“Dessert,” Lexi called from the porch.

Wes waited for Rodie to return with the Frisbee, then started up the beach toward the house.

As he approached, Rubi closed her computer and met his gaze. Her eyes sparkled. Her smile heated. She leaned on the table and rested her chin in her palm. “Wes likes ice cream.”

He instantly flashed back to her spread out over the kitchen counter, her gorgeous skin contrasted against the light granite, chocolate ice cream smeared over her already luscious body.

As he neared, Rubi’s gaze remained on his, a combination of soft, sweet, and starving. Knowing she was remembering too blew the discomfort away like a breeze, and all the emotions that had broken through the dam just days ago flooded back in.

Oh yeah. He was tripping over this woman.

At the edge of the table, he pulled his phone from his pocket, then planted his hands and leaned down until his forehead touched hers. “I love that look in your eyes,” he whispered. “What are you thinking about?”

One corner of her mouth tilted. “About you. In the shower. How incredibly handsome you looked with your hair wet and off your face. That wickedly intense expression in the moment.” She lowered her voice and brought her mouth toward his ear. “The thought makes me wet.”

His heart thumped so hard he didn’t hear Lexi set down the bowl of strawberries at his elbow. He waited until she’d turned away before he whispered, “Want to stay with me tonight?”

She leaned back enough to meet his eyes.

When she didn’t answer, he added, “Rodie can stay, too. I’ll even let him sleep on the bed. Just not between us.”

Her gaze searched his a moment before she said, “That’s…not really my thing.”

“Neither is fucking a guy more than once,” he said, keeping his voice private. “Or sex with no condom. But you’ve blown through those ideas with flying colors.”

She pressed a hand to his cheek and turned her head to kiss his lips. He wasn’t sure why, but her kissing him in front of Jax and Lexi sent his hopes skyrocketing. “I’ll think about it.”

The smile on her mouth told Wes that was far more of a yes than a no, and his heart constricted with hope.

“You two need a room?” Jax asked. “We’ve got plenty right behind you.”

Wes pushed up from the table, his head light. To cover the intensity of his emotions, he went for melodrama—and heat reduction—by slapping his hand to his chest as if he were having a heart attack, stumbled backward, and fell flat on his back in the pool.

Cool water bathed his body, closed over his head, and a moment of dense silence encapsulated him. When he broke the surface, he laid his head back so the water pushed his hair off his face. Rubi and Lexi were laughing. Jax sat in a chair with a smirk on his face, shaking his head.

“What about now,” Wes asked Rubi.

A slow nod tilted her head and she spoke around laughter. “Definitely leaning toward an affirmative.”

“Yes!” Wes pumped a dripping fist in the air and enjoyed another round of her laughter as he pushed out of the pool. God, he loved making her laugh. Making her happy. It had become his primary daily focus. And the thought of holding her all night, his body tangled with hers, sounded like absolute ecstasy.

Grabbing a towel from one of the patio chairs, he watched Rubi fix an empty plate with pound cake, strawberries, vanilla ice cream, and whipped cream, then slide it toward the spot next to her before putting a few strawberries and a dollop of whipped cream on a plate for herself. He had no idea what it was about watching her fix a plate for him that made him go all funky inside, but it did.

As soon as he sat down, a phone rang. Everyone looked down and checked pockets.

“It’s mine,” Rubi said, pulling her iPhone from her purse at her feet and frowning at the screen.

She tapped a button and put it to her ear. “Rubi Russo.”

She put a strawberry in her mouth as she listened, and Wes cut into the shortcake she’d made for him with the side of his own fork. A vertical crease appeared between her eyes. “Excuse…me?”

Her eyes narrowed, mouth tightened, body stiffened. Wes swore the air around her crackled with burgeoning anger.

His stomach fell. He could just about bet whoever was on the other line had just ruined his chance to sleep with her tonight.

Sixteen

Rubi searched her mind to make sense of this, but nothing congealed. And even though she was sure she’d heard the man on the other end of the call correctly the first time, she asked him, “Can you repeat that, please?”

The man gave a heavy, irritable huff. “My name is Richard Klein,” he said in a tone someone would use with a bratty five-year-old. “I’m a real estate broker with Exceptional Properties in Los Angeles, and I’m standing in front of your house with a prospective buyer, but the key in the lock box isn’t opening the door.”

A dark, heavy sensation grew in the pit of her stomach. “That would be because the house isn’t up for sale. Your office obviously made a mistake. Maybe you have the wrong Rubi Russo. Where did you get this number?”

“It was listed as belonging to the resident.” His growing frustration oozed from his voice. “Do you live at 961 Wildflower Terrace?”

“Yes, but-”

“And is the owner of the house Mr. Rudolpho Russo?”

Fuck.

Her stomach sank.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Anger roiled beneath the shock.

That bastard.

“Ms. Russo?” Klein prodded.

“Yes,” she bit out. “But the house is not on the market.”

“Did you miss the gigantic lock box on the front door?” Klein’s voice denounced Rubi’s ignorance and rose incrementally with each question.

“I don’t use the front door, Mr. Klein, I use the kitchen door. And last time I checked, I couldn’t read minds. Since I was not informed, that would make you and your clients SOL.”

“Look,” he huffed the word, “I don’t want to argue with you. I’d simply like to show the house. Can you please open the front door or tell me how to get in?”

“Um…no.” She hoped her own you fucking idiot tone came through loud and clear, then reminded herself not to shoot the messenger-even if he was a pompous ass. “Until someone of authority tells me directly the house is on the market, the door remains locked.”

Rubi disconnected the call and stared at the phone. Billows and billows of anger pluming inside her body, raising her temperature, quickening her heart. Everyone at the table must have recognized her fury, because no one said anything for a heavy, extended moment.

“That thoughtless, selfish, greedy bastard.” She ground out the barely audible words from between clenched teeth.

“Maybe it’s a mistake,” Lexi offered, but her unsettled voice gave her away.

Lexi knew what a fucker Dolph was. She’d warned Rubi about living in the house. And knew how often Dolph sliced Rubi every time she held out a reconciling hand-even though she had nothing to reconcile for-other than being born.

Lexi didn’t deserve Rubi’s ire, but the emotions were slipping out of her control. “You damn well know this is not a mistake.”

Lexi’s lips twisted. “Probably not.”

“What’s”-Wes’s tentative voice tugged at her-“going on?”

Rubi’s eyes slid closed, humiliation layering fury…and betrayal…and self-denigration. Her solid world fell away from beneath her feet as if Dolph had opened a trapdoor. Again. Her emotions were hot. Black. Ugly.

She dialed her father’s office, her jaw clenching so hard her teeth hurt. No one at the table said anything as the phone rang in her ear. She could feel three sets of concerned and confused eyes on her, which only infused shame.

“I’m sorry.” She stood, trying not to register the worry. “Go ahead and eat.”

Wandering toward the edge of the pool deck, she waited, her mind pinging and spinning.

“Russo Industries, Dolph Russo’s office,” his secretary answered. A new secretary by the unfamiliar sound of her voice, and the fact that she was still there at nearly ten o’clock at night. Dolph went through secretaries like water. “How may I help you?”

“This is Rubi Russo, Dolph’s unfortunate offspring. Put him on the line, please.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Russo, he’s on a conference call. I can-”

“You can,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut to hold her temper and the burgeoning hurt, “tell the self-centered bastard to put the conference call on hold and talk to his daughter. This is an emergency.”

“Uh…please hold, Ms. Russo.”

The deeper the news sank, the angrier she grew.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Russo,” the secretary came back on the line. “He isn’t able to speak with you right now.”

That fucker. “Did you tell him it was an emergency?”

“Yes, ma’am, I-”

“Tell him I’m in the hospital, dying.” Rubi was done. So fucking done with this man. She didn’t need this shit in her life. “Go on. Tell him.”

“Uh…hold on, please.”

She wished she was holding a regular phone. One she could slam down to disconnect. That was one major drawback to cell phones.

The line picked up again with a hesitant, “Ms. Russo? I’m so sorry. Is there something I can do for you? Your father can’t come to the phone.”

Her anger intensified until she couldn’t speak.

“Ms. Russo?”

She scraped in air. “Yes,” she rasped. “You can quit before he ruins your existence.”

Rubi stabbed the End button and stood there, one hand gripping the railing, one her phone. And for the millionth time in her life, a sense of complete, primal betrayal filled her.

“Hey.” Wes’s soft voice behind her made her squeeze her eyes closed.

“Sorry about that.” She turned but couldn’t meet his eyes. Instead she focused on the supple muscle of his pecs. “I have to go.”

“Where?”

“I have to straighten this out with Dolph.” She started past Wes toward the table. “I’m sorry,” she said again to everyone. “I didn’t mean to ruin dinner.”

Rubi picked up her purse. “Come on, Rodie.”

Rodie climbed to his feet where he lay beside Wes’s chair and trotted to her.

“Where are you going?” Lexi asked.

“His office. He can’t ignore me if I yank that phone from his hand and brain him with it.”“I’ll drive you.” Wes grabbed his T-shirt off the table.

“No.” No no no. He’d already witnessed enough of her bad side. A bad side he now knew was multifaceted. “Thank you, but no. That kind of exposure would tarnish all your shine.”

“You’re not driving this angry.” Wes’s statement was final, forceful. The demand rankled, and she shot him a glare. “I’ll drive you,” he repeated with a look so serious she knew she’d have a battle on her hands to get out of there alone. And she just didn’t have the energy. She needed to save it all for Dolph.