“What the hell are you doing?”
2
Camila turned toward her brother, her frown dialed up to ten. “I’m having a drink and a great conversation. Not that it’s any of your business.” Seriously, Matteo was overprotective—he was a detective, swore it was mostly habit, blah blah blah—but this was over the top, even for him.
Matteo nailed Roman with a glare. “I meant you. What the hell are you doing with my sister?”
Roman’s eyes went wide for the briefest second before shuttering to something unreadable. “Your sister.”
“Yes. Camila is my sister. My younger sister.”
Roman’s expression made it clear that he’d had no idea she and Matteo were related. Not that it mattered.
“I’m also sitting—and I cannot emphasize this enough—right here,” Camila bit out. “Seriously, Matteo. What is wrong with you?”
Roman straightened on his bar stool, looking at Camila as he said, “I worked with your brother on Delia’s case. We don’t, ah, exactly get along.”
Right. Delia had mentioned something to that effect when she’d given Camila the rundown on everything that had happened. Something about a fight over jurisdiction and Matteo having trust issues when it came to Delia’s safety, which Camila understood to a point, since Matteo was crazy in love with her and her life had totally been in danger. Still… “That’s between the two of you, and it certainly doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not Roman and I have a drink together.”
“Camila—”
“Nope.” She held up a hand. For God’s sake, she was thirty years old. Her family might all still see her as the baby (and treat her accordingly) but Matteo had crossed a line. “You two can dislike each other all you want, but I’m a grown adult. This isn’t up for debate.”
Matteo let out a breath, his jaw unclenching. “Fine. But I’ll be right over there”—he nodded at a nearby bar table, where a few of his fellow detectives were sitting—“if you need anything.”
Camila didn’t trust herself to respond with anything she wouldn’t regret, so she settled for crossing her arms over her chest as Matteo gave Roman one last frown, then walked away. Roman remained as quiet as he had during the exchange, and oh, hell. She might as well get this over with.
“It’s fine if you want to run far, far away from me now. I won’t take it personally.”
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug and stayed put. “On the contrary. The way you stood up to your brother made me like you even more.”
Relief spilled through Camila’s chest, but she still felt like some damage control was in order. “I come from a big Latin American family. We’re extremely tight-knit, which is to say we’re all constantly in each other’s business. I’m the youngest of five, and Matteo and I are closest in age. He’s always been overprotective. He’s not usually that bad, but…”
“It doesn’t help that he and I aren’t exactly friends.”
A laugh huffed out of her. “That feels like a pretty big understatement.”
“Maybe.” Roman hid his expression in his beer, and God, he was tough to read. “But I get the impression that you can hold your own. Anyway, I’m not afraid of your brother.”
“Another thing we have in common.” Camila smiled, her heart tripping faster. “Don’t look now, but we’re kind of rocking this truce.”
His smile caught her completely off guard, leaving her a little breathless. “I’m still not conceding.”
Camila was saved from having to come up with a response (thank God, because really? Her hormones were on fire right now) by the sound of Detective Addison Hale’s voice filtering down from the speakers.
“Good evening, trivia fans!” Addison waved at everyone in the bar area from her spot on what usually served as a dance floor. Tonight, there were two tables set up on a makeshift stage, and Addison stood between them. “We’ve got five minutes before tonight’s big showdown between Team Delia”—she waited out the cheers and whistles before continuing—“and Team Capelli.” More cheers went up for the other team captain, who was also the Intelligence Unit’s tech and surveillance expert. “So, grab a seat and your favorite drink and get ready for some fun. Trivia team members, please come up to the stage.”
Camila looked at Roman, who she knew was on Delia’s team. “Looks like we’ll have to table our argument for later.”
It was the perfect out. God knew flirting with the little sister of his nemesis probably wasn’t on Roman’s agenda.
But rather than taking the opportunity to give her some vague “see ya around”, he said, “I’m counting on it. Like I said, I’m very good at winning, and I don’t intend to let you off easy.”
There was a better than average chance that Roman had lost his damn mind. His brain, being the logical organ that it was, knew this. But the rest of him wasn’t heeding any of the warnings his brain was pumping out, namely that flirting with Camila had been a bad idea before he’d realized she was Garza’s sister. Not that he cared about pissing the guy off—he’d unlocked that achievement months ago. But still, it was the cherry on top of all the reasons why he had no business giving in to the spark he felt whenever Camila aimed her smile at him.
He didn’t want to get started on the flat-out fire she’d ignited inside of him when she’d stood up to her brother.
Christ, this was stupid, he thought as he made his way to the stage. They’d had one conversation. Yeah, he’d felt sparks, and more yeah, that hadn’t happened in five years. But he was overthinking it. He could spend one night in Camila Garza’s presence without losing his fucking composure.
Roman met Delia on the stage, where she’d taken the middle seat of three at the table beneath a banner reading “Team Delia”.
“Oh, good, you’re here,” she said, gesturing to the blond, white guy on her left. “This is Jonah Sheridan. Jonah, this is Kai Roman.”
Jonah, who looked like he was either a model or a movie star, or possibly both, extended a hand. “Kai. Great to meet you.”
“Roman,” he corrected, hearing the gruffness in his voice only after he’d spoken. “No one really calls me Kai.”
“Roman it is,” Jonah said, his smile not faltering.
Delia nodded, her own smile becoming all business. “Okay, we only have a few minutes to talk strategy. I made a spreadsheet of each of our core strengths. I think I’ve got most of the categories covered, but, of course, we can adjust depending on the difficulty of the questions.”
She passed each of them a three-page spreadsheet that was, in a shock to no one, color-coded. Jonah turned out to be a trauma surgeon, covering a lot of ground in science and medicine. He also had five-year-old twins, so score one for a huge subset of pop culture Roman had no handle on whatsoever. Jonah’s wife, Natalie, was also a surgeon, and unfortunately on Team Capelli, along with hockey star Finn Donnelly. But between Delia’s obvious affinity for numbers and Roman’s penchant for memorizing facts he’d probably never need unless he’d been asked to join a trivia team, the playing field was pretty even, and anyway, Roman was competitive to a fault.