Page 19 of Settling the Score

‘Soulmates?’

‘What, you don’t believe in the concept?’

His eyes probed hers and he shrugged one shoulder. ‘Do you?’

She refused to think abouthow muchshe’d believed in soulmates, once upon a time. ‘The friendship variety? Oh, I definitely believe in that.’

He made a gruff noise that could have been acceptance, or dismissal. ‘But not romantic?’

Sienna sighed. She contemplated saying something flirty. Teasing him, making him laugh. But he was sailing too close to the wind, and she was only human. ‘Aiden, come on,’ she said, stopping dancing and slowly dropping her hands.

‘What?’

‘Do you really want to talk about our love lives? I mean, I know it was a long time ago, but don’t you find it kind ofweirdto discuss our other partners with one another?’ She leaned forward then, unable to resist adding, ‘You were my first lover, after all.’

First. Not only.

He had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘I was just showing an interest in your life.’

‘You don’t have to,’ she said with a lift of one shoulder. ‘We’re nothing to one another now, and that’s fine with me. And I presume it’s fine with you. We’re just here to support two people we love as they get married. Beyond that… we don’t need to say or do anything to one another.’ It felt like the throwing down of the gauntlet. Or it felt incredibly stupid, given what she was supposed to be doing.

She waited for him to respond. To say anything. But Aiden just stared down at her, an impassive expression on his face.

‘Oookay.’ She pulled a face, a look of amusement crossed with irritation. ‘Good chat. One for the record books.’ She took a step backwards. ‘Thanks for the coffee.’

* * *

Blake found him out in the orangery, midway through snapping a twig off a mandarin tree in full bloom.

‘What’s up, bro?’

‘Nothing,’ Aiden grunted, then pulled it together as he turned to face his brother. His brother who was about to get married, against all the odds. His brother who’d turned his life around in spectacular fashion, ever since meeting Astrid, and who deserved to be the happiest version of himself.

‘Hmm,’ Blake mused. ‘I know that kind of nothing. Let me guess. About this tall’ – he gestured to just beneath his shoulders – ‘bright blue eyes. Feisty temper. Someone who knows you almost as well as I do?’

‘Sienna doesn’t know me any more,’ Aiden dismissed, not bothering to pretend he didn’t know who his brother was talking about. ‘We haven’t spoken since you and I left town.’

‘So?’

‘So?’ Aiden shrugged. ‘What’s your point?’

‘I guess just that it must be nice to see her again. You guys were always tight.’

Aiden ground his teeth. Tight didn’t begin to describe what Sienna and he had been like. What he’d thought – back then, as a stupid kid – they’d always be like.

‘Yeah, well, we’re not now.’

‘I can see that. How come?’

‘Come on, bro. Give it a break.’

‘I just mean… you’re here for a week. With her.’

‘And?’

‘And, you’re single. So’s she.’

‘How do you know?’ He thought back to the noncommittal way Sienna had answered the question with a sense of dissatisfaction.