Page 4 of A Very Rossi Christmas
More.
And a split second later, one of my father's goons had seen us and beat the shit out of me for associating with a known enemy. I'd been able to distract him long enough for Sloane to get away.
And I hadn't seen her since.
Hadn't heard a word about her, either. My father had made sure of that. Made sure I knew that she was off-limits and that if I was caught associating with an enemy again, I'd get worse than a beating.
Someone kicked sand right into my face, then, and I was jerked back into the present, and back onto the beach in Santa Monica, where it was December and I was twenty-three and a trusted member of the Rossi family rather than eighteen and still walking a fine line between juvenile and adult.
These days I was the heir apparent. The second-in-command.
My eyes narrowed on Sloane again. She was still fucking staring at me, her mouth now drawn into a grim line and her chin firm. I couldn't see her eyes, but I knew what they'd look like if I could. A dark silvery gray so beautiful you'd swear it was fake. The darker shadow to my much lighter eyes.
And no doubt narrowed in distrust. Because she'd definitely seen me, and I could pretty much guarantee that she was asking herself the same questions I was asking: What the fuck was her family's enemy doing on her beach?
Sloane. Fucking. Brennan.
The last girl I'd expected to see on this trip.
The only girl who had ever made me want to cross family lines and leave the business behind me.
3
SLOANE
EMOTIONS THAT KILL YOU
I watched, my eyes narrowed in distrust and extreme suspicion, as Joseph Rossi laid there on his towel and stared at me like I was his fucking property and he'd come to this beach specifically to have a good, long look.
I snarled when I had the thought... and then I snarled again at the quirk in his lips when he saw me do it.
Joseph Rossi.
What the fuck was he doing on my beach? What was he doing in Santa Monica at all, for that matter, and on the same fucking beach where I was laying, looking like he'd come here for some sort of Christmas vacation? He couldn't have. I knew through the grapevine—a grapevine called Penny Lane, my other best friend, who still lived in New York and liked to keep tabs on All Things Rossi—that Joseph was now Number Two in the Rossi clan, second only to his father.
He was being groomed to take over the family and constantly at his father's side. He had big responsibilities, and I'd seen enough of the life to know that Fat Jimmy wouldn't have let Joseph out of his sight—or out of the city—on something as stupid as a vacation.
He was here on business.
Whatbusiness, though?
I glared at him one more time, putting plenty of suspicion and heat into said glare, and then flipped intentionally onto my stomach, essentially turning my back on him.
Then I stared up at the parking lot and the California version of a cliff behind it ... and grinned.
Joseph hated when people turned their backs on him. He always had. Ever since we were kids, when he was barely even taller than me and twice as cocky, he'd thought it was a sign of disrespect. God, he'd gotten into so many fights because other kids—kids he'd thought owed him some sort of something—had turned their backs on him.
The most insulting, as far as he was concerned, was when you did it when he was in the middle of saying something. That one really drove him mad, and the minute I'd learned that, I'd started using it just to piss him off.
So if I knew Joseph Rossi, and I thought I still knew at least one or two things about him, even after all this time, he was back there on the beach fucking fuming right now about my lack of respect. Well, he could kiss my perky little ass—which I was sure he was still staring at.
I wiggled it, just to get him even more riled up.
He had to be at least twenty feet away from us, but I could swear I heard a growl of frustration, and that right there made me laugh out loud.
Brooks, who'd been either napping or comatose through this entire exchange, turned to look at me. "Why are you laughing to yourself?" she asked. "And why are you facing the parking lot? Is something going on over there?"
She immediately flipped onto her stomach and slipped her glasses up onto the top of her head, her gaze sharpening on the rows of cars in front of us as she searched for whatever I might be looking at.
