not giving in but just... spent, exhaustion pulling at my limbs, my eyelids heavy as his hands slid up my thighs, parting them with a firm grip that sent a fresh jolt through me.
I didn’t fight. I didn’t have anything left to spend.
“It’s not your fault,” he murmured against my skin. “I’ll make them pay.”
After that, everything slid away.
When I woke again, I was in a bed with an IV in my arm, clear fluid dripping steadily, and another bag with something pale that looked like nutrients. I wasn’t surprised. I hadn’t eaten since they took me, and I’d still stood there and argued with Harrison like my body wasn’t already failing.
This wasn’t a hospital. The air was too clean, too controlled, more like a private clinic.
At the foot of the bed, he sat on a stool, watching monitors like he belonged there. The bastard checked my vitals, then went still again.
I almost forgot. Alexander had a degree in clinical medicine. After his so-called death, no one knew where he’d gone. I hadn’t expected to see him at Eleanor Wolfe’s research institute—much less sitting there like he had the right.
His calm finally scraped through what little patience I had left. “Don’t you think you owe me an explanation?” I demanded. “Where’s Luna? How is she?”
“She’s fine,” Alexander said. “You don’t need to worry about her.”
That tone snapped something in me. “Don’t need to?” I tried to sit up, but the movement tugged at the IV. “Alexander, you have a fiancée and you still messed with her. If it weren’t for you, why would she get herself drunk?”
“So what if I have a fiancée?” His mouth curved in something like contempt. “Men haven’t exactly been scarce around her, have they? And you—tangled up with Harrison while you’re busy seducing Julian. I only have a fiancée in name. Compared to you, it’s nothing.”
Heat rushed into my face. “Harrison and Elena even have a child!” I shot back. “How dare you accuse me?”
Anger made my hands clumsy. The needle slipped; pain flashed, and I yanked the IV out entirely, pressing my sleeve to the blood.
I stared at him, shaking. “Alexander, what did Luna ever do to you? Did you think about her at all before you faked your death? She became like that because of you!”
Footsteps rushed in, quick and urgent, and the door swung open. Eleanor burst into the room, her eyes taking in the blood and the ripped-out IV in one glance. “What the hell?” she snapped. “You wake up and start a fight?”