Chapter 95
Sienna's pov
I was killing time on my phone, downloading apps and logging into accounts, when I asked too casually, “Did you buy this phone for Elena?”
I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted to know—if she had the same model, would I be able to accept it as “compensation,” or would it turn my stomach? The idea of the same gift handed to two women made me feel faintly ill.
I lifted my eyes, trying to look indifferent, and caught Harrison smiling—bright, almost careless.
My heart lurched.
“She’s different from you.”
Just four words, and it felt like being dropped back into hell.
“How is she different?” I sneered. “She’s your true love, and I’m just a tool you use when it suits you. Of course that’s different.”
Something in Harrison’s face shifted, complicated in a way that made me think I’d hit exactly where it hurt.
“Why would you think that?”
He started to reach for my hand, but before his fingers could touch mine, a woman’s voice cut through the hallway, sharp as a slap.
It was the person I hated most.
“How dare you come in here?” Eleanor snapped. “Get out!”
Elena’s voice followed, strained and trembling. “Ms. Wolfe, please let me in. I have something important to discuss with Harrison.”
“How do you know he’s here?” Eleanor’s laugh was all contempt. “Did he tell you?”
Then she raised her voice. “Ms. Whitmore, leave. I don’t welcome homewreckers. You and Mrs. Whitmore need to go now, or I’ll call security.”
Classic was here too.
Of course she was. If Elena came for Harrison, Classic came for Victor.
Harrison’s gaze turned icy, but he didn’t stand.
I asked, keeping my tone steady, “How is Victor doing now?”
Golden Harbor was under investigation, and as the one pulling strings, he couldn’t possibly come out unscathed. Still, it had only been four days. A case that big didn’t wrap up that fast. There was always a crack—a sliver of possibility—that a man like Victor could crawl through.
Harrison didn’t sugarcoat it. “There’s something off about Golden Harbor. For now, he’s fine on that front, but…” His mouth tilted. “In other areas, he’s tangled up in plenty—especially the debt he dumped on you and Nora Everly.”
I returned his look with one of my own. “Is it hard to investigate?”
With Harrison’s reach, he could’ve unearthed everything five years ago the moment he caught wind of it. He could’ve stopped the debt from ever becoming mine to carry. The question that kept pricking at me was why he hadn’t.
“Not hard,” he said. “But that alone isn’t enough to destroy him.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Elena pushed her way into the room, eyes red, tears sliding down her cheeks.
“Harrison,” she cried, “please help my father. He was framed in the Golden Harbor case. He didn’t do those horrible things.”
No one answered.
Her tear-streaked face made my skin crawl, not because she was crying, but because she always knew exactly when to cry. I watched Harrison, waiting, as if the next breath would tell me whether he would choose her the way he always had.
Elena seemed stunned by his silence. Her watery gaze shifted to me, and in the next second she was at my bedside, dropping to her knees.
“Sienna,” she pleaded, “I know you hate me and my father, but he’s still your biological father. For blood’s sake, please—please don’t hold on to what he did in the past.”
My stomach sank. The way she said blood’s sake, like that single word could erase years, made heat flare behind my eyes. I shoved her away hard.
“Get out.”
Elena fell backward onto the floor, and at the same time Classic rushed in, her face twisting with alarm and outrage.
“Elena! Are you okay?”
She hauled Elena up, then turned on me. “Sienna, how can you be so heartless? Elena is your sister. She’s been worried about you for days, and she never complained even though you’ve never liked her. Now your father is in trouble, and you’re still indifferent—”
“Heartless?” My laugh came out thin. “Is this the first day you’ve noticed?”
My voice sharpened. “When Victor kicked my mother and me out to marry you, you didn’t seem to have any pity to spare.”
I flicked my eyes toward Harrison and scoffed, lifting my chin in his direction. “Don’t look at me. Look at him.”
I let the bitterness in me speak. “Elena, isn’t he your favorite man? Humble yourself a little more. Beg him. He’ll feel sorry for you and agree.”
Then I turned my gaze fully on Harrison. “Am I right, Harrison? You can make me—your legal wife—apologize to her, raise her son, and sit there while you two play at love. Next to her, I’m nothing. A weed you wouldn’t even bother looking at.”
“Enough.” Harrison’s face darkened. His eyes shifted to Elena, cold and final. “You should go back.”
He still didn’t get up.
Elena’s eyes widened. Her voice dropped, small and shaky. “Harrison… you’re all I have now.”
His patience snapped cleanly. “Don’t forget what you said before we came back.”
“I…” Elena stumbled like he’d struck her. Classic caught her arm.
“Go back,” Harrison said, his tone lower, controlled. “I’m not repeating myself.”
Eleanor leaned against the doorframe, watching with a thoughtful expression, then stepped aside just enough to let Classic guide Elena out.
When their footsteps faded, Eleanor’s mouth curled. “Turning her away like that—aren’t you afraid she’ll cause trouble? She looks pitiful, but she’s vicious.”
I stared at Harrison’s face—handsome, composed—and the thought surfaced, heavy as a stone: he hadn’t changed. Maybe I’d just been desperate enough to mistake temporary softness for something real.
“Then you have terrible taste,” I said. “With an ex like her, you’ll never be free of problems.”
Eleanor glanced at me and walked over with cotton swabs. “Time to remove the needle.”
I looked away as she worked.
When the IV needle was out, Harrison pressed the cotton to my skin himself, holding it there with steady fingers. I let him.
“We’ll go home later,” he said.
I paused, then asked quietly, “Do you like her?”
Eleanor had already left with the IV bottle. The room settled into silence.
Harrison answered without hesitation. “I don’t like her.”
As if he needed the words to land cleanly, he added, “I never did.”