“Sienna, come and meet Winter. Winter, this is Sienna.”
“Hi,” she says in that chipper, young voice, approaching me. She’s like a puppy. If she had a tail it’d be furiously wagging. “Great name.”
“Thanks. Nice to meet you,” I greet professionally. “Can I offer you some refreshments?”
She eyes the mimosa I just made. “Oooh, one of those would be great. I’ve been driving since seven. The journey took so looong.”
It’s only nine forty, but I can forgive her youthful impatience. It’s something I can understand.
“We weren’t expecting you,” Roo chastises.
“I always wanted to come.”
With her olive skin, blonde, luscious hair, and slim build revealed from under the coat that she tosses to one side, she’s an attractive woman. She looks fresh out of college, barely legal in anything. I probably shouldn’t be passing her champagne, even if it’s diluted. And if she is as young as I think she is, and if she has had a physical relationship with Brecken, Reuben, or Luca, then I’m a little surprised by the big age gap. Not to mention fucked off.
Her beauty and tiny physique are everything that I’m insecure about. At five ten, I’m not so easily tossed over a man’s shoulder these days. And my hips are twice the width of hers. It hurts to imagine her with them.
“I asked you not to come,” Luca states a little unkindly. He’s been throwing anxious, watchful looks my way. Whatever her presence means, it’s got them worked up.
“My skis are in the car. Let me drink this,” she says, lifting the fresh glass I’ve just poured her, “and I’ll get ready.”
“We’re not going out. It’s been a wasted journey.”
“But there’s so much snow!”
“Yeah, about sixteen more inches the last four days,” Reuben says, eyes on me. Flopping to the couch like the Grinch just stole Christmas, Sienna comes to sit at his side.
I withhold my smile. Penis jokes aren’t funny when a woman whose relationship withmy guys, has not been adequately explained. The professional part of me should offer them some space to talk, but the invested, personal side of me is a nosy bitch.
Looking at Luca, Sienna says, “So, it looks like your master plan for Stein Hotel has come off?”
Oh, so she works with him? Maybe all of them? That diffuses some of my anxiety.
“It has.”
With the sale of the hotel complete, the Balthazar Hotel Group now owns three neighboring plots. And only on signing the sale contract did Elias learn who the purchaser was. It was a condition of the sale, and he was paid handsomely for it.
“Did Dad get hold of you?” Sienna asks, her focus on her manicured nails.
“Yeah,” Brecken replies. He takes a seat, looking resigned, while Luca stands at attention by the unlit wood burner, looking ready to incinerate the room and everyone in it.
I sip my mimosa, waiting for something I haven’t quite grasped yet. But it’s there, tickling away in the corner of my brain. Because it’s not the fact that she and Brecken appear to be related, it’s something else. Somethingworse.
“So what will you do? Time’s running out.”
“Can we talk about this later? We’re coming home soon. You came a long way for some snow when Aspen has had just as much,” Brecken points out.
Sienna laughs. “Why are you in such a cranky mood, bro?”
There. I felt it. I felt the tension in the room crack. My pulse picks up, my eyes darting to all of them, absorbing every small detail I can from their faces. From their postures. There’s blatant hostility, but also caution. And when I consider her nickname of poison pixie, I wonder just how awful she is. Clearly, they don’t like her much, barely tolerating her. And she has an air of entitlement about her that sets my nerves on edge.
God, what do I know? I’m just making wild guesses and assumptions here.
Brecken doesn’t respond to her term of endearment, but his eyes flick nervously to me. Why would that bother me? Him? If she is his sister, why not just say so? Why not introduce her as Brecken’s sister?
Regretting not having spent more time with him and understanding how he fits into this group, I rein in my impotent brain, grasping for clues. And maybe, I hedge,browas just a term of affection for a man she hangs around with or knows well.
Or maybe even fucked.