Chapter 5

Another of Adrian’s friends, Ryan Locke, gave a short laugh from the side. “What happened to you? You look like hell.”

After Damien sat down, his gaze drifted across the table to Sienna.

She looked as composed as ever. Elegant. Controlled. The sort of woman who always seemed to know exactly how much expression to show and how much to hold back.

And apparently, Claire had been slandering her downstairs.

“Guess who I ran into just now,” Damien said. “Claire.”

At the mention of her name, Adrian’s finely cut features did not shift in the slightest. One hand rested on the table, his fingers tapping the surface with idle precision.

Clearly, anything involving his wife was beneath his interest.

Sienna poured Damien a cup of tea herself. “Did the two of you have words?” she asked softly. “She’s just a woman. There’s no need to lower yourself by arguing with her.”

The fact that Sienna was still defending Claire only seemed to disgust Damien more.

He leaned back in his chair and let out a humorless laugh. “Want to hear what she’s been saying about you? It was filthy. I honestly didn’t realize jealousy could make a woman look that ugly.”

He repeated what he had overheard downstairs. Or at least the version of it he chose to repeat.

For the first time, Adrian finally reacted.

Until then, he had shown no interest at all. Now his eyes sharpened slightly, and the faintest line appeared between his brows.

“Claire said that herself?” he asked, looking over.

His voice gave nothing away.

Sienna’s expression tightened further.

“If Damien heard it himself, then it must be true,” she said quietly, answering in Claire’s place.

Ryan cursed under his breath at once. “So now she’s spreading disgusting rumors about Sienna? She’s a woman too, and this is how she acts? No wonder she’s such a failure. Seven years of throwing herself at a man who never loved her, and all she knows how to do is drag another woman down.”

After a moment, he added, “She doesn’t get to make something like that up and walk away. She owes Sienna an explanation.”

The instant Ryan said it, Sienna drew a breath and glanced toward Adrian, as though asking for permission without saying a word.

Adrian made no comment.

He only picked up his phone, rose from his seat, and stepped aside to take a call.

He was not joining in.

But he was not stopping them either.

Ryan and Damien exchanged a look. That silence told them everything they needed to know.

Sienna lowered her eyes. Satisfaction flickered briefly at the corner of her mouth.

The food had only just arrived.

Claire had barely taken a few bites when a waitress rushed over, pale with panic. “Is there a doctor here? Someone upstairs isn’t feeling well.”

Claire frowned and stood at once, instinct moving faster than thought.

“Take me to them.”

Avery stayed where she was, still replying to work messages. She had no interest in getting involved.

Claire followed the waitress to the door of a private room. Concern for the patient made her move too quickly, and she pushed the door open with more force than she meant to.

She had not realized someone was standing just inside.

The moment the door swung inward, a server carrying a sizzling cast-iron pan lost his balance, and the whole thing tipped toward her.

Claire stumbled back in alarm, only to collide with a solid chest behind her.

An arm caught her around the waist and pulled her back.

She caught the scent instantly. Cedar. Clean and cool. A scent she had once known so well it had felt like part of her own skin.

Adrian had already thrown up a hand, blocking the heavy pan before it could crash into her.

The server went white and snatched it back at once, apologizing over and over.

Claire had not expected to run into Adrian here.

She was just about to thank him.

Then she saw Sienna standing behind him.

Adrian had shielded her so completely with his body that not a drop had touched her. And on Sienna’s face, unmistakable and immediate, was displeasure at the accidental closeness between Claire and Adrian.

Claire stepped away at once, as though she had brushed against something unclean, moving out of the reach of Adrian’s arm.

Only then did Adrian look at her properly, as if something about her reaction had caught his attention.

“So you do know how to be afraid of getting hurt,” Ryan said with a laugh as he watched. “For a second there, I thought Miss Bennett didn’t have the sense for it.”

Then, with a half-smile, he added, “Good thing Adrian moved fast. He was worried Sienna might get hurt. Claire, don’t flatter yourself and think he was protecting you. That would be awkward.”

Adrian’s expression remained cool, unreadable.

He did not deny it.

Claire understood immediately.

If that pan had fallen, Sienna could have been hurt too.

Adrian had not stepped in for Claire.

He had stepped in for Sienna, and Claire had only benefited by accident.

By accident.

She had no intention of reading more into it.

She was not that pathetic.

Damien said nothing, but contempt still sat plainly in his eyes.

Claire did not yet know the full story, but something about the whole scene felt off, off in a way she recognized before she could explain it.

She turned to leave.

Then a hand closed around her wrist without warning.

Long fingers pressed against the fragile bone there, and her heart gave a hard, violent lurch. She turned back and met Adrian’s eyes.

They were cold. Shadowed.

He looked at her and said, in a voice thin enough to cut, “Apologize to Sienna.”

For a moment, it felt as though someone had poured acid straight down Claire’s throat, burning through her chest and lungs.

She held his gaze, icy and unwavering. “For what?”

“I think you know.”

Adrian seemed unwilling to repeat the ugliness aloud.

Then, almost immediately, he let go of her wrist.

Claire could guess why.

He probably did not want Sienna to see him touching her for too long.

She was not stupid. One look around the room was enough.

Damien had twisted Avery’s words on purpose.

They had lured her upstairs so they could corner her together.

“Claire, if you did something wrong, own it,” Ryan said.

Damien tapped the table lightly. “If you admitted it honestly, you might not look quite so pitiful.”

“Exactly,” Ryan said. “Sienna isn’t pregnant. She has nothing to hide, so stop trying to pin that kind of filth on her.”

He genuinely could not understand how Claire had managed to invent something so ugly out of thin air.

Everyone there knew the Sterling family had once shown her kindness. One of the elder Sterlings had taken her in when she was young and brought her into the family’s orbit.

By all logic, she should have grown up like a younger sister to Adrian.

Instead, the moment she turned twenty, that so-called younger sister had ended up in Adrian’s bed.

She had married far above her station.

Dragged Adrian down with her.

No wonder no one in the room had ever looked at her kindly.

Sienna turned to Claire, speaking with polished generosity.

“Claire, if you’re unhappy about something, then say it openly. Don’t resort to cheap, ugly tricks. We’re both women. I’m not trying to make things difficult for you. But asking for a public apology, in front of everyone here, isn’t too much.”

Claire was genuinely surprised to hear that Sienna was not pregnant.

She frowned, then let the thought go almost at once.

Whatever the full truth was, she no longer cared.

Besides, with Adrian’s well-known aversion to having children, perhaps there really had been no pregnancy after all.

Trash rarely stopped at betrayal.

And betrayal rarely cared about limits.

Claire looked at Sienna and, for one brief second, almost admired the sheer shamelessness of her.

Then she said, “Fine.”

Sienna clearly had not expected her to agree so easily.

Adrian lowered his gaze to her too, as though he also thought this was the least she ought to do.

And then, in the very next breath, Claire went on.

“I can post a public apology for Miss Cole,” she said. “I can put it on every social media account I have and let the whole world see it. I can say I was wrong to object to her sleeping with my husband. That I was petty and narrow-minded. That unlike Miss Cole, I clearly lack the grace to rush into becoming someone’s mistress. And unlike Mr. Sterling, I apparently haven’t yet learned how to divide myself so efficiently between two households.”