Loving Siblings: Aidan & Dionne by Catharina Shields Read Free Book Online Page A

just when she
got the key into the lock, twisted, and pulled the door open—only
to have it slammed shut by a big, brown hand. “Leave me alone!” she
shouted up at Aidan’s grim face, but to her dismay, not only was
she trembling from head to toe, she was also looking up at him
through a blur of tears.
    “ I’m sorry,” he said with a deeply
remorseful voice. “I shouldn’t have—”
    “— No. We shouldn’t have,” she cut him off.
    “ I was saying,” he said slowly with an
irritable tone, “I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that.
But I’m not saying I’m sorry for kissing you.”
    She looked away, and quickly wiped her tears
away. “We can’t do this, Aidan.” She raised teary eyes that nearly
tore his heart out. “I can’t do this.”
    He stared at her for a few moments, but then
he looked down to the ground. Then he nodded and raised his head as
he looked at her little, miserable face. “Okay,” he said. “I guess
I know how you feel. I came on too strong—”
    “— No, Aidan. That’s not it. This
should’ve never happened—”
    “— It’s okay, Dionne,” he said. “I get
it.”
    She stared at him for a few moments in
stunned silence. “You do?”
    “ Yeah,” he said with a nod. “I do.”
Then he smiled, and she gave a hesitant one. “I’ve gotta get back
to the locker room—”
    “— Yes, because we wouldn’t want Candy
to feel lonely, would we?” she blurted before she could think. She
could’ve kicked herself for
not keeping her mouth shut.
    “ No . . .” he dragged, “because I’ve
got to get dressed and head over to Black Angus. I don’t want to
keep the team waiting, do I?”
    Dionne looked at him with big, shocked eyes.
“You knew they were throwing you a party?”
    “ Why else would they send you to fetch
me?” he said. “Since I know you never break with Dionne protocol by going into a
guys’ locker room unless you were certain I was the only one there,
you had to be sent, right?”
    Dionne swallowed and nodded. “Right.”
    He flashed a big smile. “So . . . are you
coming, too?”
    “ I-I can’t—”
    “— Okay,” he said with a chipper tone.
“Anyway, can’t stand out here only in my Levi’s and bare feet. I’ll
see you when I see you, Dionne.”
    “ O-Okay,” she answered with a stunned
look. She couldn’t help but feel a little relieved but a lot more
disappointed. He gave up so quickly! Then again, it’s probably
because he’s finally realizing how idiotic all of this
was.
    She was, after all, his sister—adopted, or
not.
    When standing in the same room with a beauty
like Candace, and comparing her to that blonde sex-kitten, reality
tends to give you a wakeup call in the form of a firm slap in the
face. And she just got hers. She should be grateful he was giving
up on that silly notion they could be anything more than siblings.
So why did she feel like crap?
    He smiled before he turned to return to the
locker room, but then she remembered something. And maybe it was
just to feel some semblance of normalcy between them, or just
something to make her feel . . . wanted by someone. A feminine ego
booster, as it were.
    “ Oh, and Aidan?”
    He turned with a quizzical look, brow
arched. “Yeah?”
    “ Be happy Helmut was there when you
told me that fib about kicking the ball accidentally his way. I
would’ve otherwise bitten your head off for that stupid little
move. You forget,” she arched a brow, “I’ve seen you play all your
life, and you’ve never sent a ball anywhere you didn’t intend it to
go, so that excuse of it being an accident rang hollow. The very
least you could’ve done was put more effort into looking
remorseful.”
    “ What makes you think I feel any
remorse?” He arched a cocky brow.
    “ Look,” she sighed, “you don’t have to
pretend to like him—”
    “— I hate his guts,” he flat out said.
She was silent as she blinked big, stunned eyes. “I thought I made
that perfectly