“Never mind.” She forcefully jerked her arm free and rushed into the hall.
There were only two penthouses on the top floor: hers and my parents’, but she’d recently hired a realtor and sold the place. Where the hell did she plan on going?
By the time I got my thoughts together, she was already inside her place, and the door was locked. I had a key, but if she’d secured the deadbolt at the top of the door, I was screwed.
Thankfully, she was too drunk to do it. That, or she really did want me with her.
Once inside, I tossed my jacket and keys, removed my soaked socks and shoes, then locked up.
She was in her bedroom on the second floor, stripping out of her dress. Heels already off. “I’m wet and cold. If you don’t want to see me naked, get the hell out.”
I went back into the hall because I did want to see her naked, damn it. “You decent?” I called out a minute later, and when she didn’t respond, I peeked into the room.
She was curled up in her blue suede armchair by the window, which overlooked the city. Pale pink cotton pajama bottoms with a long-sleeved button-up top. Thank God she’d opted for comfort over sexy.
“Go away.” She kept her knees tight to her chest, her eyes on the window.
I was wet and cold, too, but I didn’t want to risk leaving to go to my parents to get a change of clothes. She may decide to bolt the top lock. And my parents’ two Yorkshire terriers would bark and alert them to my presence if I did head over, and then they’d demand answers as to why I’d shown up at midnight since I no longer lived there.
I brought my back to the wall by the door, and my gaze cut to the king-sized bed. A plain silver comforter free of frills. “Why don’t you get some sleep?”
“I hate that you even asked me if I was high.” Disappointment moved through her tone. “I know I haven’t been acting like myself since Dad died. But can you blame me? He had a son he kept secret from me! I have a brother. All these years . . .”
“No.” I crossed the room to stand closer since her voice had softened. Less angry. “Your dad made a mistake, but it’s quite possible your brother doesn’t want to be found.”
She tipped her chin, and her eyes locked with mine in steely silence.
“Why won’t you tell me his name?”
Her silence was a knife to the heart. I was worried her brother was the reason she sold the house and dropped out of school.
Was she going to hunt him down and force him to be her family? Was she scared that if I knew his name, I’d try and stop her?
God, I probably would. At the very least, I’d go with her to make sure he wasn’t dangerous. All she’d said was he was Irish like me. What were the damn odds?
“I will find him.” She dropped her feet to the ground.
I crouched in front of her and placed a hand on her knee. “Of course, you want to meet him, but it’s possible he may not want you in his life. His father abandoned him, and that can mess a person up. I don’t want you to be disappointed.” Or go after him alone.
“I need to make things right, to make up for what Dad did.”
“You don’t have to correct your father’s mistakes.” I smoothed my thumb in small circles over her knee.
“He’s my brother. And maybe once he’s in my life, you’ll stop treating me like you’re mine.”
“You know I—”
“You treat me like a sister.” She stood, and I rose with her.
I hung my head. If only she knew the things I thought about her. I’d scolded myself over and over again—hell, I’d gone to confession. Nothing sisterly about her in my mind.
Twenty and twenty-six . . . we were lightyears apart in terms of experience. But it was more than that. She’d had a rocky time lately, and it wouldn’t be right to think of her as anything more than a best friend.
“How do you want me to treat you?” I asked, knowing full well her answer might send me over a cliff we’d never be able to come back from.
“Just go,” she sputtered.
She was backing down. Taking the easy way out. I should thank her for giving me the chance to escape the conversation without one of two things happening: a fight or sex. Neither would be a good idea.
“What will you do if you find him?” I deflected, hoping to calm my thoughts down, to reel in my desires before I acted upon them.
“When not if.”
“Okay, fine. When you find him”—I tossed a hand in the air—“what will you do?”
“Share my inheritance. Give him what he deserves. And, well, maybe we can work together. I can start over. A new life.” No hesitation. She’d thought it out, hadn’t she?
“Are you out of your mind? You want to share almost two billion dollars with a stranger? And might I remind you, most of that money originated from your mother’s side, so it’s not like it’s owed to him.” I tensed at the thought of her leaving. Leaving me, damn it. “And what’s so bad about this life?” I cupped a hand over my mouth, trying to steady my breathing.
Looks like a fight might happen after all.
“I can’t be around you anymore. It’s too hard.” She hiccupped. “Especially when you lie.”
“Lie?” My hands went to my hips as she stared me down without blinking.
“You promised me that in time you’d-you’d make me yours.”
I closed my eyes and gripped the bridge of my nose. I had no clue what she was talking about.
“The party,” she whispered. “The night I almost slept with that douchebag football player when I was eighteen, you begged me not to. And then you said to wait for you.”
What? Had she waited? She’d said she wasn’t a virgin, but . . .
She hiccupped again. “You told me to grow up a little more, and you’d make me yours.”
I’d been drunk that night. I didn’t remember it. Holy feck. All I remembered was pulling that arsehole off her at the party, worried he was trying to take advantage of her.
“And now I’m twenty, but you’re still screwing every girl in a skirt. Everyone but me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I reached for her arm, but she backed up.
“Two weeks ago, I came over to your place with takeout and a movie. I used my key when you didn’t answer.”
Two weeks ago? I dropped my face into my palm and slowly dragged my hand down.
“I heard you having sex. Your unmistakable Irish voice.”
I lifted my head. “That wasn’t me.”
“Sure. There just happened to be some other guy in your place with an Irish accent saying, ‘Oh bloody hell, that’s so good’?”
“That was my cousin Sean. He was passing through town on business, and he’d met someone at our office that day. He asked to use my place before he took a flight out of New York.”
“Right.” She rolled her eyes. “Why wouldn’t you tell me Sean was in town?” She crossed her arms.
“He was here less than a day. I didn’t think anything of it.”
But this explained why she’d been acting differently for the last two weeks. “Listen, I’m sorry for whatever I said to you at that party, but—”
“But you don’t want me as more than a little sister.” She brushed past me. “Well, I already have a brother, so you should go.”
Maybe this wasn’t the alcohol talking after all?
“Please.” Her tone dipped, and it hurt my heart. “Sleep in the guest room if you’re afraid to leave me alone but be gone before the sun is up.” She stood by the door and motioned for me to get the hell out, and maybe it was for the better.
I needed time to think things through, to decide what to do. To see if I was ready to step out of the friend zone. To see if she was truly ready.
I shouldn’t have left, though. I should have stayed in that room.
Because two mornings later, she got a call—a location for her brother—and she left me with a goodbye note and a broken fecking heart.
* * *
Ba
rcelona – January 2014 (Two Months Later)
Alessia
One sip of my fruity red sangria, its tartness on my tongue, was all it took to send me hurtling back two years to one of the times Cole and I had nearly kissed. Right here at Barceloneta Beach, of all places.
My brother, Sebastian, and I were currently sitting at dinner on the balcony of a popular restaurant, and the delicious smell of the roasted red peppers drizzled with olive oil on my plate brought to mind the memory of the dinner I’d had with Cole before that almost-kiss, too.
Cole wasn’t supposed to come to Spain with me that summer. The trip had been one of my graduation presents from Dad, and had included my friend from high school, Jasmine, along with her older sister, Lindsey. Well, older as in twenty-two to our eighteen.
Three days into our vacation, we’d been lounging by the hotel pool, my gaze following the glittering sunlight on the surface of the water when I’d spotted Cole on approach. My breath had frozen in my lungs as he maneuvered through the crowd, everyone taking notice.
Cole was a freaking Greek, well, “Irish” god. Tall with black hair and dangerously sinful eyes, the color of espresso. A chiseled jaw covered in week-old scruff. Broad shoulders. Perfect hip bones and the mouth-watering V that disappeared beneath whatever shorts or pants he wore, the belt or drawstring always begging to be undone. His chest muscles and abs were the right amounts of perfect. Not too beefy. Not overdone at the gym. A runner’s body.
I’d nearly fallen off my chair at the sight of him that day in Barcelona and sputtered something incoherent in disbelief at his presence. He’d decided to surprise me. More like he’d been worried about me being out of the country without someone to protect me.
I shifted uncomfortably at the memory, snatched the stem of my glass, and finished the last few drops of sangria. “I’ve been here before,” I said in a daze and regarded my brother as he slowly set his wine down alongside his uneaten food.
The Mediterranean Sea touched the sand not far away from where we sat, and I could practically smell Cole’s cologne on the breeze floating my way, a ghost from our last time there together when his lips had nearly touched mine.
“When?” My brother cocked his head. His eyes were also dark. Not quite as dark as Cole’s, though, but they held a fierceness in them that’d never been present in my best friend’s.
“Right after high school. My dad, um.” I cursed myself for the slip of my tongue. “Our dad, I mean, he, uh—”
“He’ll never be my dad, Alessia.” Sebastian’s hand slipped beneath the table, hidden from view by the white linen tablecloth. Probably forming a fist at the mention of our father, a man he hated. I couldn’t blame him for that, either. Our dad abandoned him. Abandoned his mother.
“I spent two weeks here.”
“Bad memories?” He was a quick study.
“Good and bad.” And that was the truth.
Cole’s lips hadn’t touched mine that day.
His lips had touched someone else’s on that trip, though.
Now it was my hand clenching, but I wasn’t discreet. My fingertips bit into my palm on top of the pretty tablecloth.
“Whoever has you looking all pissed off—will he miss you now that you’re gone?”
“Wh—what?” I think I choked on the word.
“Did someone hurt you?” His brows were slanted, and his signature intensity had gone up about a hundred degrees.
Before I could answer, his phone began ringing.
“I have to take this. Sorry.” He brought the phone to his ear. “Yeah?” He paused to let the other person talk. “Yeah, consider it done.” He stowed his phone in his suit jacket. His conversation took all of twenty seconds.
“That was fast.” I dropped my eyes to my untouched plate of shrimp, bulgur rice, and peppers.
“It was Luca. Just business.”
“The French one, right?” I met Luca a few weeks ago. He was good looking but not my type. No, sadly, I had only one type, and he was of the off-limits variety. Well, off-limits now that I’d run away from New York and turned my back on my old life.
Sebastian hadn’t introduced me as his sister to Luca, and apparently, he had no intention of telling anyone the truth about our shared blood.
“Yeah.” Sebastian was a man of few words. Getting him to open up was a challenge, but I wasn’t a quitter, and I was still here.
Had it really been two months since the day I’d run away to Positano and tracked him to his boat to inform him I was his sister?
My father had told me on his deathbed that he’d had an affair with a woman in Dublin—Sebastian’s mother. However, upon learning of her pregnancy, he ended things. Since most of our wealth originated from my mother’s side, Dad chose the money over his son, which meant Sebastian grew up without a father. I couldn’t begin to imagine how difficult his life had been, especially since his mother overdosed on drugs when he was twelve.
My heart broke for him, and his past no doubt shaped the man he was today, but I truly believed there was good inside of him if only he’d let me in.
“You didn’t answer my question.” His dark tone had me lifting my gaze to his face. “Did someone hurt you?”
“No.” I had only hurt myself. Over and over again. Thinking Cole and I would ever be more than friends.
“How many people do you think are looking for you since your disappearing act?”
Shit. Maybe a handful. Where was he going with this?
“The only one who might not give up so easily—well, I emailed him shortly after I left and told him I was okay and not to come after me.”
I’d cried over the keyboard when I typed that email to Cole.
I wondered what Cole must have felt after he read it. Pissed off? Sad? Hurt? Maybe all of the above.
“And did you tell any of these friends my name before you chucked away your life to be with a brother you’d never met?” This was typical of Sebastian. He still didn’t think it was a good idea I tagged along with him. He begged me to go home every day. Sometimes twice a day.
“Aside from the man working for the CIA who helped me find you, no one else knows your name.” I reached for the Celtic cross around my neck and fiddled with the chain. Cole had given it to me on my eighteenth birthday. I couldn’t bring myself to take it off, even though it hurt to wear it. A reminder of my hurtful actions by leaving him without a proper goodbye. He didn’t deserve what I did to him. And as much as I missed him, I still wanted my brother in my life.
“Go back to him. Choose him over me.” His voice was deep. Commanding. And surely, most would abide by his order and recoil at his harsh words, but we were family. “I’m not a good man.” Here we go again. Same song and dance. “If he’s better, if he’s safer, choose him.”
“I already chose you,” I snapped, my tone shaky this time, and I was angry at myself for letting it happen.
“And you made the wrong decision.” He threw his napkin on his plate and ordered the bill in Spanish.
“It’s up to me to decide. If someone is looking for me, surely they’ll give up soon.”
Cole wouldn’t look for me forever, right?
Sebastian’s chair scraped across the concrete as he shoved away from the table and stood to his full height of over six feet. Somehow, the black dress shirt and slacks he wore didn’t tone down the fierce intensity beneath.
Mark Twain once said, Clothes make the man, but I was pretty sure the man made the clothes. Sebastian could wear rags off the street and intimidate the hell out of people.
“Associating with me is dangerous, which means if anyone you care about happens to find you, they may wind up with a target on their head. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“So, don’t let anyone find me.” What am I saying?
He shook his head in frustration and tossed more than enough euros to cover our meal on the table since our server had yet to materialize. “I need some air.”
“We’re already outside.”
He said something low and growly beneath his breath before making his escape.
Maybe I needed some of that “air” right now, too.
A few minutes later, I found myself standing on the beach, looking out at the water. My nude pumps in hand, unable to handle wearing them while trekking across the sand.
I folded my arms across my chest, catching the heel of my shoe in my side, but not caring. With closed eyes, I lifted my chin and drew in a deep breath of the fresh January air.
My heart hammered in my chest as more images of my last time here came to mind.
Cole diving into the pool that day he’d arrived. Swimming the length of the water while everyone sat watching him. The water dripping down his chest hadn’t gone unnoticed by Jasmine’s older sister, Lindsey. Nor the other women by the pool.
But when Cole stepped out of that water, his board shorts clinging to his muscular thighs, his eyes were only on me. My black one-piece that had a sharp V down the center and barely any back.
And when a man hit on me moments later, Cole was by my side, intimidating the guy away with merely his presence.
I’d wanted him to take me to his room and stick his tongue in my mouth. To peel off my swimsuit with frenzied need and make love to me.
“Alessia.”
Sebastian’s voice had my eyes opening. I let go of the memory and tried to lose the pain associated with it as well.
I turned to see my brother at my side. His gaze was on the water, his shoulders hunched slightly. His spine wasn’t as erect as usual. The sight was surprising. A sign of humanity from a man who seemed to have no chinks in his armor.
“I’m sorry I’ve come into your life and messed it all up,” I said softly, hoping the breeze would carry my words with more weight since my voice had been so weak. “I’m an inconvenience, and I get that. But you’re all I have.” Especially now, especially after I left behind the only man I’d ever loved.
“You’re not an inconvenience.” He faced me. “My life is the problem.” A hint of sadness with a touch of an apology drifted through his Irish brogue. “And I don’t want something happening to you because of me.”
The Inside Man: A Dublin Nights Novel Page 2