It wasn’t a conscious effort, but the reason behind it is still the same.
Now she's penniless and I'm the one with wealth, but it all seems for naught. I should never have run away like that. Innocent, trusting Sienna probably thought I was a snake.
I look out over the beautiful sun that's rising higher, highlighting the desert that spreads out on every side, and I sip my espresso just wondering how I could've missed this.
I wonder what life would look like if I’d just been man enough to stay. Would she and I have remained together? Would she have cared that I was a poor boy with nothing to offer her? Would she have stood by my side while I worked my way up in the world? Were these last ten years just waste of time, not being together?
I’ll never know because I took that choice away from her.
Were these last ten years just waste of time, not being together?
I regret what I've done, and that's a new emotion for me. Normally I plow forward and keep going no matter what. But having Sienna back in my life has made me reflect on all the wrong choices I may have made. I might have lost the girl of my dreams forever just for some misplaced sense of inadequacy. But no, it wasn’t completely unfounded. Jax solidified what I’d already been feeling, made sure I knew he felt the same way.
Just then a pair of arms slide around my bare waist from behind. It's her and I don't know what to do, where to go. I don’t feel ready to talk about this.
"Why are you up so early?"
"Hey." I spin around and meet her lips in the early morning sun. "Coffee?"
"Yes, please. It's still so early. Why don't we go back to bed?" She gives me a suggestive grin.
"Tell you what," I say. "Let me bring you the coffee in bed, okay? You like cappuccino, right?"
She looks beautiful in her little silk camisole and shorts. Maybe I can forget all these fucking deep thoughts and just spend the morning with her in bed. Maybe I can erase them completely and not have to wonder about any of this shit ever again.
"Yes, thank you, Leo."
She's disappears into my bedroom, and I go about making her the perfect little breakfast. I want to wait on her when she looks so fucking perfect.
I make the coffee and take her some eggs. She's waiting for me and the curtains are closed. It's dark in the room except for the dimmed lighting.
"Here, baby." I hand her the tray.
"Mmm, thank you so much. So it looks like you're fresh from the shower. How long have you been awake?"
"All night. I had some thinking to do."
"About me?"
I have to shut this down before it starts.
"I was just thinking about everything. The situation."
She frowns, then forces a smile. "Well, tell me. Maybe I can help."
She's determined to get to the bottom of whatever's bothering me. Is it that obvious? Is it written across my face?
"I don't want to talk about it," I say gruffly and rise up from the bed.
She tugs on my arm.
"Stay, please stay. Just talk to me. It will help."
I attempt to walk away.
"Fine, just walk away again. You're really good at running. It’s kind of your thing." Her voice is hard now.
The words cut through my heart. I turn around and grab her roughly. I hold her in my hands and I stare into her eyes, aching to reveal all my regrets and everything I've come to realize. Instead, I deflect and I kiss her hard, putting all my pent up frustration into it. She returns the affection, and for a minute I think this kiss can erase all the turbulent feelings I have. It can erase the past and we can just start over.
And then just as I have her nice and pliable beneath me, in the perfect position for me to turn things up a notch, all of my feelings come rushing up.
It's like a tidal wave of truth, and I see in this moment that I still love Sienna.
I always have.
And I guess I'm no longer willing to run from that.
19
Sienna
Wrapped in the strength of Leo's arms, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of this. He’s everything I've been craving. Everything I need. He's the man of my dreams and yet he comes from my past.
Piecing together a new life with him and trying to understand his conflicting emotions hasn’t been easy. I don’t know what’s going on with him right now, but he’s dealing with something he’s not ready to share. I can only hope he’s starting to realize there’s something more between us than just sex.
Leo pulls back and looks at me, his gaze intense, and I wonder if he’s finally going to open up to me, an early morning knock at the door interrupts us.
Leo seems relieved as he moves to answer it. I guess he got out of this one. But I’m pretty pissed. It's taken forever to get Leo to open up to me and just when he was about to, we’re interrupted. And who the hell is coming around at six in the morning? It better be important.
I let him take care of it, and I make my way to the kitchen where that fancy espresso machine is all mine. There's nothing better to wake up to than your own personal Starbucks. This thing must've cost him twenty thousand dollars, which I know is just a drop in the bucket for Leo.
He really has made a name for himself, a life. Though his abandonment still stings, I’m starting to want to trust him again, and that's scary territory. I opened my heart before to this gorgeous man and to do so again might be a fool's mistake.
Leo comes into the kitchen with the last person on the planet I ever expected to see.
"Jax!” I pull my robe more tightly around myself and cinch the belt. “What are you doing here?” I haven’t seen him since I told him I was going to start working at the Inner Sanctum. He hasn’t spoken to me.
He's all enraged now, his face bright red, and I brace myself for what I know is coming.
"No, Sienna, the question is, what are you doing here?" He turns to Leo. "What is she doing here, man? You promised to stay away from her."
Jax pisses me off when he acts like this. He has no control over my life and I don't see why he doesn't get that.
"Jax! Leave him alone. This is my life."
I say the words but it's like I’m not even here. They both completely ignore me.
Leo crosses his arms across his broad chest "Jax, I told you that it needs to look like we're dating. The most believable way to achieve that is by making it seem like we're living together. It's just temporary."
He takes in the scene...the absence of Leo's shirt. I take it in, too.
And then Jax looks over at my bed head and tiny silk robe. It doesn't take a genius to see what's gone on here…and we have history already that points to exactly what is going on here.
"This is going too far. You're exploiting the situation. You guys are obviously having sex." Jax looks like he’s about to bust a blood vessel in his forehead.
Leo approaches him, holding his hands out in attempt to placate my brother. "Come on, Jax. You're being a little extreme, don't you think?"
My brother turns aggressive, getting right up in Leo’s face. It's this tendency that has strained our relationship. He's always been too damn protective.
He sticks a finger in Leo’s face. "I told you to stay away from her. It looks like your cock just couldn't resist, could it, Leo? What's new?" he snarls.
Leo instantly shoves him back and the two guys start throwing punches. They’re both huge and there's little I can do to stop it.
I try to break them up. "Stop it, you guys. Come on. You're scaring me."
My cries fall on deaf ears. The two of them go at it like testosterone fueled teenagers. I can't even believe I'm in this position. They could kill each other and it feels like there's nothing I can do to stop it. I pull at Leo and beg for them to stop. Finally, I guess they wear themselves out.
"Had enough?" Leo asks.
"You're the one who's banging my sister."
"Don't talk about her like that, asshole. You don't own her."
"Well, neither do you."
It's time for me to step in and to at least say something.
"So what if we are, Jax? What are you going to do about it? I've had enough of you butting into my life. Why are you even here?"
My words stop him in his tracks and I suddenly see that there's more to the story of why Jax has shown up here in the early morning hours. Something I’m completely unaware of.
What has my brother gotten himself into now? I didn't even know that he and Leo were still in contact. I thought they had a huge falling out years ago.
I repeat myself. "Why are you here?"
Surely he can't be here to walk in on Leo and me. There has to be more.
He puts himself back together and then raises his arms as if to say he surrenders.
"Fine. I'm here because I'm being blackmailed okay? I didn't know who else to turn to."
Leo and I both stare at him in shock. My brother is being blackmailed?
That is so unlike him. Usually he's on top of his game and he pulls the whole family together under his wing with his political power.
We're penniless, but Jax has been working to rebuild the family name and bring honor back to the Reids. He's been working tirelessly.
But then to hear that some asshole is trying to destroy all that, to bring our family back down to the trenches…well, it's unbearable.
My instinct is to protect my brother, to help him out, and I know that’s Leo's instinct as well. We used to be inseparable, the three of us. Can we find that again? Can we band together and help Leo in his time of need, despite all the shit we’ve been through?
Lee offers him a seat at the breakfast table outside on the terrace.
We drink coffee and go over the details until the sun is rising high in the sky and the desert heat starts to descend upon us. His story is chilling, and all I know is that there has to be a way to fix this.
Because basically? Well, it's all my fault.
20
Leo
Jax, Sienna, and I are sit on the balcony sipping our coffee. I've ordered up room service to try to make them both feel at home. It's more than Jax would ever do for me.
Frankly, it's fucking weird being together again with him and Sienna.
And it's even stranger that Jax would come to me for help about anything. He made it pretty clear that I should stay away from both of them.
Despite his usually calm composure, Jax seems pretty worked up about the blackmail. You'd think he'd be used to such things working in politics.
"Aren't we all cozy sitting around this table?" I joke with him.
It's his fault that none of us are friends anymore. He broke up the trio. Jax glares at me now, and I know he's not in the mood for levity.
Well, regardless of his insistence on maintaining his asshole status, I still offer him all the advice I can, even though he doesn't deserve it.
"You need to calm down, man. We'll figure out a solution to this," I tell him, though I don't yet know the brunt of the blackmail.
"You don't understand, Leo. I'm up for reelection. I can't have this on me now. One blemish on my records—or on my family—and it's all over."
I can't get past my astonishment that Jax is even here for my help. We haven't talked in years and now in one week I’ve heard from him three times, now on my fucking doorstep seeking counsel?
All I know is it must be pretty bad for him to come to me.
Jax is usually so self-sufficient. How else would he have made it in the Senate this long? He's a self-starter and generally a man who relies on no one.
I won't lie. It hasn’t been easy watching his ascension to fame.
Even though I have my own prosperity to account for, I’ve still feel animosity toward Jax and the way he threatened to ruin me if I didn't stay away from Sienna.
I loved my girl, and he convinced me to throw away our future.
"I've been trying to keep things straight and not to tarnish our family name any further. So, I can't believe this is happening. I just didn't know who to turn to. That's why I'm here."
He pushes an envelope toward me and I open it.
"It's the blackmail letter," he says.
Sienna and I both read the nearly illegible scrawled handwriting.
"It says he was an employee of the mine that father shut down," she says as we squint to make it out.
"Yup, that's right," Jax says. "And now he's come back for some misguided retribution."
"But father had to close it,” Sienna says, wrinkling her brow. “That's when we lost everything. He couldn't afford to run that mine anymore."
"I know, Sienna," Jax says gruffly, and I can't say I like his tone.
The letter describes how the man is pissed that the mine closed and it ruined his career. Now he's out to exact revenge. He threatens to bring Jax down before the election by portraying Sienna as a prostitute and Jax as being in collusion with me with the prostitution ring. The one that doesn’t fucking exist.
Sienna and I look at each other, realization dawning.
We are both thinking the same thing. This is the same guy who she went out with, that old man, the informant who’s also threatening Alchema, It has to be. It’s too much of a coincidence otherwise. Now it all makes sense.
"We're familiar with this guy," I tell Jax, my mouth setting in a hard line. "He's the one who's painting your sister as a prostitute. He threatened me, saying he’d expose me for being a part of this prostitution ring, and that's why we're putting on this charade of being together, to try to deflect the rumors.”
I cut my eyes toward Sienna and wonder what she thinks every time I refer to our arrangement as a charade.
It feels like it's deeper than that.
Like maybe we’re both finally ready to be together, but I can't be sure of her feelings so I say nothing.
My mind wanders through the last couple nights when we've been together. It's been a torrent of emotion. Wild nights like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Ever.
Sienna meets my gaze, then drops her eyes and twists her fingers together. She must have this on her mind too. There's no way she can deny that what we have goes beyond a mere charade.
"Wait a minute," Jax says. "This guy is the reason for your front?" His eyes narrow in on us. "Doesn't seem like much of a front to me."
"Jax," I say. "You’re here asking for our help. If you can't be respectful towards your sister, then just go."
His eyebrows fly up. "She’s the reason all of this is happening in the first place," he says, turning toward her. "I warned you not to get involved with that escort service. Didn't I tell you?"
Her eyes fill with tears. I know she already feels shitty enough that she and I have been having to prove to the public that she's no prostitute. The last thing she needs is a guilt trip from her brother.
I set my coffee mug on the table, gritting my teeth in an attempt to rein in my anger. "Don't blame her, Jax. I’m certain the guy would've found a way to get to you no matter what."
"Yeah, well, she made our family an easy target."
"That's enough!" I slam my fist on the table. I'm getting pissed now.
No one will disrespect her in my presence. I reach for her and pull her into my lap, holding her close as I brush away her tears.
"Don't listen to him, Sienna. Your brother’s just looking for a scapegoat. This isn’t your fault."
She peers up at me through tear-stained eyes. "Thank you."
"It's okay, baby." I pull her against my chest. Turning to Jax, I say, "You and I are enemies. Don't think I don't know that. But we’re in on this thing together. If this guy takes you down, I’ll likely go with you. That's why I'm willing to help. Let's put our differences aside and stop this motherfucker. Then we can go back to being enemies."
Jax stares angrily at the way my hands are on Sienna.
He gets up and says, "No way. Forget it. You know, I thought I could do this, but I can't. To see you two flaunting this in front of me is just too much."
"Hey,"
I say. "You came to me for help, not the other way around."
"You know what, Leo? All you've ever done is to cause me trouble. I don't know what I was expecting from you, but this certainly isn’t it. I should have known better. From the moment you walked into my life, things have been a struggle. A competition. But you know what? The last ten years without you have been pure bliss."
"Good," I say, gently moving Sienna from my lap. I stand up and come toe to toe with Jax. "Why don't we go back to that?"
"Fine by me." He stalks back toward the French doors leading back into the penthouse, apparently finished with me. And that’s fine. I'm fucking glad to see him go.
"Besides,” he continues, “you're the reason all of this is going down. If it weren't for you and the way you've been seen all around town with my sister none of this would be happening. It's your fault, and you make me absolutely sick. You need to stay away from our family for good."
The guy just won’t take the blame for anything. Or realize that there isn’t actually anyone to blame. This is just a fucked up situation. Fallout from the shit his family endured. But he obviously needs someone to deflect the blame to. First it was Sienna’s fault, now it’s mine. Whatever. I’m just about done with this fucker.
He delivers one final glare towards Sienna. "I'm warning you, Sienna. You better break this thing off for good."
He leaves and we don't bother to walk him out. I should've known Jax was still Jax. Nothing about him has changed. He's dragging Sienna down with him. No matter what’s happened over the last ten years, he’s still sure I’m not enough for his precious sister. Yet he has no problem belittling and blaming her. I shake my head. I don’t fucking get the guy.
But that’s not what’s most important here. Sienna’s hurt by her brother’s harsh words, and I can’t fucking stand her thinking any of this is her fault. Jax is the one who ruined my life by pulling me away from her. If he’d kept out of it, who knows where Sienna and I would be now? I can guarantee she would have ever needed to take a job as a fucking escort. So yeah, some of the blame does fall on Jax.
The Proposal Problem: A Billionaire Royal Hangover Romance Page 113