Page 37 of Hot Mic

She walked out.

Sienna and Robin looked at each other.

‘Great,’ Sienna said. ‘Fresh fuckery.’

‘I thought she was cancelling us,’ Robin said. ‘I don’t even get the point of this.’

‘I think the point is just to create chaos.’

‘What kind of chaos?’ Robin asked.

Sienna knew it was paranoid, but she wondered if Gemma and Dora had smelled Sienna’s growing attraction to Robin somehow. Was this all some horrid attempt to provoke jealousy?

If it was, they wouldn’t get what they wanted. Sienna was going to reason her way out of this madness. It could never work between her and Robin, Sienna knew. They could never fit. They were far too different. You didn’t just toss that knowledge out because someone had twinkly blue eyes, cartoonishly adorable dimples and a voice that was pure sex.

‘I don’t know,’ Sienna said. ‘But I guess we don’t have a choice.’

‘Do we ever?’ Robin asked with a groan.

No, Sienna thought. We most certainly don’t.

Thirty

Robin fully intended to give this date a fair shot. After all, why not? If they actually liked each other, what a story it would make for the grandkids.

And it seemed like a good match. Valeska was a sun-kissed travel photographer with warm hazel eyes and a lovely laugh. She was easy to talk to, completely unpretentious, and really listened when Robin spoke.

The slight hitch in the plan was twenty feet across the dimly lit dining room, dressed in a sharp maroon suit that made her look infuriatingly gorgeous, talking to a leggy woman who was dressed as immaculately as Sienna. Robin wondered, for the first time in her life, if she dressed like a child.

‘So anyway,’ Valeska was saying, ‘that was how I ended up spending three days stuck in a sand dune outside Joshua Tree.’

‘That sounds incredible,’ Robin said, forcing her focus back to her table. She offered a warm smile, but her gaze flicked right back over Valeska’s shoulder. Sienna was currently pouring water into a glass from a bottle.

Valeska turned slightly, glancing across the dining room toward Sienna’s table before turning back with an amused grin. ‘Is someone at that table sending you messages in semaphore? Because you keep looking behind me.’

Robin let out a defensive little laugh, leaning in closer to Valeska. ‘Just checking out how my co-host is getting on. She’s very tightly wound; I just wanted to see what she looked like when attempting romance.’

Valeska laughed, taking the bait. ‘She looks like the kind of person who irons her socks.’

‘Oh, you have no idea,’ Robin pushed on. She pitched her voice into a robotic monotone that actually wasn’t anything like Sienna’s warm tone. ‘Per Clause 4.2, emotional vulnerability is strictly prohibited without prior written consent.’

Valeska scoffed, shaking her head. ‘Jesus. Sounds insufferable. How do you even stand working with her?’

Robin’s smile instantly froze. She looked across the room at Sienna, nervously sipping water. Sienna wasn’t a robot. She was someone who had been hurt so deeply that structure was the only thing keeping her safe.

And Robin was sitting here, handing Sienna’s vulnerabilities to a total stranger like cheap entertainment.

A wave of self-loathing washed over Robin.

‘She’s... she’s actually not that bad,’ Robin said.

Valeska blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift in energy. ‘Oh. I thought we were just joking...’

‘We were,’ Robin murmured, staring down at her napkin, her fingers tightening into a fist in her lap. ‘I was.’

Across the room, Sienna turned her head, her dark eyes briefly sweeping the restaurant. For two seconds, their gazes locked across the floor. Sienna didn’t smile, but her expression softened by a fraction before she turned back to her date.

Robin swallowed hard, her chest aching as she looked back at Valeska with a tight, apologetic smile.