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Freya blinks, her pale blue-gray eyes, just like Mom’s, wide with surprise. Slowly she lifts her hands in surrender. “Okay. I’m sorry. I get in mama-bear mode, you know that. I just want to take care of you. You’re my baby sister.”
I shake my head, scrunching my eyes shut. “I’m the youngest in the family, but I’m not a baby anymore, Freya. I’m a twenty-two-year-old woman.” Huffing a breath, I stare up at the ceiling and try to calm myself. “I vote. I got my driver’s license. I have a job and an apartment. I pay my rent. I take care of myself, okay?”
Freya lowers her hands, her voice quiet and hesitant. “Okay, Ziggy. I’m sorry.”
Guilt turns my stomach sour. I’ve hurt Freya’s feelings, and I didn’t mean to. I meant to be honest, to tell the truth, but I didn’t say it in a way that made her feel good.
So often, it feels like when I’m my true, honest self, I can’t do anything right.
“It’s fine. I’m sorry, too, I just…” Growling with frustration, I clutch my sandals tight in my hand. My underwear’s location in my butt crack is turning into my villain origin story. “I just need somewhere to lose these freaking panties!”
Storming down the hall and leaving my sister in my wake, I catch sight of glass doors opening out to a shadowy terrace, a steep roof shielding it from the last marigold streaks of twilight. Tall tropical plants cover the terra-cotta tiles and form a small, lush oasis, affording me plenty of privacy for what I need to do.
I drop my sandals and hike up my dress to reach the waistband of my underwear. With a sigh of deep relief, I hook my fingers on the waistband, then drag the offending fabric down my thighs. When it hits my ankles, I celebrate by flicking the horrible panties off my foot, into the air over my head. Then I spin around, prepared to catch them.
Except when I turn around, I see someone’s beaten me to it.
Someone lounging in the shadows, long legs outstretched…
One familiar, tattooed hand, holding my panties.
I take it back. It’s not the wedgie from hell or Bridget and Martina’s gossiping or my well-meaning-but-suffocating family that’s going to ruin this otherwise perfect day. It’s the sight of my underwear dangling from Sebastian Gauthier’s heavily tattooed index finger.
Heat crawls up my throat and floods my cheeks as my brother’s best friend stares at me from the shadows. Slowly, he sits up and leans forward, elbows on his knees.
Then he gives my panties a little twirl around his finger.
Somehow, my cheeks get even hotter. I’m going to die of mortification.
“Lose something?” he asks.
It’s the longest he’s ever looked my way, the most words he’s ever spoken to me. (We’ve bumped into each other a handful of times either at my brother Ren’s place or after their games, which is when I’ve only ever been the recipient of a terse nod followed by a chilly hello.) Any other day, I’d probably stand here, tongue-tied, stunned that Sebastian’s acknowledged my existence.
But today, I’m at my limit. I’ve been dealing with a noisy crowd, aggravating undies, petty fellow athletes, overinvolved family, and I’m done.
Cheeks burning, fire in my veins, I take the two steps between us and reach for my underwear as he swings it lazily around his finger.
At the last second, Sebastian pulls back and does some confounding sleight of hand that makes them disappear. A soft tsk shivers through the air as he peers up at me, one dark eyebrow lifted. “Not so fast.”
I glare down at him. “Give me my panties.”
Gaze holding mine, he flashes a dangerously slow, sensual grin. And in that moment, I understand exactly how Sebastian Gauthier has managed to get away with being such a despicable human: he is despicably handsome.
I stare into those rare quicksilver eyes, cold and sharp as they stare right back at me. His dark hair rustles in the sea breeze, a few loose waves caressing his temple before they’re blown back, revealing the full and unfair beauty of his face. Cool gray eyes framed by thick dark lashes. A long, strong nose. That unreasonably lush mouth, twin faint hollows in each cheek.
Slouching in his chair again, long legs sprawled out, he wears a booted air cast on his right foot that I can only imagine sucked to wear out on the sand, though I’m not inclined to feel much of anything in the way of sympathy for him right now. Inked fingers with their silver rings drum on the chair’s arms. He’s dressed in a charcoal suit so dark it’s nearly black, a white button-up undone way too many, revealing a deep wedge of golden skin and silver chains. From his collarbones down, every exposed inch of him is covered in tats.
In another world—in which he wasn’t an unapologetic jerk—I could mistake him for one of those morally gray villains who star in the fantasy romances I’ve been reading since adolescence. Dangerous and dark haired, inked and angry. Villains who ultimately redeem themselves, revealing their true natures when they prove themselves to be profoundly good, feminist, sacrificial heroes.
I know. It’s called fantasy romance for a reason.
As he inspects me with that cool, sharp gaze, I set my hands on my hips and glare at him, profoundly annoyed.
He is literally the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.
But while he looks like he could spread some epic Faery King wings and whisk me off across the night sky to his palace, he is not one of my fantasy romance heroes. He is someone who—according to a lot of deeply damning and corroborated news headlines—breaks not just promises and property, but hopes and hearts. Which is why his devious charms have not and certainly will not be working on me.
And also why I continue to be baffled that my second oldest brother, Ren, the sweetest, most tenderhearted man, could be bonded to him so deeply.
