Page 14 of Settling the Score

Sienna glanced first at Bella and then let her eyes shift sidelong to the full-length mirror, which she’d been avoiding looking at ever since pulling the stunning silk slip over her head. Her breath hitched in her throat a little, because whomever had chosen the dress had chosen very, very well. A shade of shimmering champagne with spaghetti straps, it was cut on the bias and hugged Sienna’s curves in all the right places. She’d teamed it with a pair of espadrilles and styled her blonde hair into a voluminous bun, high on her head.

‘You look amazing,’ Bella reinforced, coming to stand beside Sienna and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘And Astrid has something in store, by the way, to get things started.’

‘Oh?’

Bella grinned.

‘Care to give me a hint?’

‘I don’t know. Wouldn’t it be more fun to have a surprise?’

Sienna held Bella’s gaze in the mirror. ‘Nope.’

Bella shook her head. ‘Let’s just say absence is going to make Aiden’s heart – or other parts of him – grow a lot, erm, stronger.’

Sienna frowned.

‘Okay, so, he might be thinking that you guys are going to get paired up together, right? I mean, he’s a groomsman, you’re a bridesmaid, you have the whole history thing.’

‘Right…’ Sienna’s skin paled; she hadn’t even thought of that.

‘But instead, Astrid’s partnered you with Chuck Daly.’

Sienna’s expression was blank for about the four seconds it took for her to realise who Bella was talking about. ‘TheChuck Daly?’

Bella looked like the cat who’d got the cream. ‘The very same.’

‘The Chuck Daly who left his record-breaking career in the NHL to develop that social media site that went gangbusters and now he’s worth like a billion trillion dollars?’

Bella nodded sagely.

‘The one who looks like Chris Hemsworth, Zac Efron and George Clooney swirled their DNA together and created one edibly, perfect human?’

Another nod, this time with a quirk of her lips. ‘The Chuck Daly who’s recently single and ready to mingle.’

‘Oh, gosh.’ Sienna’s cheeks flushed. ‘So now I’m flirting with two guys?’

‘Well, the flirting with Aiden is by the by.’ Bella tilted her head. ‘You’re supposed to be making him regret walking away from you, and having Chuck Daly get a little handsy would definitely help do the trick. Am I right?’

‘You’re right.’ Sienna swallowed back the rest of her bubbles for a hit of Dutch courage, then looked at the empty glass. ‘I could never have dreamed that one fateful night in Chicago would have brought us here.’

Bella sighed contentedly – after all, she’d followed the path of revenge to her own sweet little happily ever after. ‘But it did, and now we’re going to make the most of it. Ready?’

If she was going to back out, this was her chance. She could pretend she had a headache and hide out in her room, reading the third book in the erotic romance Bella had got them all hooked on, courtesy of her random airport granny encounter.

‘Come onnnn, Sienna,’ Bella said on an impatient groan. ‘Let’s get this party started.’

‘Okay,’ she said, before she could three-million-guess herself. ‘I’m ready.’

* * *

He hadn’t been looking for her. Not really. Okay, he’dhalfbeen looking for her, but that was natural. It was coming up on eleven years since he’d left Ashbury Falls and Sienna behind, eleven years since he’d slammed the door to her place so he couldn’t hear her sob any more. Eleven years, but when he’d climbed out of the golf cart and she’d been standing there, his gut had lurched with shock, because she was so, so familiar to him. As familiar as Blake or his mom, or his own damned reflection.

Which wasn’t to say she hadn’t changed.

Of course she had. Sienna had been a week shy of her seventeenth birthday when he’d left town; he remembered, because he’d already bought and wrapped her gift, but he never gave it to her, because he hadn’t had a chance. He was pretty sure she would have thrown it in his face anyway.

Now, she was a woman.