Page 51 of Mile High Ex's Dad
“That too.”
For a moment we just stand there, close enough to feel it again, that same pull from last night, quieter in daylight but no less real. Her hair is pinned up today, not perfectly, and the morning air has already loosened a few dark strands around her face.She looks tired. Beautiful too, though not in any way she seems interested in being told.
“I can take that back now.”
“You can,” I agree.
I don’t hand it over.
Her mouth twitches despite herself. “You’re enjoying this.”
“A little.”
“That’s obnoxious.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
She lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh, then catches herself, as if she has remembered too late that laughing with me is dangerous.
I should probably stop there.
Instead I say, “You’re carrying too much.”
Her expression closes a little. “It’s my job.”
“It’s also your job not to collapse before noon.”
“I’m not going to collapse.”
There it is again. That same edge in her voice whenever she thinks I’m implying weakness.
I keep my tone even. “I did not say you were weak.”
“You were thinking it.”
“No,” I say. “I was thinking you look tired.”
She opens her mouth, probably to argue, but footsteps on the gravel cut in before she can.
Camille.
And Ethan with her.
They slow when they see us standing there together. Ethan’s gaze goes first to me, then to the box in my hands, then to Sienna. Something hard and ugly flashes across his face before he smooths it away. Disgust is too simple a word for it. Possessiveness without the right to it, perhaps. Resentment. Injury. The sour look of a man who has just found the world failing to behave as he believes it should.
Camille sees it too. Of course she does. She stops in front of us with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Sienna. There you are.”
Sienna straightens almost imperceptibly. “What do you need?”
Camille’s gaze skims over the garment bags on her shoulder, the cardigan, the flat shoes practical enough for work, and then lifts again. “Nothing urgent. I only wondered whether we should ask someone else to handle the bridal suite. It’s a busy morning, and I’d hate for you to overextend yourself.” A thoughtful little pause. “You don’t exactly look… fresh.”
Sienna goes still beside me.
It is neatly done. Mean in the way women like Camille prefer. A sentence that can wear concern as a costume if anyone later asks what she meant by it.
I answer before Sienna can. “She looks perfectly capable.”
Camille turns to me with a light laugh. “I’m sure she does to you.”
