Page 82 of Rocked By the Alpha

He opens his eyes and finds his sister standing over him.

“You coming in? The kids are desperate for Uncle West bombs.”

He shakes his head and she wraps a beach towel around her torso and perches on the lounger next to him.

“You wanna talk about it?” she asks.

“No.” He manages a smile, hopes it’s enough that she’ll leave him alone.

What is there to say? That Alpha. That sicko Alpha had found her again.

He heard about it and he’d vomited straight into the toilet bowl.

That fucking psychopath had got to her. And he hadn’t been there to protect her. She hasn’t even called him about it.

Darlia reaches over and pinches his bicep. “Don’t give me that bullshit. Something’s wrong. Where’s Ruby?”

He sighs and tucks his hands behind his head. “Gone.”

“What did you do?”

“I love how you assume it was me.”

“It wasn’t?”

“I dunno.”

She swings her legs up onto the lounger and rolls back to lean against the cushion. For a moment her gaze is occupied by the children battling to dunk each other under the surface. “Jayden, get off your sister. Karl, why are you letting them drown each other?” Then her focus swings back to him.

“So if it wasn’t you, what happened? You seemed thoroughly loved up.”

“Yep.”

“Am I going to have to torture this out of you, little brother? Come on, spit it out.”

He stares straight ahead, over the swimming pool and towards the horizon, shimmering with heat.

“The lead singer of her band found out about us being together and threw her out of the band. Ruby seemed more pissed with Nat than me. But then we went to this dinner with her folks. And things blew up there too. My fault apparently. She got pissed with me — said the relationship was ruining everything for her. To be honest, she has a point. I don’t want to be the cause of all this upset in her life.”

“Uh huh.”

“And then I may have said some home truths about her relationship with her parents and with Nat which didn’t go down too well.”

“And now?”

“We haven’t spoken since.”

“And what, that’s okay? You’re happy to never speak to her again?”

He snaps his gaze in her direction and frowns. “Of course I’m not happy about it.”

“Because …” His sister rolls her hand as if encouraging him to say more.

“Fuck off, Darlia.”

She shakes her head. “Why are you telling me to fuck off?”

“Is it amusing to you that I’m miserable? That the girl I’ve been chasing for months wouldn’t even get on the plane home with me?”