Page 7 of A Very Rossi Christmas
It was the height of stupidity.
"She's not your problem," I told myself firmly, willing myself to turn on my back and stare out at the ocean instead of her rapidly retreating ass.
Willing myself to sit here and wait for the contact I was supposed to be meeting. I wasn't here on accident, and I didn't have the freedom to just get up and walk away. I needed to meet a rep from the Patrelli family, and he was due to be here in—I chanced a glance down at my phone—ten minutes.
When I looked up again, Brooks and Sloane were no longer walking alone. Or rather...Theywere walking alone.
And someone else was walking about ten feet behind them, his eyes on the girls and his hands in his pockets.
Every nerve in my body suddenly went on the alert at the sight. The guy didn't look like much—small and relatively thin—but he had a swagger to him that told me he knew exactly what he was doing with his body. The cut of his clothes was sharper than it should have been, and no one walked with both hands in their pockets like that unless they had something in there they needed to be able to access quickly.
That guy was trouble. I would have bet my entire fucking life on it.
And he was walking after Sloane like he meant to be trouble forher.
I was on my feet and gathering my things before I even took the time to process what I was doing, shoving the towel into the bag I'd brought with me and grabbing at the t-shirt I'd taken off when I got here. I yanked it over my head, wanting my hands free of anything that might make moving harder, and then grabbed my phone and shot a text to the guy I'd been here to meet.
Sure, I had business to attend to.
But Sloane Brennan was out on the beach without any guards and there was a guy following her who was throwing up every fucking red flag I'd ever planted around her, his hands in his pockets and his walk determined enough that I could almost read his thoughts.
There was no fucking way I was letting him get any closer to her than he already was.
Period.
5
JOSEPH
COLD, CALM, AND DEADLY
I went screeching into a parking place in the parking lot I’d seen her turn into, my breath coming a whole lot shorter than I liked.
And it wasn’t from the adrenaline of having driven too fast.
I’d left the parking lot in Santa Monica right after Sloane’s red Ferrari—subtle, Sloane—but had quickly realized that though I might know how New York traffic worked, I didn’t know the first thing about driving in LA.
And if this town was anything like New York, the holidays made the drivers even worse.
There had been at least a million people on the road—maybe more—and every bridge I passed under had not only garland but also Christmas trees or lights or fucking bells done in gold foil.
I’d thought we overdid Christmas in New York but it turned out we didn’t have one damn thing on LA and their obsession with decorations.
I’d fallen behind Sloane and Brooks but had been able to keep an eye on the bright red of her car regardless, and had seen when it made a sharp right into a parking lot about two blocks up from me. I’d stomped on the gas pedal of my own car—a rental that was a whole lot less blingy than Sloane’s monster—and shot through the traffic to get to said parking lot.
By the time I parked, though, she and Brooks were already out of her car and heading for what I now realized was a café of some sort.
And surprise of all surprises, the guy I’d seen following them at the beach had somehow appeared in the parking lot, his eyes on the girls and his hand resting inside his jacket. He was weaving around a row of tiny Christmas trees now, his strides slow and steady, his steps unerring.
And I recognized him.
Or… No, I corrected myself, it wasn’t that I recognized him, per se, but that I recognized somethingabouthim. The way his mouth moved, or the way his eyes sat over his nose.
Something about him was familiar.
And there was only one good reason for that.
Shit.
