Bared for Me(2)

The injustice stoked her fury. That her father had cut off her access to it with a blatant lie? No doubt he knew he could get away with it, like he’d gotten away with so many other lies. He was a bully. It wasn’t like he wanted her back home anyway. It was only that he didn’t like her disobeying him. He just wanted to exert his control.

But for Logan to have gone along with it? Logan loathed their father as much as she did. But he didn’t care about her. He just wanted to know she was safely shipped back. He didn’t want her to be his problem. He couldn’t have made it clearer. She’d been so upset by his reaction to her plans. He hadn’t just argued, he’d laughed.

“I just wanted to get away...” She bit the inside of her lip again.

If she tried to continue, she’d burst into tears. And that wasn’t happening. She wasn’t falling at Rocco’s feet in an emo mess.

Rocco waited, apparently unbothered by the snowflakes drifting down and catching in his thick, jet hair. They sparkled like diamonds. He didn’t need the bling to make him dazzling.

Tears sprang to her eyes. She closed them.

Not falling apart in front of Rocco.

“I know how that feels.”

That tantalizing whisper again. Complete with that underlying note of understanding that she always fooled herself into thinking that she heard from him.

She opened her eyes. Huge mistake. There was compassion in his gaze. Yeah, he did know how it felt. He’d gotten away—running when he was a little more than a kid. And he’d worked—literally scrubbed his way to the top.

Now he didn’t move. And she just couldn’t.

“Let me help you,” he said.

She was not melting. No matter how damn understanding he could be. No matter how devastatingly gorgeous. “I’m not going back to varsity or to Logan’s.”

She’d been mistaken in thinking her brother would help. Turned out he thought as little of her as the rest of her family did. She was just a PITA.

And she wanted to get away from Rocco, like now, because what she really wanted, she was never going to have.

“Okay. Not Logan’s.” He lifted his hand and ran it through his hair. The sparkling snow gems showered down his coat. “You know he didn’t mean it. He’s... uh... distracted at the moment.”

Yeah. Logan bringing his apparent fiancée to the anniversary party had been the equivalent of him bringing a high-tech bomb. Shock and awe all round. Vintage Logan skills.

But there was something about the fiancée, Min, that had Dani wondering if Logan might be in for more of a shock than anyone.

“I like her.” Dani said. “The way he looks at her...” She trailed off, looking down at the wet sidewalk as she remembered the twist of agony in Logan’s expression.

“Yeah, I know.”

She lifted her lashes and looked right into Rocco’s eyes. Dark, dark brown. So brown you could barely tell where the iris ended and the pupil began. Lashes that were equally dark, and long. It all added up to soulful. And smouldering. She looked into those eyes for—

Too freaking long. Her cheeks burned and her glance skidded sideways. Idiot. No way was Rocco looking at her that way—like he was drinking her in.

“I hope she sticks around.”

Dani forced herself to nod. “I hope so too.”

“Come on,” Rocco said. “I won’t take you back to him, but I promised him I’d look after you.”

She didn’t need looking after. Didn’t need Rocco acting the protector as a favor to his friend. So awkward. Logan must have rung Rocco as soon as she’d left his apartment and told him to get her and stick her on a plane. “What if you hadn’t found me?”

“There was never any doubt I’d find you.”

“No?” In a city of millions?

Rocco’s expression firmed. “I’ve been following you since you left Logan’s apartment. I was there.”

Involuntarily she put her hand over her mouth. Was there no respite from the humiliation? Rocco had heard that argument? Heard the way Logan had scoffed at her plan—to waitress, maybe moonlight as a model, do almost anything while she saved? Had Rocco laughed too?

Logan had refused the little help she needed. No roof for a few days, not even the verbal support. So had Rocco heard the way she’d replied? Those petty cutting remarks before she’d run away?

Could the sky just dump a snow-drift on her now, please?

“You’ve been following me all this time?” The implication slowly sank in. “Why didn’t you stop me sooner?”

“I wanted to give you time to cool down.” He ruffled his hair again. “Wanted to see what your plan of action would be.”

There’d been no plan. No action. Now he knew how pathetic she really was.

And as for letting her cool down?

Maybe she ought to be creeped out at the thought of him tailing her. Be embarrassed that he’d seen her standing on a street corner for an age, trying to decide which way to turn. But she wasn’t.

He might’ve only done it out of over-protective, big-brother duty, but she liked the thought of him watching her. She’d wanted his attention for so long.

Yeah, she was that damn sad.

“Well now you know,” she said. “I just walked.”

He looked like he was about to say something, only thought better of it. He curled his hand round her upper arm again. “Come on, we need to move. You’re getting wet,” he said, suddenly gruff, pulling her towards the curb.

Uh, yeah. She was, but not in the way he meant.

She glared pointedly at his knuckles. “This is abduction.”

“No.” He stepped to the edge of the sidewalk, half dragging her with him, and searched the traffic-congested street. “This is persuasion.” He raised a hand and hailed a taxi.

The guy had all the luck. It was closing time, millions of commuters were trying to get home, and there was snow falling, bringing extra people out into the street to marvel. Yet Rocco St Clair got a taxi cab in two seconds?

He opened the door with his free hand and looked at her. Deliberately slowly he released her arm and raised his eyebrows.

Her choice?

What choice did she have, really? Going back to Logan’s wasn’t an option. Her pride wouldn’t let her. She had no one else to call on.

So she moved. Two seconds later he climbed in beside her and leaned forward to give the driver directions.

“You’re taking me to your hotel?” She scrunched her cold toes up in her boots. Don’t get excited about that.

He turned his head towards her. His dark eyes were utterly unreadable in the dimly lit backseat. “Just for the one night.”

One night.

She released her caught breath. Okay. Good. She wouldn’t accept any help beyond that anyway. She’d sleep in one of his hotel rooms and would go to the bank as soon as it opened tomorrow. Then she’d figure out another destination.

She frowned as Rocco pulled his phone from his pocket. “Don’t tell Logan where you’re taking me—”

“I have to let him know you’re okay. Otherwise he’ll call in the mercenary rather than me to find you.”

He wasn’t joking.

“Why didn’t he call Hunter?” Dani asked.

Logan’s other BFF was aptly named. Dani had never quite known exactly what it was that Hunter did, something in personal security. She’d always figured he was a spy.

“He’s not currently in range.” Rocco answered, frowning at his screen. “On a mission somewhere.”

Bingo. Spy status confirmed.

“What about Xander?”

Rocco, Xander and Hunter were the three best friends of her brothers Connor and Logan. Together they formed an infamous five—hotelier, security specialists, CEO and ski-star turned male model. Devastating chick-bait, the lot of them. But of the three friends, only one interested Dani.

“He’s taken Chelsea to The Museum of Underwater Art in Mexico.” Rocco shoved his phone back into his coat pocket with a jerky movement and turned that obsidian glare on her. “I guess the minion will have to do.”

“I guess so,” she mumbled.

She wished he really would do. Everything.

But it wasn’t going to happen.

The darkness settled in on them as day became night in that fast way of winter. Silence settled too.

She curled up in her corner of the taxi, growing curious about his hotel—the ‘so-hot-right-now’ haunt of celebs and sports stars. Doubtless once they got there he’d install her in some impersonal suite where she’d be safe for the night and be out of harm’s way. His way. Everyone’s way. Conveniently discarded for the evening.

It might be what she deserved, but she was so sick of that.

She had one night in Manhattan. One night with the city’s most eligible bachelor as her guide. The one guy she’d been dreaming about for ever. This was her one chance. And even though she knew there was no chance... she had to try, right?

“So, my minion.” She turned her head, smiled and asked as innocently as she could. “What are we going to do?”





Chapter Two





WHAT WERE THEY going to do? Rocco stared at her in horror as his brain unhelpfully supplied a billion inappropriate ideas.

“Nothing,” he answered abruptly. Not. A. Thing.

“Oh.”

He turned away from the disappointment that briefly flashed on her face before she schooled it into that faux-polite, distant expression. He was not going to feel guilty. He was not her fucking minion. Never would be.