“No.”
“Do it!”
“I can’t!”
“Okay, then just say the words.”
“What?”
“You know.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. Say it. Make every easy shot, Rocco, and make every shot easy.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
ROCCO AND NICO
He stared into those black eyes. How could he not have seen it? His gaze drifted down to that collarbone. He fisted his hands, resisting the urge to trace the length of it with his finger.
He remembered that cool, in control woman on New Year’s Eve, and the way she’d played him.
That was Nico? This woman? They’re one and the same?
He felt a familiar sick cold sweat, the same sick cold sweat he’d felt when he’d had to stand with a frozen smile on his face and shake Carolyn’s hand as she stood next to her husband as though he were meeting her for the first time. And with the entire Blue Jet team and crew looking on.
“It was you!” he cried. “I can’t believe I could be so stupid. I kept telling myself there was something. Something familiar. But I still don’t understand. Okay. So, you made me look like an ass, even more of an ass, given I turned out to be your teammate. But why didn’t you tell me? Especially since— Why would you be with me, like— Fuck! The things I told you.”
“I—I—can— I can explain. I wanted to tell you. I just didn’t know how.”
He thought about that woman and how smooth she’d been. She was like some kind of professional you’d see in a movie. That made him think about how little he knew about the woman who stood before him now. She was so guarded, revealed so little about herself and her past. And then it hit him. That night.
“The drinking game,” he said.
She frowned. “What?”
“When we played Never Have I Ever. All those things you admitted to doing.”
“You admitted to the same things.”
“That’s different.”
Her cheeks were flushed. “Why? Because you’re a man and I’m a woman? That’s it. Isn’t it?” Her head dropped, and she gazed at his feet. “I knew what I was doing when I admitted to those things. I got my answer. You’re thinking of those things, even now. You could never get past my past, the things I’ve done. What happened at Drink and Dive hardly matters.”
“What do you mean, your past?”
She shrugged, but as she turned her head, he watched her hastily brush away tears from her cheek with the back of her hand. “The things I admitted I’d done during that drinking game and other things. What I did to you on New Year’s Eve. Conning a man for money. It wasn’t the first time I’d done that.”
“You’ve done that before?”
She nodded.
Now that cold sweat burned hot.
That’s why she was so good at it.
He turned away and began pacing. He still couldn’t figure out what she was playing at. Why all the rest of it? What did she want from him?
