Stud for Hire by Sabrina York Page B

perfume preceded her. She also didn’t need to look to feel the heat in her glare.
    â€œHmm?”
    â€œI went by your room. I knocked.” The words were threaded with accusation.
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œLast night.”
    Oh. Hell.
Bile rose in Hanna’s throat. She swallowed against it.
    Sidney’s carefree laugh from behind her was a relief. Hanna felt as though the cavalry had just ridden in, blaring trumpets and all. “My sis has always been a heavy sleeper,” she said, wrapping an arm around Hanna’s shoulders.
    For all that Sidney did as she liked, as a rule, Hanna appreciated that she could always count on her sister to come to her defense. And she appreciated the lie. Hanna never slept well. The smallest sound could wake her. Although she had slept soundly last night . . . when she’d been sleeping.
    Tibby sniffed. “I knocked and knocked.”
    Sidney shrugged. She glanced at Hanna. “Did you take a sleeping pill? Yeah, I totally get it. That party went on for hours. I couldn’t sleep at all until it quieted down. Must have been, oh, two or three in the morning. Did you have fun last night, Tibbs?” Tibby winced. She hated being called Tibbs. “I noticed you and Mr. Gray cuddling up in the corner.”
    Tibby wrinkled her nose. “He was all right. But I really wanted Purple. But he disappeared.” Her gaze narrowed in on Hanna. Tension sizzled and spat between them. “About the same time you left . . .”
    Sidney laughed. “Oh, Purple was hot all right.” She forced a shudder. “I enjoyed myself with him.”
    Hanna’s gaze snapped to her sister’s face. Sidney winked. “All right. I admit it. I was naughty.” She waggled a finger at Hanna. “And you should be naughty too. It’s your party.”
    Tibby’s face puckered. She sputtered as though she was about to say something, something like,
“Hanna doesn’t get to have any fun, she’s marrying my brother.”
But before she could, Sidney hooked her arm in Hanna’s and tugged her away.
    â€œCome on,” she said. “There’s a wonderful spread in the dining hall. Have you eaten?”
    Hanna wasn’t hungry, but she followed her sister anyway. Thank God Tibby didn’t tag along. She’d had only a few moments with her today and had already hit her limit.
    â€œI don’t know how I am going to stand being related to her,” she muttered.
    Sidney’s jovial expression faded, replaced with fierce displeasure. “I don’t know how
I’m
going to stand being related to her. How could you do that to me?” A wail. And, of course, it was all about Sidney. “I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not attending any freaking Thanksgiving dinners with them. That’s for sure.”
    Hanna couldn’t help but snort a laugh, even though, deep in her heart, misery reigned.
    She’d agreed to marry Zack, to save her father, to make sure her mom had the care she needed. Somewhere in her mind she’d known what marriage would entail. But she hadn’t given much thought to what it would be like to give herself to him physically.
    She’d been deluding herself.
    Locking the thought away in the hopes it would never come to pass.
    She had a tendency to do that, lock unpleasant thoughts away. But they didn’t stay locked away. Not forever. More and more, lately, she’d been thinking about that night back in high school with Zack. What had really happened. She was haunted by the unpleasant suspicion that she’d whitewashed the memory, edited out the more unpleasant bits as the years had passed. It was all a blur, of course, but she couldn’t ignore the pinch in her gut when she thought of it. It got worse when she thought about sharing a bed, sharing intimacy, with Zack.
    So she’d tried not to think about it.
    But now, the wedding was almost upon her. The