Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 103124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
“What? When?”
“Alberto is flying with me to New York tomorrow.”
In the moonlight, he looks as flawless as a Michelangelo sculpture. High cheekbones. Strong jaw. Muscles cut from marble. I’ve loved Domenico De Kysa my whole life. He is my best friend, always has been and always will be. Which is why I’ve shared all my firsts with him. My first kiss. My first time. My everything.
He took my virginity in this barn last Valentine’s Day. I had given him a paper heart with a promise never to give my heart to another boy. He had taken it and kissed me, and then we vanquished our v-cards in the light of the full moon.
Now we meet in secret whenever we can. We might be betrothed, but my virginity is expected right up until we wed.
“I won’t go,” I whisper.
He presses his forehead to mine. “Run away with me.”
“What?”
He cups my jaw. “We’ll go somewhere far away where they can’t find us.”
“Go where? Our fathers have eyes all over this country.”
“Then we leave the country.”
“They’ll find us. They’ll always find us.”
He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. “We have to try.”
We’re silent for a moment.
He kisses me, and I feel it all the way down to my soul. He is where I start and where I end, and everything I need in between.
We make love in the hay, where Nico has set out a bed of blankets. Afterward, I lie in his arms, aching with fear at the unknown that lies ahead.
“Is this how it ends for us?” I whisper against his warm chest.
Nico lifts my chin. “There is no end for us,” he says with certainty. “It would be like trying to stop the tides. Impossible. My reason for breathing is you.”
His mouth slants over mine, and his tongue strokes into my mouth. He kisses me with such confidence, my fear vanishes, replaced by the heady throb of lust.
Nico’s kisses never fail to turn my bones into liquid.
As the kiss deepens, a new need returns, and he rolls onto me again. “No matter what happens, I will always find my way back to you.”
The barn door bursts open, and the silhouettes of my father’s bodyguards fill the doorway. I sit up and grab the blanket to cover myself. Nico rises to his feet, unfazed by his nakedness and the thick erection swinging between his powerful thighs. Not even seventeen, he already has a body to rival any of the older adversaries in the doorway and cuts a formidable image in the moonlight.
The bodyguards part to let an older man in a suit and tie walk in.
“Bella Isle Ciccula, you need to come with me at once.” The voice belongs to Alberto.
“She’s not going anywhere,” Nico growls.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Nico.” Alberto steps into a beam of moonlight breaking through a hole in the barn roof. He’s an intimidating man, tall with big hands and a slight scowl on his leathery face. He has a full set of hair, but it’s snow white. I’ve known him my whole life, and he’s always looked like an old man. “Bella, you need to come with me now.”
Confused, I tighten the sheet around my nakedness.
Alberto leans down to pick up the pair of jeans Nico discarded after he had undressed me and shoves them into Nico’s bare chest. “Put these on. We’re not all hung like that… You’ll make us old men feel inadequate.”
Nico takes them but reaches for Alberto’s arm. “Why are you here? Did her father send you?”
Alberto ignores him and fixes his gaze on me. “Bella, get dressed. You’re coming home now, either by choice or by force.”
Beneath the covers, I clumsily redress.
Nico pushes his hand into Alberto’s chest. “Hey! No one is forcing anyone to do anything.”
“Take your hand off me, bambino. We’re not starting something here. You need to get home.”
Alberto nods to the two men with him who step around Nico and drag me off the hay.
A scuffle breaks out as Nico tries to stop them.
Alberto grabs Nico and shakes him. “You need to go home. Your mother needs you.”
Alberto drives me home but refuses to answer any of my questions, so by the time he ushers me through the front door, I’m demanding answers.
The first thing I realize when I walk inside is the frantic pace of everything. I pause in the foyer and try to make sense of it.
Sophia, our housekeeper, drags a heavy suitcase behind her while Olivia, our maid, races down the stairs carrying an armful of my father’s suits in her arms. At the base of the stairs, she drops them onto the three suitcases already waiting there before bolting back up the stairs and disappearing into the bedroom.
Sophia drops the suitcase and starts hurrying me in Italian. “Quickly, child. You need to pack.”