Page 53 of Heartless (Scathing Hearts #1)

Sienna

Lounging on the daybed by the pool, I turned the page of the manuscript.

After I’d handed in my resignation, Sherry had called me to her office.

To my relief, she hadn’t asked what had occurred in the conference room.

Instead, she’d made my position completely remote and more consultant-like.

I read manuscripts, sent notes, and, depending on the team’s decision, I followed up with the author. I happily accepted.

Jake and I had come to the house where we’d been staying for almost two weeks now.

When the sliding door swished open, the beautiful Jake Rhodes stalked toward me.

The only piece of clothing on his gorgeous body were low hanging sweats.

As I slowly perused his approaching muscular frame, my belly warmed and my heart raced.

His lips twitched while he bent at the waist to touch his mouth to mine. “Hey, baby.”

“Hi, my love.”

The endearment was mushy, but I didn’t care because that was who he was, and Jake liked it.

I knew that because every time I’d said it, his gaze had softened and heated in exactly the same way it did right now.

When he sat beside me and pulled me onto his lap, my legs draped over the sides of his, and I curled my hand around the side of his neck.

After a tender kiss, he tucked my hair behind my ear. “Morrison died this morning.”

Sadness pinched my heart. “How do you know?”

His voice was low. “Zook called.”

I took a deep breath. “Is he sure?”

Jake’s hold tightened. “Yes, and your cell’s been blowing up.”

Being back in the house had brought back habits I hadn’t realized I’d acquired. So, my cell was often left sitting on the bedroom side table or the kitchen island.

His fingers brushed up and down my back. “Talk to me, baby.”

“I’m sad for Joel and Rowena. But is it bad that I’m also relieved?”

****

Jake

After what that motherfucker had put her through, she still shed a tear for the people who’d helped torment her.

“Baby, he’s made your life a nightmare. I’m relieved too because now we can start traveling without having to look over our shoulders.”

And I would rest easier knowing she wouldn’t be taken from me.

I kissed her hair while she snuggled against me. When she straightened up, she grinned. “Now, I can start my search for a place.”

Christ. This shit again. I palmed her round hips. “Sienna, you love the condo.”

“I do. That’s why I want to buy something similar.”

“Baby, why look for something similar when you already have what you want? If you need something to call yours, I’ll give you the condo. I'll get the paperwork done tomorrow.”

Her head jerked back, and she frowned. “Jake, I want to buy my own place.”

The biting tone made me harder. It was cute, but I knew better than to smile. “I’ll sell it to you, then.”

“I’ll talk to my financial advisor and—”

We were wasting time. “I’ll draft the paperwork for whatever price I decide.”

She rolled her eyes. “Jake, you can’t—”

“Sienna, it’s my property. You’re my woman. You love it. I love you. It’s fucking easy math.”

Clamping her soft hands around my face, she smiled. “You can’t just tell me you love me and call it easy math when we’re fighting.”

“I’m not fighting, baby. I just want you to be happy.”

My beautiful woman gave me more of her softness. “I am, my love. And I love you.”

Good. I wrapped my hand around the back of her neck. Her mouth inched closer.

Then her hands went to my chest. “Can we talk about it before you draft the paperwork?”

Jesus. Fuck. “You’re going to fight me on this, aren’t you?”

She bit on her smile. “Maybe.”

“Sienna—”

Her brow cocked. “Jake.”

“Fuck.”

A giggle shook her body. “And then, we’ll do that.”

Anything she wanted. Always. “Okay, we’ll talk about it.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

The radiance of her light touched my soul. “Move in with me.”

She scrunched her nose. “Aren’t I kind of already moved in?”

“Let’s make it official.”

Her arms curled around my neck. “I’d love that.”

I kissed her. Slow and long. My Sienna purred before her mouth trailed down my jaw,

making me harder. “We haven’t had sex in the pool yet.”

I carried her to the pool while her little shriek rolled into the warm afternoon.

****

Sienna

Jake helped me out of the car and closed its door before taking my hand. Raising our joined fingers, he touched his mouth to my inner wrist.

“You’re ready?”

I looked at the front door of Nigel’s house. It had lost its intimidating austerity. I smiled at Jake and nodded.

The day after his father had died, Joel had left me a voicemail to invite me to the funeral.

I’d declined. Three weeks after that, he’d called to say there was something important we needed to discuss in private.

I’d learnt my lesson, but I hadn’t even had to ask Jake to come with me.

As soon as I’d told him, he’d asked his assistant to reschedule his day.

He rang the bell, which opened on Mr. Munch. The ageless man notched his chin down. “Good afternoon, Sienna. Mr. Rhodes.”

So, Jake had been here before. Or the super-duper house manager was well informed.

“Mr. Morrison is in the informal dining room.”

“Thank you, Munch,” I replied.

Jake curled his arm around my shoulders, and I wrapped mine around his waist before we headed toward the room. We’d nearly reached the closed double doors when clacks of heels echoed from behind us.

“And the shit show begins,” Jake muttered.

Leaning into him, I held my giggle as we pivoted toward who I assumed to be Kimberly.

It was Kimberly and Gabby.

The two women, standing with their elbows hooked, gaped at Jake. They were even dressed in a girl-band kind of way: wearing black and white, fashionable outfits. One woman wanted Jake, the other had slept with him. My life was wonderfully weird.

After Jake had jerked his chin at them, I cut through the uncomfortable silence. “Kimberly. Gabby.”

Kimberly swallowed hard and aimed a closed mouth smile at us. “Sienna, I wanted you to know Joel and I talked, and I understand why...” She cleared her throat. “I understand.”

Well, good for you. The muscles of Jake’s arm hardened, and I tilted my eyes to his angry frown. When Gabby detached from their duo to approach us, Jake pecked my temple and stepped a few feet away from us while Kimberly glided out of the room.

Gabby grinned, and her gaze slowly slid over me. “Shit, Nana. It’s like you’re a different person. You look so good.”

She took my hand. “When Kimmy said you were coming today, I came over straight away to see you. I missed you.”

She meant that. I knew she did. Flashes of how we used to tell each other the secrets we thought no one else could understand reeled slowly through my mind. Tears clogged the back of my throat, and I drew her in my arms.

Her arms around me were tight. “I’m sorry, Nana,” she whispered in my hair.

“I know,” I murmured back.

We separated, and the corner of her mouth quirked in that adorable way. I touched her cheek one last time. Then I let go of my Gabby.

She blinked, and her mouth curved down. “Nana, I said I was sorry. Come on. You know me, I—”

“Yes, I do, Gabby.”

I made my voice gentle. “Take care of yourself. Okay?”

Her eyes shone with tears. “You too, Nana.”

I walked to Jake, who interlaced his fingers to mine. Just as we neared the dining room, Munch opened the door with a slight bow. We entered the room where Joel was pacing the plush rug while talking in a low tone to his cell.

****

Jake

The man was haggard. He shook my hand and kissed Sienna’s cheek. “Thank you both for coming. I won’t keep you long.”

Sienna touched his arm. “How are you, Joel?”

Like everyone who’d gotten to know my butterfly, his expression mellowed. “Going through the motions.”

After declining Morrison’s junior offer of a drink, we followed him farther into the stuffy room.

Twisting to face us, he rammed his hands in his pockets. The man was pissed. I edged closer to Sienna.

“Dad’s lawyer gave me the file he had on you.” He shook his head. “He knew about your mother’s cancer. He knew you were fucking alone, and he didn’t do shit.”

I tucked her to my side while Morrison Junior kept talking.

“I knew Dad was a conniving bastard, but this is beyond the pale. The lawyers also informed me about the visit that weasel Storley arranged. And Sienna, I didn’t know any of this, and I can only apologize for the harassment we put you through.”

He strode to the bar and came back with a folder. Then he handed it over to Sienna. “This is the file. Everything is there, and this is the only copy. And again, I’m sorry.”

She gripped both hands on the red folder and leaned deeper against my side. “Thank you, Joel.”

Fuck if I knew how the dead motherfucker had managed it, but his son was a good man.

“I’ve also redistributed the will, so all his children will share a portion of his estate—”

At that, Sienna’s head jerked. “Joel, I’m really touched, but I don’t want anything from Nigel.”

“Sienna—”

She touched his arm, and her voice held a thread of steel. “I mean it, Joel. I’m fine.”

He glanced at me. “I’m glad she has you.”

I shook his hand. “Thanks, Joel.”

After he’d walked us to the front door, he pecked Sienna’s cheek. “Don’t be a stranger. We’re a kind of a fucked-up family, but we’re family, and in your own time, I would like us to get to know each other.”

Smiling, she nodded. “I’d like that.”

****

In the car, she stared at the file on her lap, and I took her hand. “Are you going to open it?”

She shook her head and slid the folder in her purse. “I’ll do it at home.”

I wasn’t sure she realized she called the house ‘home’, but fuck did I like it.

Her voice turned quiet. “It was hard to leave Gabby.”

The bitch didn’t deserve it, but my Sienna was hurting. “If that fuckwit didn’t change with you in her life, she never will.”

A brief smile touched her lips, and we rode in silence. When the first drops of rain splattered on the windshield, she smiled and sat up.

“Tell me, baby.”

“Can you please stop the car?”

We were an hour from our destination, and darkness had started covering the mountain road. I veered into a dirt side road and cupped her face. “What’s wrong?”

She unbuckled her seatbelt.

“Sienna baby, talk to—”

She climbed in my lap. When her hands curved around my face, I went rock hard.

My hands slid under her dress. “What do you want, kitten?”

She got busy with my zipper. “You. Inside me.”

I gripped her panties and yanked.. The material ripped. She knelt up, grabbed my begging dick, and guided me home. I gritted my teeth. Pure fucking fire. Then she danced on my cock. Fuck. I clamped her nape and swallowed her moans.

“Kitten, get there.” I thumbed her clit. Her pussy spasmed and suckled me in.

“Jake!”

And I let go.

Sitting on my cock, she grinned through her panting breaths. “That was me jumping your bones.”

I laughed. Then, I kissed her slow and deep.

****

Sienna

I was nestled between Jake’s legs with my back to his front in the corner of the sectional in the family room. I loosened the thin canvas tie of the file Joel had given to me. As I took a deep breath, Jake’s lips brushed my temple.

“Baby,” he soothed. “You know everything that’s in there.”

He was right. It was just weird to know that the last nine years of my life had been documented.

When I pulled the stack of paper out, some pictures slipped out, and I gasped. Jake took the file from me and tossed it on the coffee table while I bent down to pick the pictures up. There were three of them.

The first one was a shot of Mom’s taken five or six years ago in the coffee shop across the bank. Her hand was curved around a huge cup of vanilla latte—that was all she ever drank—and she was smiling at the person facing her. Her hair had grown back almost to her shoulders.

I traced her face with shaking fingers. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

“You look like her.”

The second one was of me, and I was about to flip it over when Jake’s hand shot out to steady my wrist. “What was happening here?”

I didn’t know how, but whoever had been spying on me had caught me with my arms up. My head was thrown back, my eyes were shut tight, and I was grinning with all my teeth.

“I just got offered the writing fellowship.” His lips caressed my temple again, and I leaned into the tender touch. “Mom wanted me to go, and when I told her I was staying with her, we had a huge fight. And Mom could yell the house down when she was angry.”

His chest shook with the low drum of his chortle. “That must have been something, her yelling while you went deadly quiet.” He nuzzled the back of my ear. “She just wanted you to have the best in life.”

The memory was bittersweet, so my smile was wobbly when I twisted to tilt it to him.

“I know, but all I needed was her.”

He cupped my cheek, and his voice was thick. “Yeah.”

After a breathtakingly soft kiss, I returned to my previous position. The last picture made the back of my eyes burn. Mom and I were in our favorite Indian restaurant, seated side by side and laughing.

My breath hitched, and I burrowed deeper into Jake. “The week after that, we went to the hairdresser to have her hair shaved before chemo.”

He gently pulled the pictures from my fingers and placed them on the arm of the sofa before shifting us, so I was lying under him.

Hooking his forearms under my shoulders, he grazed the pad of his thumbs along my temples.

“Tomorrow, we’ll get some frames and put Caitlin on the mantel with the rest of the family.”

I brushed my fingertips on the corner of his mouth.

“The first time I met you, I told her I’d met a man with the sexiest name, and that I knew he was going to be important.”

His gaze grew intense, which sent my heartbeat into a gallop. “It’s yours when you want it.”

“What is?”

The gravel of his low voice enwrapped me in us. “My name.”

My heart jolted, and I blinked at him. “Wh-what?”

“We’ll travel the world. I’ll take you to all the games, concerts, and matches you can bear.

I’ll eat every Indian dish you make, and I’ll buy you a horse.

I’ll be in the first row when you dance, and when your books become best sellers.

” More emotion weighed in his tone, making his voice husky.

“And when you’re ready, we’ll have beautiful children because they’ll have their mother’s eyes. ”

The tears I could no longer hold drifted down my temples.

“Sienna Rhodes?” I murmured.

There was a growl in his voice I felt everywhere. “Now, that’s the fucking sexiest name.”

Then he kissed me.