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"She'll be the only woman competing, sir."
"She can play with the boys, I promise you that," I say.
"Some of them, they're quite good."
"Even better," I say, writing her name on the list and then underlining it with authority, just to show this clipboard-carrying asshole I mean business. "It's there. In pen. Underlined. You can't take that back. She'll be there in an hour, so you better tell everyone to be prepared for an ass kicking."
"I have no stake in the game, sir. I just make the lists. Have a good day."
Smiling, and looking forward to seeing a humbled Danielle a couple hours from now, after she's had her ass spanked on the bocce ball court — or whatever the fuck they play on — I head back to the room. It's been a while, my beer's empty, and Dani will need time to get ready.
Knocking first, I then push open the door.
"I've got news for you," I call out.
Hearing rustling in the bedroom, I continue into our room, through the mini living room of our suite and around the corner into the bedroom.
Then I stop. Frozen.
Danielle's there. Hair wrapped in a towel, one leg planted on the edge of the bed, so much of her exposed from beneath the hem of her very short, hardly tied bathrobe.
"Holy shit, Owen. What are you doing here?" She shrieks, clutching her robe tighter and turning away from me. As short as her robe is, the hem stops just above her knees, and I can see how tanned and toned her calves are. It's not a part I'd normally find sexy on a woman, but on her? Hell, I could become a calf man, if that's even a thing.
Shaking my head clear, I take a deep breath to still my heartbeat and remember why I came.
"There's bocce ball in an hour," I say.
It's only half the reason I came up here. Hell, it's barely a sentence, but it's all I can manage as the sight of Danielle still dominates my thoughts. I shake my head again. I should not be feeling this way about her. She's my best friend's little sister. This is wrong. So very wrong.
"Great, glad to know. So why should I care?"
"Because you're playing. I signed you up."
"Excuse me?"
"I put your name on the list with the clipboard guy. Signed it in pen. Underlined it, too. Oh, and you should know you were the only female and non-Italian on the list."
"You didwhat?" She whirls toward me so quickly her robe flashes open for a second and I throw my eyes to the ceiling. If I were a religious person, I'd probably have to flagellate myself to clear my head of all the thoughts that quick glimpse of Dani put into my head. As it is, I still might flagellate myself later.
I never imagined she had a body likethat.
I want to laugh. She's always had a body. I've just never seen it. It's been right in front of me this whole time and I've never recognized it because I've always seen her as Dani the tagalong in baggy t-shirts who did her best to keep up with Smokey and me as we raised hell through Costa Oscura.
But the woman in front of me is wearing a robe that barely covers her...
I shake my head again and remember my mission and my loyalty to Smokey. He saved my life, so I can't go imagining how I want to fuck his sister. I have to knock Danielle down a peg, so I can pay my debt and so Dani and I don't murder each other this weekend.
"I signed you up, like I said. The clipboard guy noted it, too. Oh, and don't even think about trying to back out of it, because I remember you saying we need to avoid attracting unwanted attention to ourselves this weekend, and skipping out on something you signed up for would definitely draw some unwanted attention."
"You're a bastard, you know that?"
"And you only have forty-five minutes to get ready."
"I hate you."
"Feeling's mutual right now." I check the time on my phone. "Forty-four minutes."
"You're the worst."
