“He’s a dick,” Mandy reminded her.
She nodded, but remained unconvinced. “Still for that ring … phew.”
The diamond was passed around before it was returned to me. I tossed it back into my purse and tried to change the topic, but that was like trying to put the cat back into the bag. The girls were utterly taken with the whole scenario.
“It’s almost like an enemies-to-lovers romance. You never know, you could fall in love with him,” Natalie said.
“Hell will freeze over first,” I said.
Then Mandy began to narrate the ordeal we’d had when the men had tried to kidnap me. She turned to me. “Sienna, do you have any updates on the men that tried to kidnap you?”
I shook my head.
“That was so fucking scary. I was sick for a week after. Thank God, your bodyguard was able to catch up to them and rescue you.”
“You sure do have an interesting life,” Natalie observed, taking a sip of her orange juice.
“I wish it was completely uninteresting,” I said as I lifted my mango and plum juice to my lips. “I wish I had a normal life where I was free to do what I wanted to do.”
“But it all does seem peculiar, does it not,” Natalie said. “How did the men know that you guys were going to take that exact route. You said that one of the vans was parked in front of your car, right? That means they were waiting for you. How could they have known you were headed that way?”
“A chill just went down my spine.” Mandy shuddered. “I’ve been wondering about this exact thing. How the hell could they have known where we were going to be? Even we didn’t know until we got there, unless your cell phone is tagged or something, Sienna.”
“It’s not,” I replied. “They never had access to it ever. It was always in my possession.”
“Then there’s no other explanation,” Natalie said. “And we can’t conclude that they were just waiting randomly there, because they called your name, right?”
I was about to respond when Christine cut us off. “Ugh … it’s morbid to talk about this before breakfast. Let’s talk about something else.”
Mandy laughed. “Christine’s getting scared again. She was so shaken after the whole thing. I just made a joke that she must have been working with the kidnappers since she was the only one who knew that route. Hell, she almost bit my damn head off.”
Christine shifted in her seat.
The other two girls laughed, but I saw something in Christine’s eyes. Something I never thought I would see. My whole body felt cold and shocked. “Is it a joke though? I asked.
Chapter 46
Sienna
The other two girls stopped laughing suddenly, and an eerie silence fell upon our table.
Christine frowned as she met my gaze head on.
“Sienna, what are you saying? Surely, you don’t …” Mandy whispered.
“Christine was the one driving and she took that route. She is literally the only one who knew where we were going.”
Christine’s eyelids began to flutter with shock. She made a scoffing sound and took her trembling hands off the table. “Are you accusing me of colluding with the people who tried to kidnap you? Have you lost your mind?”
I was suddenly tired of pretending. I grabbed my purse off the table and rose to my feet. “Christine,” I said. “If I really wanted to accuse you, you would not be here right now. I’m sure you know exactly what I’m talking about and just what my father is capable of.”
Her face fell.
“Why?” I asked.
“I’m not rich like you!” she snarled. “I don’t have men giving me rings worth millions which I carelessly throw across restaurant tables. I have to work for every cent I get.”
“Money? You did it for money?”
“I’m sorry, okay. I really didn’t know they were going to kidnap you. All they wanted me to do was put a tracker into my purse. They said they just wanted to know where you were.”
“And you believed that?” I asked incredulously.
Tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry, Sienna. Really I am. You don’t know how much I’ve regretted it since then. I just—they just didn’t look rough. They were polite and they were nicely dressed. It was so much money for so little effort. And I promise you I didn’t drive into that neighborhood on purpose. I really did get lost, but they had the tracker, so they knew which way I was heading.”
“Have you got a tracker on you now?” I demanded fiercely.
She shook her head violently. “No, of course not.”
Without a word, I stood, and turned to walk away.
She called to me, “Sienna.” Her voice was full of desperation and fear.
I turned to look at her face with disbelief. Even though the truth had come from her own mouth, I still found it hard to believe she had betrayed me. I’d never believed Angelo and I never let his accusation stay even one second in my head. I’d been that confident of her loyalty and friendship. I thought because I would never do something like that to her, she wouldn’t either.