Ripped (Miller Sisters 1)

‘In Chelsea?’ Rosie craned her neck. ‘Colour me impressed.’

She would have been even more impressed if she’d known how hard he’d worked to get to this point and all the sacrifices he’d made for his sister, but I wasn’t ready to talk about any of it. Nor was I supposed to be talking about Nico.

We arrived at The Skyline and took the glass elevator to the top floor.

The views of London were incredible and everyone was in party mood. Everyone except me.

Rosie handed our coats over and frowned at me. ‘You OK?’

‘Great!’

We saw a crowd of our friends and joined them. The ones who hadn’t accepted invitations to the wedding (because Charlie had alienated most of them) wanted to know if the rumors were true. Naturally when they heard that they were, they all wished they’d been there to ‘support’ me. Yeah, right.

‘Nice one, Hayley.’ Grinning, Rob put his arm round my shoulders and suddenly I was grateful for my friends. Friends were like shock absorbers. They made the bumps hurt less.

I saw Rosie watching me and tried to look as if I was having a good time, but of course she knew I wasn’t.

‘You’ll forget him in time,’ she murmured, handing me another glass of champagne. ‘You wake up every day and one day you’ll find it’s stopped hurting.’

‘Is that what happened with you and Hunter?’

Oh, God, I’d said his name. I’d gone five years without slipping up and now it had tumbled out.

I was dead.

My sister was going to kill me, right here on the dance floor on New Year’s Eve.

I stood rigid, not knowing where to begin with my apology, when Rosie leaned in and hugged me.

‘If he walked back into my life right now this minute, I wouldn’t even notice him.’ She whispered the words in my ear and then tapped her glass against mine and drank. And drank. And then helped herself to another glass and drank that, too.

I was about to point out that if Hunter walked back into her life now there was no chance of her noticing him because she’d be unconscious, but she slammed down her empty glass and grabbed my hand.

‘Sister time. Let’s dance.’

We loved dancing together. Considering what she could do with those legs of hers, Rosie was quite restrained. Half the men in the room were looking at her. Quite a few of the others were looking at me, but I was glad to be dancing with my sister. To be honest, I wasn’t interested.

Then I looked up and saw him standing in the doorway.

Nico Rossi.

He hadn’t seen me, but he was looking round the room, searching for someone. He was wearing a suit. It looked like the Tom Ford, only this time his shirt was black. As always he looked smoking hot, even more so now I knew how it felt to be with him.

An explosion of excitement and joy was followed by blinding panic.

I didn’t think I was up to seeing him spend New Year’s Eve picking up another woman and already I could see heads turning because he was the sort of guy who eclipsed every other man in the room without even trying.

I was in such a sorry state I didn’t even realize I’d stopped dancing until Rosie took my arm and hauled me off the dance floor and behind a pillar.

‘I have to get out of here,’ I babbled. ‘I’m really sorry to ruin your evening, but I’m going home.’

The music was throbbing and pounding and I saw her lips move, but I couldn’t hear her and she rolled her eyes and dragged me out onto the terrace where everyone would gather to watch fireworks over the Thames at midnight.

‘Breathe.’

‘I’m going to grab a cab.’

‘You are not leaving.’