Love Him Free (On the Market #1) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,8

part appreciated that his new Gucci loafers didn’t put a dent in his credit line. Those people existed anyway—might as well profit.

Pressing two fingers to his temple to ward off his lingering hangover headache, Rocco managed most of his coffee before he reached Xander’s office, and he didn’t bother knocking as he walked in. There was a woman sitting in the corner of a room with hands primly on the top of a grey wool skirt. Her hair was a soft blonde, pinned back, and her shirt was high-collared. He hated making snap judgements, but he was fairly sure she was the interpreter, and he was fairly sure she was going to walk out before the conversation got fully underway.

She was at least polite enough to make introductions before he had to address Xander, who remained seated with the edge of his foot hooked on the corner of his desk. He looked arrogant as ever with his silk button-down and tight jeans. He was a wanna-be, which was why he was an agent not a star, and Rocco knew that there was some level of bitterness with every job he booked for his clients.

‘Rocco,’ he spelled, then offered her his sign name.

‘Mary,’ she spelled, and didn’t offer hers which was interesting, but he didn’t much care.

He knew he looked like hell and the fact that he kept his sunglasses on was twenty shades of rude. But fuck politeness when his ex had confessed to boning a guy he supposedly met at Trader Joe’s and was now going to live with him, or…whatever.

‘What agency are you from?’ he couldn’t help but ask, and he braced himself for the answer.

‘Sun Valley Interpreting Services,’ she spelled.

He knew them. They mostly dealt with public events and church services—which really didn’t bode well. He looked past her, then gestured for her to step back before he addressed Xander. ‘Did you hire her?’

Xander never really did have any tact, even with Eric who had become actual friends with him over the years, and he stared at her over his shoulder as she spoke. “Uh yeah,” he said. “Why?”

‘Did you just google interpreting services or something?’ Rocco could tell her inflection didn’t match the rage in his fingers, but he didn’t have the strength to correct her in that moment.

Xander gave him a bland-faced shrug. “Does it matter what I do now? Eric moved on to greener pastures, right?”

And really, if there ever had been a glass-shattering moment, that was it. Not because of Xander’s blasé attitude, but the reason why. And maybe it took Xander being an absolute dick for him to connect the dots that had been there the entire time, but now was that moment.

‘You fucked him. He left…you’re fucking him, and he left me for you!’

He watched Mary’s lips form the first half of the word fuck before she stopped. ‘I can’t say that.’

Fury—a sort of burning, consuming rage—coursed through him and he hit the desk so hard, they both jumped. ‘You say what I sign! I am paying you for this!’

‘I can’t say that,’ she repeated.

Rocco’s lips curled back in a snarl. “Get out,” he voiced, and she took a startled step back. Her hands went up, but he shook his head. “Get the fuck out.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d remember to feel bad for making someone that terrified. He knew what he looked like—he knew that his size was intimidating, and that despite his accent, his voice was a deep rumble in his chest. He knew it made people uneasy, and he’d used it against her right then. But it was so hard to care when he was standing in front of the man who had been fucking his partner, and the woman hired to help him communicate refused to do it.

When the door shut, the slam reverberating through the bottoms of his feet, he slowly turned his gaze back to Xander. “You fucked Eric.”

His lips were moving too fast for Rocco to read them, but it didn’t matter. The furious blush creeping up his neck said enough. He fucked Eric—he’d been fucking Eric. God only knew how long it had been going on.

“Stop,” he demanded after Xander said his piece into the silence between them. “You know I can’t understand you, and I don’t care. You’re fired.”

He turned and started for the door, not anticipating how fast Xander would be, or how bold. His thin fingers wrapped around Rocco and spun him, but the look on Rocco’s