Kylie
“What the hell was with you tonight?”
Rocco’s brusque tone, amplified times ten inside the confines of the SUV, hurt my ears. Already annoyed with him for the way he acted the week leading up to tonight’s dinner, his booming accusation made my hackles rise. In fact, I nearly bit my tongue in half stifling the urge to yell back.
I should have expected his wrath. Rocco acted like a gigantic ass all evening. Truthfully, we’d been arguing on and off since the day they announced his annual team dinner, something they did in DC did every year as well. In the past, I accompanied Rocco as his date, and figured this year would be no different. Rocco, naturally, being the Neanderthal that he is, ordered me to stay home. He may as well have set fire to a dumpster, then tossed a container of gasoline on top. History proved, forbidding me to do something tended to have the opposite effect. That meant come hell or high water, I was going to get my way and go to the damn dinner whether he liked it or not.
Rocco spent a week arguing, manipulating, and pouting his way into unsuccessfully forcing me to change my mind. He’d never say it out loud, but I knew the one and only reason he didn’t want me there was the inevitable presence of Sebastien St. Clair.
Which was exactly why I wanted to go.
After the I had an amazing time on the patio, absorbing the revelations brought by my conversation with a shockingly charming Seb, I didn’t regret the decision. Yes, I tempted fate by willingly put
ting myself in the same room as both Rocco and Seb, but then again, Rocco had been a total jerk about it. Not that his worries were without merit. No, my brother’s instincts about Seb being bad for me were right on the money. But he didn’t know that. With Rocco completely in the dark about my clandestine hook up with Seb, his dictatorial stance was completely out of line.
Why should I miss out on an evening of fun simply because the mere thought of Seb and I sharing space sent Rocco’s protective streak into hyperdrive?
Rocco was right, of course. I shouldn’t have gone. If I had been thinking with my brain instead of my hormones, I’d have agreed to stay home. Rocco was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. There had been a fairly high chance he would catch Seb trying to talk to me, and if that had happened, Rocco would have noticed the familiarity between us, then all hell would have broken loose. Blind luck was the only reason Seb and I walked out of the restaurant intact.
I shivered at the thought of Rocco knowing I had literally been in bed with the enemy. Yet my desire to see Seb was worth the risk. Was it dangerous? Yes. Stupid? Definitely. Did I still do it? Pfft, please. Of course I did.
Rocco wasn’t the only one to inherit the Calloway stubborn gene.
That didn't mean Rocco was happy about it. We fought before we left the condo, which ended up working in my favor. He held a grudge like no other and avoided me the duration of the dinner. That was fine by me. It meant Rocco didn't notice when I slipped outside, or when Seb followed.
The sound of Rocco blowing air out of his nostrils like a bull ready to charge, tore me from my thoughts. I glanced across the console to find him tense and stiff, hands gripping the poor steering wheel so hard it looked like he believed that if he were to relax even a single muscle, three tons of SUV would go flying off the road. Every last one of Rocco’s knuckles was white as a sheet. Frankly, I was surprised the wheel hadn't bent under the pressure. Rocco had huge hands and the strength to match.
And he was still pissed.
Having nothing positive to say, I returned to staring blankly out the front window. A few minutes later, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rocco glance in my direction. Still angry, I wanted to bask in my righteous fury a little while longer, but when I shifted to get a better look at his face, my heart tripped. He looked nothing like my loving brother. Instead, Rocco's handsome features were twisted into a disapproving scowl.
I knew that look. Something was bugging him. Something that had nothing to do with our current fight. I didn’t bother to ask. There was no point. Years of experience taught me I had no chance of prying answers out of my pig-headed brother. Stuck in the SUV with nowhere to go, I couldn't get away with ignoring his earlier question, so before he lashed out and said something worse, something that would spark another huge fight, I came up with an excuse to get him to back off and leave me to contemplate my conversation with Seb.
“Nothing is ‘with me’ tonight,” I said, complete with sarcastic air quotes. “I just don't feel well.”
I stared out the windshield and made sure to keep my facial features blank and my eyes unfocused. Rocco is a freaking human lie detector. The guy can spot a fib like no one else. I always used to joke that if his hockey career didn't pan out, Rocco would be great as a CIA interrogator. To make my performance more believable, I threw in a moan and put a hand over my abdomen.
“I think I ate something that disagreed with me.”
Just like that, Rocco's agitated expression vanished and his shoulders bunched up by his ears. He clenched his jaw and snarled, “Well, if that's the case we’re never eating there again. Fucking assholes poisoning my sister.”
Oh great. Here we go.
Rocco took my teeny, tiny little white lie, grabbed onto it with both hands, and took off. In less than a minute he had worked himself into a lather under the false belief I got food poisoning at the team dinner. If I hadn't stopped fake groaning long enough to beg Rocco to take me straight home, he would've already swung an illegal U-turn and double parked in front of the restaurant so he could storm through the door and beat the holy hell out of the poor chef. Which, considering I didn't have food poisoning, would be bad.
In fact, beating the hell out of anyone was bad. For Rocco, such an over-the-top reaction was pretty much par for the course. When confronted, his default setting hovered somewhere around maximum violence, on the ice, anyway. The NHL had strict rules with regard to fighting off the ice and players could receive punishment for doing so—anything from a financial penalty to the loss of their job. Rocco was good at managing his temper… most of the time. His weakness was me. Specifically, when someone either hurt me or he thought I was about to be hurt.
Thinking about what Rocco would do if he knew which body parts Sebastien St. Clair used to touch mine… I shuddered.
“Are you going to throw up?”
I swung my head around to stare at Rocco. “No, why?”
Rocco's response was to frown. Deep lines creased his face. He suddenly appeared much older than his twenty-six years.
“Because you're shaking like a leaf.” Rocco reached over and pressed the back of his hand to my forehead. I made an irritated sound and smacked it away.
“Stop it.”