Page 5 of Sweet Sinners

Chapter three

Connor

T he greenhouse smelled like earth and regret—rich soil, damp leaves, and the metallic tang of sweat clinging to my skin.

The sun wasn't up yet, but the horizon glowed faintly, promising another day I wasn't ready to face.

My trowel bit into the dirt beneath the rosebush, each repetitive motion anchoring me to something real.

Something better than staring at my ceiling all night, the weight of the ankle monitor pressing into my skin, a constant, punishing reminder that freedom was just another distant memory.

Old man Stavros’s voice still echoed in my head from earlier, sharp and cold: Earn your keep.

He'd dragged me out of bed and dropped me here like one of his employees. Maybe that’s exactly what I was now.

Manual labor, babysat by thorns and dirt—it wasn't punishment exactly, but it was pretty damn close .

I loosened the soil around the rosebush, sharp thorns grazing my fingers. A bead of blood welled up, bright red, but I didn’t flinch. The sting was a relief, grounding me, drowning out the endless noise in my head.

Last night's argument with Cali kept replaying in my mind, a tape I couldn't shut off. Her words sliced deeper than any accusation a courtroom ever hurled at me.

You were accused of murdering our parents, Connor. How do you expect me to forget that?

I didn't give a shit what people thought.

I'd stopped caring in high school. But something about the way she'd looked at me last night—anger tangled with something else, something I couldn’t place—had burrowed under my skin and stayed there. Maybe it was because I hadn’t seen her in years, and now here she was: older, stronger, standing tall in the ruins of the empire her father left behind.

My grip tightened around the trowel, knuckles white, as I stared at the neat rows of carefully labeled plants in front of me.

The last thing I needed was to think about Cali Stavros right now, but my brain had other ideas.

Her hair was longer, her features sharper, more confident.

She wasn't the quiet, cautious girl I'd once known.

Now she was something else entirely—something dangerous, something tempting.

Something I didn’t know how to handle.

The greenhouse door creaked open, breaking through my thoughts. I turned, a shadow falling across me, and there she was.

Cali.

She stood framed by the soft glow of dawn, her silhouette outlined by the muted light filtering through the glass.

Jeans hugging her hips, a loose shirt, her hair piled messily into a bun, a few stray strands framing her face.

Casual, yet somehow she still looked like she owned the whole damn world—or at least this piece of it.

She held a book loosely at her side, its worn edges and dog-eared pages telling me she'd read it again and again.

The book rested gently against her hip, the gesture casual yet strangely commanding, as if she belonged here without question—even now, even with me standing here.

“What are you doing here?” My voice came out sharper than I'd intended.

She raised an eyebrow, her tone laced with cool defiance. “Last I checked, this is still my house.”

I sighed, tossing the trowel aside and brushing the dirt off my palms. “I meant here , Cali. The greenhouse. Didn’t think you’d want to see me after last night.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly, tracing over me like she was daring me to flinch first. Silence tightened between us, pulled taut and ready to snap.

Eventually, she took a measured step forward.

“The last thing I’m going to do is tiptoe and hide around my own house.

” Her voice had bite, but beneath it flickered something softer, something uncertain.

She gestured vaguely behind her. “Besides, I used to read here.”

My gaze drifted toward the back corner she pointed out, the one I'd barely registered earlier. It hadn’t noticed it back then when my mother practically lived in this greenhouse, this had Cali written all over it.

A white wicker couch sat quietly beneath sun-stained glass, cushions a bright splash of yellow, now faded with time and dust. Beside it stood a small wooden table, a couple of old books stacked neatly on top, their covers worn and curled from neglect.

It looked abandoned, frozen in time, like a memory she hadn’t revisited in years.

Guilt prickled beneath my skin. The only times I’d ever stepped foot in here were to drag my mother out. I'd never wandered deeper, never even realized Cali had carved out her own sanctuary here .

Cali’s voice drew me back, sharp enough to cut. “Didn’t expect to find you playing gardener,” she snapped.

I shrugged slowly, meeting her eyes with a quiet challenge. “What can I say? I’m full of surprises.”

My eyes slid over her before I could stop myself.

The denim hugged her curves perfectly, teasing at the hips, and strands of hair fell loose from her messy bun, framing that face felt painfully familiar, yet different enough to leave me restless.

Her eyes sparked with defiance, daring me to look a little longer.

She caught me staring and lifted a brow, a silent challenge gleaming in her gaze. "What?"

I cleared my throat, looking away. "You’ve grown up."

“So have you,” she shot back, her voice sharp but layered with something softer—something cautious.

She stepped closer, her perfume mingling with the earthy scent of the greenhouse, a gentle floral note that felt out of place among the dirt and sweat.

"But gardening? Really? Didn’t peg you as the nurturing type. "

I smirked, spinning the trowel lazily between my fingers. "I have layers, Cali. You’ve just never cared enough to peel them back." No fucking way was I admitting her grandfather had forced me into this.

Her eyes narrowed, studying me as if she could see past every wall I'd ever built. "Why would I?" she murmured, her voice low and challenging.

I held her gaze, refusing to give her the satisfaction of an answer. "Good question."

Her gaze slid briefly to the rosebush I'd been working on, as if she was searching for something beneath the surface. Something I wasn't sure I wanted her to find. Then she straightened, her guard slipping firmly back into place .

Her attention shifted briefly to the rose bush I'd been digging around, uncertainty flickering behind her eyes. But it was gone as fast as it came, replaced by cool indifference as she turned for the door. "Just don’t mess up my books."