Page 13 of Settling the Score (The Karma Club #4)

‘But you didn’t leave.’ Chuck addressed Sienna, drawing her attention back to him.

She tried to focus on him. On his handsome face, his charming smile, the fact he was clearly into her.

She tried to blot out Aiden, but she couldn’t.

He was like this big, hulking figure just to her left, and even his footsteps were pissing her off.

She stopped walking and jammed a hand onto her hip.

‘No.’ She looked only at Chuck as she spoke.

‘We didn’t all get headhunted for a scholarship by some huge college.

Some of us didn’t have any marketable skills,’ she finished on a soft laugh, to take the sting out of what she’d said.

‘Anyway’ – she pointed to the moon – ‘I’ve seen what I came to see, so…

goodnight.’ She turned before either of them could respond, stalking back to the mansion and forgetting all about wiggling her hips as she went.

* * *

‘What happened?’ Bella came in first, holding a tray with a teapot and four cups.

Astrid followed with a bottle of champagne and three flutes. ‘We thought we’d cover all our bases,’ she said with a shrug as Paige followed.

‘Aiden looks pissed.’

‘Aiden looks pissed?’ Sienna demanded. ‘That’s pretty freakin’ rich!’

‘What happened?’ Bella repeated, holding a teacup towards Sienna. She took it and cradled it in her hands.

‘He just decided it would be a good idea to insult my entire existence, pretty much,’ she muttered.

‘He didn’t!’ Paige’s eyes were huge as she sat, cross-legged, on the edge of the bed.

‘I’m sure he didn’t mean it,’ Astrid defended, clearly torn between her future brother-in-law and her best friend.

‘Oh, he did. He absolutely did. Bitching about our town like it’s… like it’s… we didn’t all get the chance to leave, you know. I mean, even if he thinks that, would it have killed him to pretend…’ Anger fizzed inside of her. ‘And you know what else? He’s been back.’

‘What? When?’ Paige leaned forward.

‘A couple of years ago. He was in Ashbury Falls – I have no idea why – and he didn’t so much as think to look me up. Which shows precisely how much I mean to him. How much I meant to him.’ She stalked to the other side of the room, slamming her teacup down. ‘All this time, I’ve been holding onto?—’

‘Onto what, love?’ Astrid asked gently.

‘This!’ She pressed her fingers into her chest. ‘I can’t explain it. I feel like such a fool. I have been so angry with him and he just… nothings me. Nothing! Like, he doesn’t regret me, he doesn’t miss me, he doesn’t even think about me.’

‘You don’t know that,’ Bella murmured.

‘Absolutely,’ Paige concurred. ‘You can’t jump to that conclusion.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘I know he thinks about you,’ Astrid said quietly, her cheeks flushing with a hint of pink.

‘What?’ Sienna turned on Astrid at the same moment the others did. ‘What do you mean?’

‘At least, that’s what Blake says,’ she hurried to add. ‘I don’t have any details, but Blake reckons your name comes up, you know, from time to time.’

‘Well, that just means he has a memory.’ She waved her hand dismissively. ‘I was a pretty big part of his life for a few years, so at least he hasn’t forgotten that. But that doesn’t mean he feels anything for me.’

‘You don’t feel anything for him either, do you?’ Bella asked, a little breathlessly.

‘Of course I do!’ Sienna contradicted, reaching for her tea and taking a quick sip. ‘I feel hatred and rage and anger and disgust and disappointment and… and…’

‘Okay,’ Bella laughed softly, lifting her hands in the air. ‘I get it.’

‘You guys, you don’t know what it was like back then,’ she whispered, glancing at Astrid, who was the only one of the group she’d told the whole sordid truth to.

But maybe that wasn’t fair. Because she hated him more than they could possibly understand, given what they knew of the situation, not to mention Aiden ‘Charm Your Panties Off’ Carter’s easy-going schtick.

‘You know we always planned for our future together. I know we were just teenagers, but it didn’t feel like that. It felt like two people who’d found their soulmates and were just stepping, side by side, into the future they knew they had to share. It all just felt so right.’

Three pairs of eyes were on her.

‘We came from kind of similar families. I mean, not completely. My dad was never violent, but… he drank, after Mom died. He was sort of pulled apart by her death. I was alone, and in a lot of ways, so was Aiden. He didn’t feel like anyone got him, even Blake.

They weren’t always as close as they are now.

’ Her eyes lifted to Astrid’s. She wasn’t going to go into Blake’s past, and the wrong path he’d taken as a teenager.

‘Aiden and I were like… it sounds so corny… but just… like bookends.’

She fidgeted her fingers. ‘I remember every detail of the night we… you know. For the first time. It was so… it felt, at the time, so incredible. We were young and in love.’ Her smile was self-deprecating.

‘And then, a few months later, he and Blake got an amazing scholarship offer from an interstate college, the kind that’s too good to turn down. He told me he was leaving.’

‘That must have killed you,’ Bella murmured.

‘No, I was excited for him. I knew how much he wanted that; how much he’d worked for it.

I still had a year left of school, I couldn’t go with him, but I thought…

’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘Except, he wanted a clean break. To focus on his career. He said he had to give it a good shot, you know? He made out that it was for me – that it wasn’t fair to make me commit to a long-distance relationship when he had no intention of coming back to Ashbury Falls, ever, and I had no plans – no ability – to leave.

I mean, I used to talk about studying medicine, but the truth is, there was no way we could afford college, and my chances of getting a scholarship were pretty dismal.

’ She swallowed to banish the threat of tears.

How could he still affect her like this?

‘He left. I couldn’t believe it. I was… numb. It happened so fast, and he just seemed so sure. Like there wasn’t a single moment of doubt for him, of wondering if he should stay for me, or if we could somehow make long distance work. He just left…’ She shook her head. ‘And then, I got sick.’

‘Sick?’ Bella leaned forward, her experience with her sister Bea’s illness something that had left Bella with a particular anxiety around illness.

‘Morning sickness,’ she muttered, eyes lifting to Astrid’s – the only one who knew the truth of how awful that time in Sienna’s life had been. ‘I was pregnant.’

Paige gasped. ‘You weren’t.’

‘Oh, yeah.’ She pressed a hand to her flat stomach, remembering the moment she’d realised and felt an instant connection to their baby. The baby she and Aiden had made. She dug her nails into her palm – hard – to drive away the threat of tears.

‘What happened?’ Bella asked.

‘I tried to tell him, but Aiden wouldn’t take my calls. Eventually, he sent me a text reiterating that a clean break was for the best. Telling me not to call again.’ She cleared her throat.

‘Bastard,’ Paige muttered, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.’

Sienna shook her head, unable to take the platitude. ‘And then, I lost the baby,’ she said, shrugging and dropping her head forward. ‘So, he was off the hook anyhow.’

Now it was Bella who gasped. ‘And you had to deal with that, all alone?’

She swallowed, looking away. ‘Yep.’

‘Does he have any idea?’ Paige asked.

Sienna shook her head at the same time Astrid said, ‘No one does, right?’

‘No one but you guys, now,’ Sienna agreed.

‘Oh, God.’ Bella stalked towards Sienna, putting her hands on her friend’s arms. ‘I hate him, too, now.’

‘Me too,’ Paige added.

Astrid, perhaps out of loyalty to Blake, didn’t pile onto the hatred, but she came to stand beside Sienna, putting a hand between her shoulder blades and rubbing slowly.

‘Anyway,’ Sienna said into the silence. ‘The way he’s just moved on, the way he talked about our town – my town – like it was some kind of shit on his shoe, the fact he just cut me out of his life when I could never do that to him…’

‘Yeah,’ Bella said on a low whistle. ‘What a piece of work.’

‘We have to take him down,’ Paige murmured.

‘Paige’ – Astrid’s voice held a warning – ‘what have you got in mind?’

‘Nothing that will ruin the wedding, I promise,’ she swore.

‘On red velvet cakes and just dessert?’ Sienna asked and then, despite the heaviness of the mood, they were giggling.

‘Fuck this tea,’ Bella muttered. ‘Let’s have some bubbles.’

‘Yes, let’s,’ Sienna agreed.

‘Because if we know anything, it’s that we do our best work over a bottle,’ Bella chimed in.

‘And Aiden Carter is worthy of our very best work,’ Paige said. ‘This time, no one’s going to fall in love with him to save his sorry ass, either. He’s going to be the first successful victim of the Karma Club.’

‘But not the last,’ Sienna promised Paige, whose Horrible Harvey was the worst of the worst, in all their opinions.

Frustration at her inability to penetrate his cast-iron defences bubbled to the surface anew, but she put it on hold.

For this week, her focus was Aiden – and Astrid and Blake, of course.

When she got back to Ashbury Falls, she’d resume Operation Make the Scumbag Pay Big Time.

‘Okay, members, come to order,’ Bella said, lifting the bottle of champagne in the air. ‘All those in favour of settling the score with Aiden the Asswipe, say “aye”.’

‘Aye,’ they said in unison, laughing a little as Bella filled up three of the glasses and they set to work, coming up with some foolproof ways to get under the skin of the man who’d not only broken Sienna’s heart, but failed to support her when her whole world came crashing down.