Sienna hadn’t slept.
She had lain awake most of the night replaying it against her will - Davina, on her knees, her mouth wrapped around a man Sienna had spent a month calling worthless in front of anyone who’d listen.
Part of her insisted it wasn’t her problem at all, that whatever had made Davina throw her own dignity away like that was Davina’s business and Davina’s shame to carry. But another part of her kept circling back to it anyway, unable to let it go.
Was that the first time? Or the second? The fifth, even, some quiet history she had never noticed happening right under her own roof.
She had tossed and turned trying to shake the thought loose and failed every time, until somewhere near dawn she’d given up and told herself the only thing that made any sense of the anger still sitting hot in her chest - she had every right to be furious. This was her house. Whatever filth had gone on in it, gone on under her own roof while she was one wall away, she was entitled to answers.
And that was what she reminded herself when she did what she wouldn’t have done on a normal day, after Tom walked out.
She stepped out onto the front steps in her pyjamas, her bare feet against cold stone.
"I need to know what that idiot has been doing under my roof..." She said to the other part of her which kept asking why she was doing this.
It didn’t take long to spot him - Tom, cutting an easy loop around the edge of the sprawling yard, in workout clothes she didn’t recognize, walking like a man who had somewhere to be for the first time in a month. He stopped halfway across the lawn, pulled out his phone, and laughed - actually laughed, his head tipped back, looking lighter than she had seen him look since the day she had married him on a dare.
Sienna leaned forward without meaning to, straining to see what could possibly have him smiling like that, and her own foot caught against the step. She fell forward, her arms flailing for balance.
One of the bodyguards stationed by the door lunged to catch her, hand out to steady her elbow.
Sienna slapped it away, sharp, before he’d even made contact. "Are you actually doing your job?"
The man blinked, unbothered by the slap itself - years of training had numbed him to worse - but visibly confused by the accusation. "Ma’am?"
"Weren’t you supposed to stop my husband from walking outside?"
"You didn’t give a command to stop him from walking the grounds," the bodyguard said in a calm, measured tone. "You said he wasn’t to leave the property."
"And how would you know the difference the second he actually tries?" Sienna snapped, color rising in her cheeks.
"He is still within the gates, ma’am. Technically, that’s inside the property." The man pointed out.
Sienna let out a frustrated sound somewhere between a growl and a groan, dragging both hands back through her hair.
"He’s out there doing God knows what, probably setting up some disaster I’ll have to clean up before the launch, and you’re standing here quoting me technicalities?" She demanded sharply.
The bodyguard, wisely, said nothing to that.
"Go," she snapped instead. "Watch him. Monitor his movements and report back to me. I want to know everything."
The man nodded once and moved off toward the yard without another word.
A car pulled through the gates a moment later, tires crunching over gravel, and Sienna barely registered it until the door opened and Rosemary, her personal assistant, stepped out, her phone already in hand, mid-scroll.
Rosemary looked up, took in the sight in front of her, and stopped dead.
"What’s wrong?" Rosemary asked immediately, scanning her boss head to toe.
"Why? What do you mean, what’s wrong?" Sienna asked, genuinely not understanding for a second.
Rosemary gestured, wide-eyed, at all of her - the wrinkled silk pyjamas, the hair she hadn’t brushed, the bare feet on cold stone. "Sienna Kensington does not leave her own house looking like this. Ever."
The horror hit Sienna all at once. She glanced down at herself like she was seeing it for the first time, and something close to panic flared behind her eyes. She spun and hurried back inside, Rosemary trailing after her.
"Were there any reporters out there?" Sienna demanded the second the door shut behind them. "Anyone lurking near the gates?"
"No, nothing," Rosemary said. "But Sienna, are you okay?"
Sienna dragged a hand through her hair again, harder this time, and exhaled long and hard through her nose.
"It’s my damned husband. He’s - " She stopped herself, not entirely sure how to finish that sentence even to herself.
Rosemary studied her a beat longer than was comfortable, then seemed to decide against pressing. "Whatever it is, you might want to put it away for now," she said instead.
"Stella Marchetti is coming for her wedding gown measurements today."
That landed like cold water. Sienna’s spiral paused mid-thought. "Today? I thought that was next week."
"She moved it up. You know how private she wants to keep this - she and the senator don’t want a single leak before the actual wedding, so she’s coming here instead of the studio. Less eyes." Rosemary checked her own watch as she continued talking. "She’ll be here in under an hour."
Sienna’s eyes went wide. She had no makeup on, her hair looked like she’d fought a small war with it, and the city’s biggest television star - a woman marrying one of the most powerful men in politics, a woman who could make or break Sienna’s launch with one flattering post to her forty million followers - was pulling up to her house in under an hour.
"Shit," Sienna breathed, already moving. She took the stairs two at a time, Tom entirely forgotten for the moment, already running through in her head everything she needed to fix about herself before Stella Marchetti walked through that door.