Married To The Devil's Son

Chapter Five : Breakfast for Two

Morning came quietly.

Light crept through the tall windows of Sienna's room slowly, the way it does in houses that are too large to warm up quickly. She had eventually slept but not well, not deeply, but enough. She woke with the ceiling above her and the unfamiliar softness of expensive linen beneath her and for exactly three seconds she forgot where she was.

Then she remembered.

She lay still for a moment longer.

Then she got up.

She dressed carefully , a simple cream blouse and dark trousers from the wardrobe she hadn't chosen, clothes that fit her perfectly and felt like someone else's idea of who she was. She pulled her natural hair back loosely, looked at herself in the large mirror for exactly long enough to make sure she was composed, and walked out of the room.

The house was already awake.

She could hear it - distant movement from the floors below, the sound of something being prepared in a kitchen she hadn't found yet, the quiet efficient sounds of a household that ran on schedule whether anyone appreciated it or not.

She found the dining room on her second try.

Damien was already there.

He sat at the head of the long table with a newspaper open beside his plate, coffee in hand, collar already perfectly straight at . she glanced at the clock on the wall — seven fifty-eight in the morning. He looked like a man who had never in his life woken up slowly.

He looked up when she entered.

Those grey eyes moved over her once — quick, steady, giving nothing away — and then he looked back at his newspaper.

"You came," he said.

"I said I would," Sienna replied.

She pulled out a chair — not at the far end where she had sat last night, but closer. Not beside him. But closer. She sat down and reached for the coffee pot on the table and poured herself a cup and wrapped both hands around it.

A staff member appeared immediately to place breakfast in front of her.

"Thank you," she said warmly.

She felt Damien look up briefly from his newspaper.

She ignored it and took a sip of her coffee.

The silence between them was different from last night. Less formal somehow. The morning light made everything slightly less severe — even this room, even this man sitting at the head of his long table with his newspaper and his perfectly straight collar.

Almost human, she thought. Almost.

"Did you sleep?" she asked.

He looked up.

"Yes," he said.

"I didn't," she said pleasantly. "Not well anyways. The house makes sounds I didn't know yet."

He said nothing.

"I'll learn them," she added. "I learn things quickly."

Something moved in his expression — brief, almost invisible.

"I know," he said.

Sienna looked at him.

"How would you know that?" she asked. "You don't know anything about me."

"I know more than you think," he said. His voice was even Calm. Not threatening — just factual. The way he said everything.

"Like what?" she asked.

He folded his newspaper. Set it aside. Picked up his coffee and looked at her across the table with those steady grey eyes.

"You studied Literature," he said. "Final year. Top of your program. You worked part time at a bookstore on Clement Street for two years. You are close to your father despite everything and you have one friend ( Nora Walsh)who you trust completely."

Sienna held his gaze.

She kept her face perfectly still.

"You had me investigated," she said.

"You were going to be my wife," he said simply. "Yes."

"And now I am your wife," she said.

"Yes," he said.

"So what happens now?" she asked. "With all that information you collected. What do you do with it?"

He looked at her for a long moment.

"Nothing," he said. "It was due diligence. Not a weapon."

"How do I know that?" she asked quietly.

The question sat between them on the table like something fragile.

Damien set down his coffee cup.

"You don't," he said. "Not yet."

It was the most honest thing he had said to her.

Sienna looked at him ,really looked at him — and felt something shift very slightly in her chest.

Not trust. It was far too early for trust.

But something adjacent to it.

Something that scared her more than the cold house and the long table and the grey watchful eyes combined.

She looked back down at her breakfast.

"The garden behind the east wing," she said, keeping her voice casual. "The overgrown one. Who did it belong to?"

The silence that followed was one beat too long.

She looked up.

Damien's expression hadn't changed.

But his hand wrapped around his coffee cup — had gone very still.

"No one," he said.

It was the first time he had lied to her.

She knew it immediately.

And from the way his grey eyes held hers — steady, careful, giving nothing away — she had a feeling he knew that she knew.