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

EIGHT MONTHS LATER

‘Okay, I’ve been thinking.’ Astrid, a hand pressed to her slightly rounded, five-months-pregnant stomach, was the picture of pre-marital bliss, all gorgeous and dewy skinned, hair glossy, cheeks flushed with an overall sense of life-delirium.

Even half a continent away, through the pixels of a group video chat, she freaking glowed like a bulb .

‘ We’ve been thinking,’ Bella interrupted with a wink.

Paige nodded solicitously, so in the space of a few seconds, Sienna had a sinking sensation that she was on the receiving end of a very well-intentioned good ol’ fashioned gang-up.

‘Yeah?’ she asked, eyes lifting to the clock above the door. It was almost five. ‘Well, spill it quickly, ’cause my shift starts in thirty and I still need to shower.’

‘We think you should get your own revenge,’ Paige blurted.

Sienna’s brows furrowed. ‘You know I’m working on that.

Harvey the Horrible is well and truly in my sights, believe me.

’ It was true. She’d been digging. Planning, for months.

The problem was, someone like Harvey was almost God-like in Silicon Valley circles.

She wasn’t sure she had any actual way to get to him, even if she could formulate a perfect revenge plan.

But no way was she going to break that to Paige.

Or Olly, come to think of it, who’d started a separate side chat with Sienna, to help brainstorm ideas for revenge.

Paige’s eyes softened with something like gratitude. ‘I know.’

‘I mean it. I’m going to get him.’ If only she could work out how. This guy was like some kind of digital fortress. Or royalty. Even gaining access to him was almost impossible, but Sienna was determined not to fail. The rat bastard deserved whatever comeuppance Sienna could dish out.

‘Anyway,’ Paige said. ‘That’s not what we mean.’

‘No?’

‘Nope.’ Astrid shook her head.

Sienna’s brows lifted. ‘Then what?’

‘In precisely two weeks, you’ll be at the wedding.

’ The wedding of Astrid – who just happened to have fallen head over heels for Blake, AKA Aiden Carter’s twin brother – was highlighted on her calendar in big red ink.

Not just because she was a bridesmaid and bestie, but because she knew the moment she’d been dreading since Astrid and Blake found their HEA was almost upon her.

She’d have to come face to face with Aiden again. There was no avoiding it.

Sienna blinked. ‘And?’

‘Annnnnd,’ Bella cut in, her clipped socialite accent ever so slightly impatient. ‘So will Aiden.’

‘Aiden, who broke your heart, Aiden,’ Paige said helpfully.

‘Thank you for that reminder.’ Sienna shook her head, blonde hair flipping softly around her, but one side of her lips lifted with easy affection.

‘And we think you should get your own payback. On Aiden .’

‘Come on, you guys,’ Sienna said, rolling her eyes. ‘Don’t you think he’ll work out what’s going on?’

‘How could he? He has no idea about this.’ Bella did a little circle with her fingers, indicating the Karma Club.

Sienna glanced at Astrid, who nodded her confirmation.

She knew Astrid had told Blake everything about their Strangers on a Train -style plan for romantic retributions, and that Blake and Astrid had agreed there was no point dredging any of it up to Aiden, that instead they’d simply brushed over Sienna and Astrid being friends as one of life’s uncanny coincidences.

He knew they’d met at an airport, months before Astrid had met Blake, and for the sake of protecting Sienna, they’d told a white lie: that Astrid hadn’t known anything about Sienna’s connection to Aiden and Blake until Astrid had gone to Ashbury Falls to meet the twins’ father.

It was a fudging of the truth, and the only way Astrid had been able to protect Sienna from Aiden knowing the truth about how much his rejection still hurt.

‘It’s just a bit of harmless fun,’ Paige assured her.

‘Nothing sinister,’ Bella chimed in.

‘Blake thinks it’s a good idea,’ Astrid promised, almost sealing the deal.

Sienna sat up a little straighter as a litany of ideas floated through her mind.

Bleaching his wedding tux right before the ceremony, or putting laxatives in his slice of cake, or smearing his shoes with doggie poop, or…

‘But it’s your wedding .’ She stopped her thought train hard in its tracks to address the effervescent Astrid.

‘I can’t do anything that will mess it up.

I would never do that to you, or Blake.’

‘That’s not exactly what we’re suggesting,’ Bella insisted, leaning a little closer to her screen, coffee cup in hand. ‘Let’s cut to the chase,’ she began, and Sienna couldn’t help holding her breath as Bella began to outline their well-developed plan.

* * *

Which was how, almost two weeks later, Sienna found herself in one of Manhattan’s premier spas, surrounded by the Karma Club Mayhem Makers, the women she’d randomly met at an airport the December prior, and somehow become ride or die besties with over the space of a few hours (and several bottles of bubbles).

Their bond had only got stronger since that one fateful meeting, despite the fact this was only one of a few times they’d actually been face to face since that night.

Travelling wasn’t easy for Sienna. She scrimped and saved everything she earned to cover her living expenses and pay off her degree.

Without a little help from her friends and their airmiles, she would have struggled to make any of the previous trips.

This, though, wasn’t just an ordinary trip.

It was Astrid’s wedding, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do for her – or any of these girls.

Even submitting to a total glam up.

So, her hair had been foiled and trimmed, given some kind of weird treatment that smelled like buttercream frosting, so even though she knew she shouldn’t and couldn’t eat her own hair, it was making her ravenous for all the sweet things anyway.

Her face and body had both been slathered in mud-like mixtures, her slender limbs had been wrapped in kelp, then exfoliated by an army of women who kept exclaiming over how ‘wonderful’ everything was making her look.

Who needed a fairy godmother when there was the make-over mafia?

It was, Sienna decided, if not precisely torture, pretty damned close to it.

For a woman who’d always been more comfortable knocking around in a pair of faded jeans and a tee, this level of beauty preparation made her head spin.

Not to mention being glued to a seat for well over an hour while several technicians did her fingers and toes.

Even her eyebrows had been whipped into submission.

Thank God she was naturally tanned and therefore escaped the ‘little bit of bronze’ one of the beauticians was determined to administer.

Astrid had evidently taken pity on her at that point, and suggested they have a drink by the pool instead, even if her own drink would be a mocktail owing to her pregnancy.

‘Much more my speed,’ Sienna confided, admiring the luscious green palms that grew from big white pots, sprinkled around the swimming area.

‘I know, it’s gruelling,’ Bella admitted. ‘But totally worth it. You look a million bucks.’

Sienna’s lips pulled to the side. She had felt like one of her pseudo step-daughter Melanie’s old Barbie dolls for most of the day, but the effects had, she grudgingly admitted, been worth it.

Having spent several years pretending – even to herself – not to notice how glossy Aiden’s girlfriends all looked, she had to admit, she’d sort of morphed into one of them.

‘I’m still me.’ She shrugged, looking down at the oversized robe that engulfed her petite frame.

‘Yes, love, but also kind of new and improved.’ Astrid winked, before reaching down beside her seat and pulling out several large bags. Sienna didn’t have to be a Vogue reader to recognise the couture brands.

‘What are those?’ She couldn’t keep the wariness from her voice.

‘Think of them as your costumes.’ Astrid encouraged.

Sienna stared at her friends blankly.

‘For the wedding.’

‘I… don’t need a costume.’ She glanced from Astrid to Bella to Paige. Three faces looked back at her with ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ expressions. ‘It’s not themed, right? Tell me it’s not themed.’

Bella’s laugh was good natured. ‘Did we, or did we not, agree that you are going to spend the whole weekend making Aiden absolutely drool at the sight of you?’

‘And wish he could go back in time and never walk out on you?’ Astrid added.

‘And just generally regret every single life decision of his since then?’ Paige chimed in.

‘And then get him right where you want him, eating out of the palm of your hand, so you can be the one to walk away?’ Bella finished with a wide-eyed innocence that was all assumed.

‘But, you guys, I mean, come on.’

‘What?’ Paige demanded, indignation on her face. ‘I thought you liked the plan?’

‘I do. I really do. I love you guys for thinking this could ever work. But I’m nothing to Aiden any more. Just some girl he walked out on about a million years ago.’

Paige snorted. ‘More fool him.’

‘I’m serious. And haven’t we learned that we’re not exactly the master revenge getters we thought? I mean, it’s taking me forever to get what I need on Horrible Harvey.’