The rage bubbling in Dylan’s gut was so uncharacteristic it caught him by surprise. He didn’t get this angry. Ever. He was usually calm under pressure, cool, collected, in complete f**king control of himself.
But at this very moment, he wanted to murder his own brother.
Straight-up murder him.
Releasing a slow breath, he shifted his head so he didn’t have to see Claire’s dark expression in his peripheral vision. “You’re unbelievable,” he hissed into the phone. “Right now, in this moment? I can’t believe we’re even related. I’m so f**king ashamed of you.”
“Hey!”
Chris’s outraged gasp only pissed Dylan off even more. “Don’t worry, I’ll pass your message along, big brother,” he snapped. “And now I’m going to hang up before I say something I might regret.”
Proving he didn’t make idle threats, he punched the end button and tossed his phone in the cup holder, where it rattled against Claire’s discarded iPhone.
The anger refused to abate. His vision was a sea of red, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles had turned white, but the alternative was punching the damn dashboard, and he wasn’t in the mood to have an airbag deploy in his face. Jesus f**king Christ. This entire day had been a f**king nightmare, and it just kept getting worse and worse.
“What did he say?”
Claire’s cautious voice broke through the haze of fury. For a second he was tempted to lie, but he couldn’t bring himself to cover for his brother. Chris didn’t deserve any clemency, not after everything he’d done.
“He said he’s sorry and he’ll talk to you when he gets back,” Dylan reported through gritted teeth.
She went quiet. Her confused expression soon gave way to horror as understanding dawned. “He’s going on our honeymoon?”
Dylan nodded.
“He’s going on our f**king honeymoon?”
Her chest heaved from her labored breathing, drawing his gaze to her ample cle**age. And proving that he had zero decorum, his inner manwhore refused to let him overlook the fact that this woman had great tits. No, spectacular tits.
“Oh my God. Who does that?” Claire exclaimed. “I can’t believe I was going to marry such an insensitive ass!”
Dylan shifted in discomfort when he noticed the tears filling her eyes. Fortunately, the moisture clinging to her long lashes didn’t spill over. If she started crying, he knew he’d have no choice but to take her in his arms, and he was determined to avoid that. Just because he was helping her out didn’t mean they were best buds or anything.
“Well, on the bright side, your apartment is free,” he said feebly.
She gave a vicious shake of the head. “I can’t go back there. If I see anything that reminds me of Chris right now…”
She didn’t finish that sentence, but Dylan could fill in the blanks. “So what do you want to do?” he asked her.
Two teardrops broke free from those thick eyelashes and streamed down her flawless ivory cheeks. “Number three,” she mumbled. “I choose option three.”
A couple hours later, Claire turned to Dylan in confusion as their taxi came to a stop in front of a modern high-rise with an endless amount of windows sparkling in the afternoon sunlight.
“Where are we?” she asked suspiciously. “I thought we were going to your place.”
He leaned forward and handed the driver some cash, then reached for the door handle. “This is my place.”
“Since when?” Claire wrinkled her brow. The last time she and Chris came to visit, Dylan had been living in a house in Coronado with his teammate Seth, a scruffy badass SEAL with a chip on his shoulder.
“Since about a month ago,” he answered.
They got out of the cab and Dylan rounded the vehicle to grab their bags from the trunk. It was just past three o’clock, and the sun was so bright Claire squinted to avoid being blinded and wished she hadn’t shoved her sunglasses into her carry-on. She couldn’t believe how warm it was, especially for December. On the plus side, she happened to be wearing a sundress so thin she may as well be naked.
On the minus side, the barely-there dress had resulted in an hour-and-a-half-long helicopter ride in which Dylan’s green eyes had been glued to her br**sts.
Which was perplexing, because…he was g*y, right? She still couldn’t figure it out, but the memory of Dylan’s tongue in another man’s mouth was completely incongruous to the way he’d been ogling her on the chopper.
And speaking of perplexing, what the hell had compelled her to come back to San Diego with this man? Clearly she’d suffered a mental breakdown after hearing that Chris was leaving town, but by the time common sense decided to make a return, they’d already been landing on the helipad of San Diego’s Coast Guard base.
After the taxi sped off, Dylan lugged their bags toward the glass doors at the building’s entrance. He didn’t turn around to see if she was following, but he did call out a mocking, “You coming?”
She trailed after him, still mystified by their surroundings. How on earth could Dylan afford to live here? This building was way too luxurious for a SEAL’s salary. They stepped into a beautiful lobby with dark oak furniture, cream-colored carpeting, and tasteful artwork on the walls, and were immediately greeted by the uniformed security guard sitting behind a spacious counter.
Dylan smiled and nodded at the bulky African-American man, then introduced Claire as his houseguest. The fact that the guard wrote down her name told Claire that security was taken seriously in this building.