Dangling her as bait made me fucking irate, and I never would’ve allowed it, but I wasn’t in charge of this shitshow.
Holding her tumbler, Sanaa pointed at me. “You should relax. Take a seat.”
I hated her drunk.
Not bothering to reply, I stared straight ahead. An hour ago, when I’d heard her hit the bottle in her suite, I moved from my post in the hall to just inside the door where I could monitor her.
Steady on her heels despite the scotch, she sauntered up to me and the offending finger landed on my chest. “What’s your problem? You used to be laid-back.”
I was never laid-back.
Vance was.
My gaze locked over her shoulder, knowing I shouldn’t, I spoke. “You’re mistaking me for my brother.” Again.
She snorted out a laugh. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” Her speech quick and lilting, the accent she usually held back came out. “But that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it?”
His attention on his cell, Vance strode into the room. “We’re all set, love. Hotel security has been briefed, and Luna’s men are all in position. The meeting’s a go. You ready?” He looked up.
Sanaa watched me glance at Vance, then leaned in closer to me. “Told you.”
Vance’s gaze shot between me and Sanaa, and he frowned. “Little early, pet, don’t you think?”
“What I think…” Sanaa spun dramatically. Holding her glass out toward Vance, the offending finger still pointing, she made a sweep from him to me. “Is that nothing’s changed.”
When neither of us reacted, she snorted.
“And there it is.” Glancing at her empty glass and sneering in disgust, she dumped the tumbler on the bar. “The great Conlon brothers. Two halves of the same whole.”
Furious, I let my gaze cut to hers.
Leaning toward me again, her dark eyes bright with anger, she lowered her voice. “You’re both cold bastards.”
Vance chuckled. “Come now, love. I think you’ve had one too many.” He reached for her arm. “Let’s get you sorted before the meeting.”
The shy seventeen-year-old I once knew, the one who could make a grown man cry when she sang, that girl was gone. The fire in front of me swept her arm up in a calculated maneuver only someone with martial arts training would know. Blocking Vance as if she’d done it a hundred times before, she didn’t even blink before both her hands landed on my chest.
She shoved with determined strength.
I held my ground, but Vance moved.
Pinning one arm behind her, his other hand went to her throat. Holding her against his chest, bringing his mouth to her ear, he spoke in a lethally calm tone. “Not the time or place,” he warned.
Nostrils flaring, eyes on me, she grabbed the tumbler. “Yes, it is.”
“Do you need me to work this out in front of him?” Vance tightened his hold on her. “Because I will.” Dropping his voice, his expression turned lethal. “Without hesitation.”
Still glaring at me, she growled.
She fucking growled.
“Do you?” Vance barked, shaking her once.
The drunken mess in front of me flinched, but then she shuddered as if a full-body shiver was sweeping up her spine. “Let go,” she rasped.
“Drop the glass,” Vance warned.
“No.”
Leveraging her arm higher, Vance spared me a warning glance. “Leave.”
Disgusted, enraged that I’d allowed any emotions to be provoked, I turned toward the door. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“Perfect,” Sanaa spat at my back. “Walk away.”
As I reached for the handle the tumbler hit the solid wood door next to my head and shattered.
A split second later, her grunt filled the suite before the sound of two bodies colliding with a piece of furniture echoed off the walls.
Opening the door, refusing to look back, I walked out with controlled movements.
The door shut behind me, then shook as if a body hit it from the inside right before her muffled scream traveled down the carpeted hotel corridor.
My hands fisted.
Vance barked out an order. “Get up.”
My jaw clenched.
“Make me,” she taunted.
Furniture crashed.
I walked to the elevator.
“Do it,” I demanded, holding the bottle of scotch like a weapon.
Vance’s smile was leering. “Oh, don’t think I won’t, pet.”
“I’m not your fucking pet.”
He raised his left eyebrow as he circled me. “Aren’t you now?”
“No.” Every hour I spent in Ronan’s presence made me hate this game more and more, but I stupidly couldn’t let it go. “Make your move.”
His back straightening as sure as if he’d stepped off the mat, Vance grinned. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I have a meeting to get to. Speed it up.” Despite the meeting originally planned as a ruse to get visibility in a semi-public space, I cared about the charity concert. It’d benefit recent victims of a hurricane that’d blown through Trinidad and Tobago. I could sing one more time for that.
Vance smirked as he picked up a bottled water from the bar and poured it into a glass just to stall for time. “Nothing will start without you present.” He casually took a sip, then nodded at the bottle still in my hand. “You going to use that as a weapon or are you simply drinking to dull the pain?”
“I’m not in pain.” I was angry. At him. At Ronan. At myself. At the bomber that needed to show his face so I could get off this carnival ride that had become my life.
Vance made a noncommittal sound low in his throat as he drank again.
“Come on,” I demanded, making a come-here gesture with my free hand.
Glancing at an overturned dining chair and the coffee table that was askew, he smirked. “I think we’ve already covered our bases for today, love.”
My neck was sore where he’d gotten a hold of me before I could block him. My shins were smarting from my own stupid mistake of running into the coffee table, and I hadn’t been able to take him down in two days. We were nowhere near done.
I calculated the distance between us.
He chuckled. “Oh, I do love a good tell, sweetheart.” He set his glass down. “But really, do you actually think you can take me down in your state?”
“I’m not in a state.” I was so far past that.
“No?”
I hated his superior attitude. “No.”
His eye still colored from when Ronan had hit him, he gave me the sign. Holding his hands up in surrender, the stupid gesture he’d insisted on us having early on, he gave me our version of a safe word.
I growled in frustration. “I’m not finished.”
Approaching me with dominant authority, he took the bottle from my hand and set it on the coffee table. Then he did what I hated. He wrapped his arms around me.
“You’re okay,” he whispered.
I didn’t hug him back. “I hate you.”
“I know.” He squeezed me tighter. “But you can stop fighting anytime, love.”
“Don’t call me that.” I hated it. I hated that it was him saying it. I hated that his exact color eyes didn’t look like his brother’s.