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.
“I’ve not been in Manhattan for ages,” she said softy, sadly. “But it doesn’t matter.”
He gritted his teeth. Not going to fall for the disappointed spoilt schoolgirl act. Except he knew she wasn’t that spoilt. And she wasn’t a schoolgirl anymore.
Varsity girl, fool. Not that much of an improvement.
Still too fucking young.
He rolled his shoulders and wished he could take his coat off but he was hoping they’d be at the hotel soon enough. He glanced out the window. Freaking taxi was moving slower than a slug over broken glass. There was too much traffic. It would’ve been faster to keep walking but it was too cold out there for her.
However he needed the frigid wind to keep his head. That’s why he’d taken so long following her before saying anything. He’d needed to cool down from listening to Logan shout at her like that, and to temper his own response to seeing her again.
Danielle Hughes was too pretty for her own good.
“You sure you have room at your hotel?” Her voice had more of an edge as she asked. “I heard it was booked out months in advance. Very popular.”
He longed to put her in one of the suites far, far away from his. He wanted floors between them. As much distance as possible.
Except he didn’t trust her. Couldn’t. She ran away at every opportunity.
Not that he blamed her. Her father was a bastard of the highest order. Rocco had witnessed the callous way he’d treated his sons and he knew it from personal experience. The old man would do anything to get his own way.
But she was right. The hotel was very popular. Held the highest occupancy rates in the city. Right now it was full.
He allowed himself the merest glance at her. “I can work something out.”
She was looking directly at him. Her blue eyes were shadowed but he saw the glint of some kind of fire in them. He figured it was resentment. He hoped it was resentment.
“Sorry to cause you trouble.”
Yep, resentment. She couldn’t have sounded less sincere.
His heart thudded uncomfortably hard. He shifted imperceptibly, trying to relax. He wasn’t old enough to have a heart attack, yet here he was feeling hot, tight in the chest and unable to breathe.
He needed fresh air. Or a barrel of ice to jump into.
Logan had warned that Dani would give him nothing but trouble when he’d offered to go after her. But the trouble wasn’t the kind Logan had been thinking of. And it was a good thing Logan had no idea of the thoughts spinning in Rocco’s head. No idea what an exercise in self-restraint this was.
Rocco had avoided looking too closely at Danielle Hughes since she’d gone from being a barely there ghost of a girl, into a sultry in-your-face teen. Fortunately she’d been packed off to boarding school for years, so she’d been away most of the time when he’d slaved his way through every menial job going at the Hughes’ Summerhill resort until he’d gotten the skills and saved the funds he needed.
He rarely went back to the ski town now. Sure as hell didn’t go near the award-winning restaurant that still bore his father’s name. His name.
And Dani had waitressed there? Had taken orders from the man who’d destroyed Rocco’s childhood?
The thought her being anywhere near Bill infuriated him. And that she’d seen and spoken with his mom? The half brothers he hardly knew?
He couldn’t think about it. Wouldn’t ask her how they were. What they were like.
He didn’t want to know. Ever.
But a few nights ago he’d had to return to the Hughes’ resort—to support Logan and Connor. Dani had sashayed into that gruesome anniversary party for her parents wearing a sapphire dress that fell to the floor in a clinging swathe of liquid-looking material. Single-handedly she’d sent the temperature in the arctic atmosphere soaring. Rocco had made the mistake of looking for too long. For one heady moment, she’d looked back.
Then Rocco had remembered just why he didn’t look.
Her brothers. His best friends. Loyalty.
Today her stunning form was encased in black skinny jeans, a sleek black sweater and a denim jacket that was too light for this weather.
Not that Rocco was looking any lower than her eyes now. Not noticing her full mouth or her luminous creamy skin. Definitely not noticing her curves that made his hands tingle with the urge to caress.
No. He wasn’t noticing any of that. Just as he’d never noticed those things about her. He refused.
>
Because Danielle Hughes was little more than a kid. She was the baby sister of his two best friends. The guys he owed. The guys who were the only thing resembling family that he still had. He’d do anything for them. Never do anything to hurt them.
So he was fixing his gaze on her eyes only.
Trouble was, her eyes were a deep, beautiful, bruised blue. Yeah, that’s why he’d had to walk in the other direction at the party the other night. It wasn’t her body that had done him in, it was the look in her eyes.
He knew that look and it wasn’t all resentment.
Damn Hunter for being away this week. Damn Xander for being too busy with his woman.
Damn Logan for accepting Rocco’s stupid offer—that he’d take care of her?
One night. Surely he was man enough to handle that. One night, then he’d send her home.
And he was not going to feel bad about it.