Page 22 of Settling the Score (The Karma Club #4)

Just like the kiss hadn’t bothered her, when it had been bothering the bejeezus out of him ever since.

He grudgingly cut across the room, to the seats they’d chosen.

There was an empty one beside his mother, and another beside Sienna.

He had to make a split-second decision – did he want to be next to her?

Or across from her? Was it better to be conscious of how close they were, or to constantly be able to stare at her?

‘There you are, darling.’ His mother made the choice for him, nodding at the seat to Sienna’s left. ‘That will do just fine.’

He ground his teeth as he pulled out the seat, plonking himself down, aware as he had been at each of these damned meals that the spindly chairs were not designed for someone of his build in mind.

A glance down the table showed a few of them in the same boat.

Blake, Edvin, and Danny all seemed to be sitting with the same caution he was.

‘Sienna was just telling me about her studies,’ his mother said, flagging down a waiter and lifting her hand in a mime of drinking.

The waiter nodded and disappeared.

‘You’re studying?’ The second he asked the question, he realised he’d been avoiding asking her anything like this. If he could keep her to some two-dimensional rendering in his mind, then she’d be that much easier to hold in the tightly sealed box he’d mentally shoved her into all those years ago.

‘Law,’ she said, reaching for a bread roll and breaking it in half. Her eyes didn’t quite meet his though. He wondered about that. Maybe she wasn’t as unbothered as he thought.

‘What happened to medicine, anyway?’

‘I went off the idea.’

‘Why?’

The waiter returned with a bottle of Italian white, and began to fill the glasses. He was vaguely aware of Chuck coming to sit opposite him, beside Cynthia.

‘Hey, I’m Chuck. Friend of the groom,’ Chuck said, grinning at Cynthia.

‘Cynthia, mother of the groom,’ Cynthia replied, holding her hand out to shake. ‘And I’ve heard all about you. It’s lovely to put a face to the name.’ She turned back to Sienna and Aiden. ‘Have you met Sienna?’

‘They’ve met,’ Aiden responded, gut rolling as he remembered the sight of them coming back from their run, standing close. It had felt like a punch in the gut to see them looking so damned good together. So right.

‘Chuck’s my groomsman, for the wedding,’ Sienna responded, smiling easily. Beneath the table, his hand formed a fist on his knee. Conversation moved on, to talk of Chuck, and his work, and Sienna responded to all of it as though they were old, comfortable friends.

He hadn’t seen this side of her.

Back then, she’d been a kid, still growing into herself.

But now, she was an adult woman. And a knock-out.

It was hardly surprising to realise she was comfortable with guys hitting on her.

But she was even charming his mother. That wasn’t really a shock either, but somehow, he’d expected Sienna might find it hard to connect with the other woman, who was so reminiscent of a time in their lives that maybe – he might have thought – she’d want to forget.

Evidently not.

‘Okay, quieten down,’ Blake said, scraping back the spindly chair and standing at the head of the table, while a beaming Astrid looked on with pride. ‘We’re just a few days from the wedding – it’s too late to back out now, Twinkle Toes.’ He grinned at his clearly loved-up bride.

‘It’s never too late,’ she admonished. ‘But I’m not even contemplating it.’

‘You have no idea how glad I am to hear that,’ he said, voice gruff.

Aiden glanced across at his mother; she had a starry look in her eyes, like seeing Blake so happy and in love was the epitome of her wildest dreams. Of their own volition, his eyes roamed further sideways, to Sienna.

She was looking at Blake, a beatific smile on her face.

But when she sensed Aiden looking at her, and she glanced at him instead, the smile slipped for a moment, and her lips parted on an exhalation of surprise.

‘So, we have some more fun and games planned – just think of us as your friendly cruise directors.’ He grinned.

‘There’ll also be an excursion off island, the day after tomorrow.

You should all have got the options in the schedule Bella emailed around.

’ Aiden looked back at Blake in time to see him wink at the blonde friend.

‘There’s a survey link you can respond to by tomorrow night,’ Bella said, her voice cutting across the room with natural authority. ‘To get a gauge of numbers.’

‘Right.’ Blake added.

‘But you can also stick around on the island and just chill out,’ Astrid said. ‘This isn’t camp. No compulsory activities.’

‘Except the wedding,’ Paige interjected.

‘Yeah, that would be good.’ Blake nodded.

‘Anyway, now that everyone’s here’ – he looked specifically at Cynthia Carter then – ‘we just wanted to say – thank you. Thank you for coming and sharing this with us. Thank you for understanding that for two people who never really wanted the big white wedding, the idea of sharing this day not just with each other but with the most important people in our lives, is the icing on the cake of the best damned adventure we’d ever imagined.

’ He turned to look at Astrid. ‘The thing is, I never thought it would be like this.’ It was like he’d tuned out everyone in the whole room.

She seemed to have as well, if the intense way she was staring at Blake was anything to go by.

‘I’ve been to a million weddings and never really understood it, until I met you.

And I realised I’d been living some kind of half-life this whole time.

That meeting you really woke me up, made everything make sense.

Astrid, you and this baby are everything to me. I freaking love you.’

Astrid’s eyes teared up, and she nodded, apparently lost for words.

He heard a sound and glanced over to see his mother had clapped her hands together and was holding them to her chest. There was a huge cheer, punctuated by a loud ‘Whoop!’ that had come from Sienna’s tiny frame.

Conversation resumed, and Blake negotiated his bulky frame back into the tiny chair.

Chuck let out a low whistle. ‘He almost makes it sound appealing, huh?’

‘What’s that, dear?’ Cynthia asked, taking a sip of her wine as she dabbed at the corners of her eyes.

‘Marriage.’ Chuck’s eyes were settled firmly on Aiden then. ‘What do you think? Reckon you’ll ever sign up for a walk down the aisle?’

Did he imagine Sienna stiffening beside him? On autopilot, he glanced at her, but she was busy toying with the tablecloth.

‘Nah.’ He found the word strangely hard to say. He cleared his throat. ‘It’s not for me.’

‘Oh, Aiden.’ Cynthia tsked. ‘Don’t be absurd. Marriage can be for anyone.’

He compressed his lips.

‘You just haven’t met the right person,’ Cynthia continued – unhelpfully. Because beside him sat someone who might very well have been the ‘right’ person if he’d been a little less fucked up about marriage and his ability to not turn into his father the asshole.

‘It’s not that,’ he said, reaching for his own wine and taking a gulp. ‘I’ve just always known – I’m not the marrying sort.’

Beside him, Sienna shifted a little. From discomfort? God knew he was feeling it.

‘What about you, gorgeous?’ Chuck – who Aiden was quickly coming to realise had Blake’s shit-stirring personality traits but to the max – addressed Sienna. ‘Have you left some aspiring husband back in – where’d you say you were from?’

‘Ashbury Falls,’ Cynthia said, and for a moment, her features tightened and her shoulders tensed, so all the protective instincts Aiden had honed since boyhood flared to life.

‘Right.’ Chuck nodded, oblivious to the emotions he was sparking with his questions. ‘Is there a lucky guy back there, waiting for you?’

‘No one serious,’ she said, and Aiden felt a tightening in his gut. She’d said the same thing to him on the first night and it had bothered him as much then as it did now.

‘What does that mean?’ he heard himself ask, even when he was pretty sure it was none of his business.

‘It means I was seeing a guy, for a few years.’ She shrugged, but Aiden hardly noticed.

He felt like a knife was being plunged into his gut.

Was this why she seemed so unfazed by him?

She’d been seeing a guy for a few years after him?

Well, what was that if not the quintessential act of moving on?

In contrast to Aiden, who’d dated sparingly and never for long enough to know more than a woman’s full name and maybe her place of birth.

Relationships that were both superficial and transactional – in the sense that he knew what women saw in him: the ability to find the spotlight.

To draw attention to a cause, or bolster their public profile.

And he was happy to help – better than creating the impression he was anything other than Ice.

‘But it’s nothing. It’s more – he has a kid, Melanie.

I’ve basically helped raise her, since she was around three.

She’s like my step-daughter,’ Sienna said, lifting a shoulder, a smile on her face, reaching for her phone.

‘Look.’ She pulled a picture up on the screen, holding it out for Chuck and Cynthia.

Aiden dug his fingers into his thigh, relishing the spark of pain that throbbed through him at the too-hard contact.

He felt like the whole world had gone wonky, because Sienna was talking about people that were important to her, and he had no part in that.

She had a whole other life, and belonged to them, in a way.

She was a part of their lives and family.

‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Cynthia cooed. ‘Look, Aiden. What a lovely girl.’

Sienna glanced up at him, biting on her lip.

With guilt? She sure looked guilty. But why would she?

What had she done wrong? Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.

They’d been broken up. Not just broken up – he’d walked out on her.

So she’d moved on, just like he’d texted her to.

Good for Sienna. And all these years he’d been carrying a gut load of guilt, feeling like he’d screwed up her life or something.

Sienna turned the phone then, showing him a photo of a girl at her twelfth birthday, going by the cake in the foreground with lots of candles on it. Sienna stood behind the girl, one arm around her shoulders, and some guy, tall and lanky, stood on the other side.

This guy? This was who she’d hooked up with after Aiden? It wasn’t like he recognised him, but he looked like a loser.

‘Who are they?’ he grunted, barely acknowledging the waiter who came and placed entrees down in front of each of them.

‘No one you know. They moved into town about six months after you left.’ Her face paled a little.

‘And you started dating him.’

Sienna sipped her wine. ‘I started babysitting for him. I needed money.’ Her cheeks flushed pink; her tone was defiant. ‘We started dating a while after that.’

‘Right.’

He speared a tip of asparagus with a bit too much force.

Emotions burled through him. Emotions like anger and rage, the kinds of emotions he never, ever let himself feel, because they scared the shit out of him.

He didn’t want to be like his father. He wouldn’t let darkness take over. He would never put anyone at risk.

But Sienna had always been capable of breaking his boundaries down.

Whether that meant making him love more fiercely than he wanted to, or fear she was – and always had been – his undoing.

He’d been given the nickname ‘Ice’ for a reason.

He was cold. Cold on the ice, cold off it. Except with her. Even now…

‘It’s nice that she has you, dear,’ Cynthia was saying, returning to the girl in the photograph.

‘Maybe. I think it’s even nicer that I have her.’

Aiden sat up straighter. His stomach dropped. His insides clenched. Because Sienna’s facade slipped, just for a second. Showing that she was fazed. She was bothered. And damn it, if the way she said that hadn’t been one of the most wistful, loneliest things he’d ever heard.