Page 6 of Sweet Sinners

Chapter four

Cali

H e was insufferable. Every word from his mouth, every slight arch of his brow, every measured breath seemed perfectly designed to crawl under my skin.

And the way he watched me… His gaze was intrusive, relentless, like he was hunting for secrets I wasn't willing to share.

Instinctively, I tightened my grip on the self-help book in my hands, pressing it against my chest like a flimsy shield against his prying eyes.

The the scent of blooming roses and damp, fresh soil—a scent that usually eased the knot in my chest, wrapped around me as I kept walking on.

This place was my sanctuary, my escape. Here, I could sink into words and forget the pressure of tomorrow.

My first day as CEO loomed ahead, heavy and suffocating, and this was supposed to be my last chance to breathe.

But with Connor so close, calm felt impossible.

I could feel his eyes burning into my back, his silence filling every inch of space between us, louder than any spoken words. And that damn comment earlier ' You've grown up' had burrowed beneath my skin, making me acutely aware that he had, too.

The angry, brooding boy I used to avoid at family dinners had disappeared, replaced by someone sharper, harder, more dangerous.

His frame was lean but solid now, muscles defined beneath his white shirt, every line tight and deliberate.

I wondered briefly if prison had been good to him in some twisted way, giving him endless time to build himself up. To reflect. To change .

His hair was shorter now, cropped close instead of the messy strands his mother used to scold him about.

Did he miss her? He had to, right? I remembered my mother, the slow, painful loss to leukemia, the quiet songs she sang to comfort me at night.

Did Connor’s mother ever sing to him like that?

I’d only ever seen him smile around her, soft, genuine, away from my father’s shadow.

Maybe I was looking at this all wrong. Maybe he didn’t kill her out of anger, maybe, in his twisted logic, he thought he was protecting her.

Get a grip. I scolded myself, pushing the thought away.

"Running away, Cali?" His voice sliced through the humid air, dark and mocking. I was steps away from the greenhouse door—steps away from escape—but his words made me pause, my fingers tightening around my book. I didn’t turn around. Didn’t answer.

Didn’t dare give him the satisfaction of seeing he'd gotten under my skin.

He scoffed, clearly irritated at my silence. "What, are you afraid I’m gonna slit your throat, too?"

I froze, breath catching in my chest as the brutal words hit me with all the subtlety of a slap. Slowly, my body turned toward him, the blood draining from my face, my heart stuttering painfully against my ribs.

That’s how our parents had died.

Throats slit. Blood painting the floors. A suffocating, endless silence swallowing our lives whole.

And now he had the fucking nerve to joke about it?

I stared at him, my chest rising and falling rapidly, the shock morphing quickly into white-hot anger. I searched his eyes for regret, for an apology—something human—but found only defiance and a deep, twisted ache lurking behind it.

The silence stretched thick between us, heavy and suffocating, amplified by the dense, sticky air of the greenhouse.

My mind flashed back to the first time we'd met—two teenagers forced into a ready-made family neither of us asked for.

Supposedly picture-perfect, but this family had never known perfection.

Every forced dinner, every shared holiday, was just another reminder of what we weren't.

And now here we stood, years later, trapped together in the same stifling space, still dragging the weight of that bitter history.

His careless words sliced deeper with every passing second, echoing inside my skull until I felt raw and exposed.

That joke—if it could even be called that—wasn’t funny.

It was a knife twisted deep into a wound I’d spent years desperately trying to heal.

The deaths of our parents weren't some sick punchline.

And hearing it from him—the one everyone accused, the one I'd spent years blaming—felt painfully personal.

My eyes fell to the ankle bracelet strapped to his leg, its dull metallic sheen catching the muted morning light.

It wasn't just a tether binding him to this house, it was a constant, unrelenting reminder of every year he'd lost. Proof that, no matter what the jury said, he would always be tied to that night, always carrying its weight.

Yet it wasn't for our parents' murders. Not officially. The jury had cleared him of that, but prison had its own brand of justice. Maybe he'd hurt someone inside, bad enough to earn three years behind bars and house arrest. Or maybe it was something else entirely. I didn't know.

And I didn't care.

I’d never looked into the details. Didn’t want to.

Blaming him for our parents' deaths had been easy, comfortable even.

Far easier than considering that the truth might be complicated—or worse, that it might not even exist. Now, standing inches away from him, I regretted not knowing.

I'd spent years so fixated on what I believed he'd done that I ignored the undeniable fact that Connor wasn't innocent. Even if he hadn’t shattered my family, he'd shattered someone else’s.

He wasn't a good person.

And now, I knew that for sure.

The greenhouse suddenly felt suffocating, the thick, damp air pressing into me, clawing at my skin.

Without a word, I turned toward the door again, needing space, needing to escape the confusion swirling through my chest. Every step felt heavier than the last, weighed down by anger and what I could only assume was resentment.

Did I resent him?

Maybe.

But the truth wasn't neat enough for resentment alone.

I'd never fully believed he could've done it—could've taken their lives—but doubt had always lingered at the edges of my certainty.

Too many gaps, too many unanswered questions.

Even the police couldn't piece it together completely.

That much was obvious, he was here, wasn't he?

The irony wasn't lost on me. My memories of my father weren't warm; they weren't something I clung to. After my mother died, he became distant, consumed by the empire he'd built. Our relationship had been reduced to holiday greetings and stiff, forced hugs that felt more obligatory than loving.

Maybe that emptiness, that lack of connection, was why everything felt so tangled now. Why doubt and blame found it so easy to coexist, even when neither fully fit.

Lost in thought, I didn’t see his shadow move closer until it was too late. A strong grip closed around my wrist, stopping me in my tracks.

I spun around, and suddenly Connor was right there, his face mere inches from mine, his fingers searing into my skin. The intensity in his emerald eyes sent heat flooding my cheeks, the warmth of his breath grazing me when he spoke.

“Careful,” he murmured, his voice softer than I'd ever heard it, almost gentle. His grip loosened but didn’t fall away. “You were about to crush the hyacinth bulbs.”

I followed his gaze toward a large pot filled with vibrant violet blossoms. Recognition hit me instantly, his mother's gentle warning not to touch them barehanded, my stubbornness resulting in a miserable week with swollen eyes.

The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, like he knew exactly what I was remembering, like he could read every thought inside my head.

I yanked my wrist away sharply, my pulse racing as I turned without saying a word. My cheeks burned, and frustration twisted painfully through my chest.

“You’re welcome,” he called after me, his voice low and maddeningly unreadable.

I didn’ t stop. I didn’t look back. Whatever the hell had just passed between us, I wanted no part of it.