by Sienna Blake
Somehow my voice kicked in. “I know I didn’t have to help you.” I gave him a half-smile. “Obviously, I have a soft spot for damsels in distress.”
He laughed. The sound was glorious, rich and rolling and full. I wanted to weave his laughter into a blanket and wrap it around me. I grinned at him like a fool, pleased at myself that I could elicit such a warm response from such a stunning-looking man.
“Well,” he said after his laughter had faded, “thank you, my valiant knight.” He bowed low, making me blush.
I turned my face towards the direction where Scarface had disappeared to. “I don’t suppose you’d tell me why you’re running from him?”
“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”
“Try me.”
His lips twitched before he spoke. “I just arrived in town for a funeral. I thought I could fly in, come straight here and fly out tomorrow without having to see my father but…he’s determined to pin me down.”
His father? I tried to picture Scarface birthing the god before me. I couldn’t. How could such beauty come from such ugliness? “You’re right. I don’t believe you. That man looked nothing like your father.”
He looked like he was about to say something else about it, but he didn’t. “Are you here visiting someone?” He indicated the grave between us, firmly changing the subject.
The sadness I’d been feeling before he showed up leaked back in. Funny how it seemed to have disappeared around him. I nodded down at the grave, pinpricks behind my eyes. “Yes.”
“You loved…him?”
“Her. My mother. Deeply.”
“I know what that’s like.” His voice was tight and low, pain squeezing out between his words. “I lost my mother too.”
Strangely, my pain eased, soothed by the silence that descended over us. A shared silence. A moment of perfect understanding, when you both spoke without words. I’d only ever shared these moments with my mother, who had been my best friend when she’d been alive. Now I was having this moment with a perfect stranger…a beautiful, intriguing stranger.
I was about to blurt out everything I had been thinking about perfect moments when my phone rang, saving me from myself. My heart sank when I saw the name across the screen. I knew what was coming. I should have expected it.
I answered the call, feeling the beautiful man’s eyes on me. “You’re not coming, are you?” I said into the receiver, my voice working around the golf ball at the base of my neck.
“Sorry, honey,” my father said. “Work.”
“Of course.” It was always work. My chest tightened.
“I’ll come by later for dinner, okay? Your place? About sevenish?” Which meant I’d be lucky if he arrived by nine p.m.
“Sure.” I hung up, staring at my mother’s grave again, gripping my cell in my hand. Her fucking birthday and he couldn’t make this one day a priority. He couldn’t make me a priority. Work needed him so he went. Work always needed him. What about when I needed him?
I let out a curse as bitterness flooded over the back of my tongue. Before I could stop myself, I threw my phone. It hit the ground and bounced once before half disappearing in a cluster of untrimmed grass. I could feel the beautiful man’s gaze on me like a cloak. I pressed my hands into my face to avoid his scrutiny, embarrassed that I had let a stranger witness this rare show of emotion from me. He probably thought I was mental.
“Are you okay?” The concern in his voice was a finger plucking on my heart strings.
I sucked in a breath and wiped under my eyes before lifting my head. He’d walked between the gravestones over to my phone, picking it out of the grass. I didn’t move to take it from him.
“It’s my father,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “He was supposed to meet me here. It’s her birthday. Was her birthday today.” I didn’t know why I was telling him. I didn’t even know his name.
“But he’s not coming.”
I shook my head, a fresh wave of anger causing me to grit my teeth.
“I’d be angry too.”
“I’m not angry…” I was lying. It was probably so obvious to him. I sighed. “Fine. I am angry.”
“And you have a right to be.” He paused. “My father…angers me too.”
“Which is why you run away from him.” I shook my hair out of my face. “I only wish that my father noticed me enough to chase after me.”
I had said too much. I had said too much to a beautiful stranger who made me feel unsteady, like my world was tipping, who somehow made me talk so openly. If I spent any more time with him I just might spill all the deepest, darkest secrets of my heart.
“I should go,” I said suddenly.
Something in my chest let out a disappointed thud, even though I was the one instigating goodbye. I realized I wanted him to stop me.
He nodded. “Thanks again for throwing him off my trail. You didn’t have to. I’m glad you did.”
I sagged a little. He wasn’t going to stop me. How silly. Saying one thing, wanting another.
“You can pay it forward.” I turned to walk away. Before I could take a step, I heard him clear his throat. When I looked back he was holding out my phone, a tiny smirk on his face.
Right. I needed that.
He didn’t move, forcing me to close the distance between us. I walked on unsteady feet, choosing my heel placements carefully so that I didn’t trip, the tightness in my chest growing the nearer I got to him.
I stopped before him. This close I could see his eyes were a deep, rich chocolate, tiny flecks of amber in them. I could smell him, an intoxicating mix of spicy wood and a hint of citrus; pure masculinity. I was suddenly overcome with a ridiculous urge to push my nose into his jacket.
He dangled my phone out in front of me. I reached out to take it. He snatched it out of my reach. “First, your name,” he said, his eyes twinkling with playfulness.
“Julianna Capulet,” I said.
He spoke my first name, drawing out the ahhh in Julianna like a moan. It caused a strange sensation in my lower belly.
“And yours?” I managed to squeak out.
“Roman. Roman…Lettiere.”
Roman. I repeated the name in my head, trying to taste it on my tongue but daring not to speak it, like perhaps saying his name would somehow curse me, binding my soul to this beautiful devil forever.
“I suppose I owe you your phone back.” With his eyes still on mine, he held his hand in front of him and opened his fingers. My phone was sitting in his palm like a treat. I was a dog being coaxed to come closer. I will not be intimidated, I lectured myself. He’s just a man.
No, not a man. A god and a devil in one.
As I closed my fingers around the phone, I brushed his palm with my fingertips. An electrical current leaped from his skin, traveling up my arm. Before I could yank my hand away, his other hand closed over mine, trapping me in his large, warm hands.
“Julianna?” The way he said my name sounded like a caress. I sucked in a breath as a strange wave of heat ran through my body, radiating from the place where he touched me. “A few of us are having a few drinks tonight at Club Luxe at ten o’clock. You should stop by.”
I felt like I was floating on a sea of his voice and his touch. I think I gave him a shaky, uncommitted nod/shake of my head.
“Words, Julianna. I need words.”
I managed to snap partially out of my reverie. It was his touch! How could anyone concentrate with this man’s hands on them? “Maybe.” It was all I could promise. I wasn’t sure if I could handle being so affected like this.
“If you don’t show up, I’ll be incredibly disappointed. I’ll have to come get you,” he said, in a calm yet firm tone.
What? a part of my brain screamed at me. His casual dominance was unnerving. Usually, I was put off by such cocky, domineering alpha-hole men. He made it seem…sexy. He did it in a way that made me feel…wanted. Not owned.
“What do you say, Jules?”
Jules. He
had nicknamed me. I loved it.
No, how dare he presume to nickname me. I should be offended.
“Fine,” I said, so he would let me leave. I wouldn’t go. Going to a club alone, in a sea of faces, to meet him? He’d probably forget about me the second I walked out of his sight. His casual threat was empty anyway. He had no idea where I lived. Because of my job, my address was unlisted.
“‘Fine’ what?” he asked, still not letting go of me.
This man was sharp. I doubted anyone ever pulled the wool over his eyes.
“Fine, I’ll come.”
He grinned, revealing a set of perfect white teeth. I realized too late that what I’d said had been taken the wrong way. “Oh,” he said with a chuckle, “I have no doubt you will.”
A hot flush went through me. Liquid heat pooled between my legs, making me tense. This wasn’t a heart attack. This was early menopause. Can a woman get menopause in her twenties?
He bent over, his eyes still drilling into mine, to brush his full lips across each one of my knuckles. That single touch was enough to elicit a soft moan from me. I promptly cut it off by snapping my mouth together. Jesus Christ. A heart attack and menopause.
I snatched my hand holding my phone from his. “Well. Bye, then.” I spun and walked off as fast as I could without toppling over in my heels. Well, that was…odd. Glad that was over. I felt his gaze burning into my back.
3
____________
Roman
“Roman Giovanni Tyrell, is that you?” a familiar female voice called out. Low and soothing with the tremor of age, it was like the wrap of a blanket on a cold night.
“Hey, Nonna,” I called back as I opened the back door of her low brick two-bedroom cottage out in the eastern suburbs of Verona. Nonna had lived here for as long as I could remember and my best friend, Mercutio, had practically grown up here.
I was older than Merc, just. By only six months. He always seemed to act the older brother to me. He and I had often been mistaken for brothers; we had the same thick dark hair and olive skin. That’s where the similarities ended. Merc was almost as tall as me, over six feet, but his frame was lean muscles like a basketball player where I had grown thick like a rugby player. Despite my somewhat crazy lifestyle in Europe, I’d found a constant in boxing and lifting weights.
Nonna Sheree was Mercutio’s grandmother, a pint-sized woman with a soft smile and fierce temper when we boys had disobeyed her, stealing bites of cherry pie while it was cooling on the window sill or using up too much water spraying each other (and the house through open windows) with water from the hose in the sticky depths of summer.
She appeared at the kitchen entrance, wiping her hands on a dish towel tucked into her apron. She’d aged in the last eight years, her hair almost completely white, wrinkles softening her paper skin. But her eyes, a dark earthy color, just like Mercutio’s, were alive and sparkling with youth. “You boys never use the front door. You know it’s a bigger doorway.”
“The front door is for guests,” called Merc from behind me. “We’re family.”
I eased my head and shoulders through the low doorway. I was still dressed in the suit I had worn to the funeral sans jacket and tie. My top two buttons were open. “This isn’t a doorway,” I muttered. “It’s a cat flap.”
Nonna made a tsking noise and shook her head, a soft smile on her wizened face. “I swear, one of these days you’re going to get stuck in the frame.”
I stepped right into her kitchen, a warm glow coming from the oven, the smell of roasting chicken and garlic already permeating the rooms of the house. “Damn that smells good.” I leaned down and gave her a hug, my arms wrapping all the way around her tiny frame. “You’ve shrunk, Nonna,” I teased gently.
“It’s you that has gotten taller and wider,” she said with a soft swat to my arm with her dishcloth. “Holy Mother of Mary, look at you.”
“Yeah,” added Merc. “Now he’s an even bigger pain in the ass.”
“Language, Mercutio,” said Nonna.
“Sorry.”
Nonna gave me another proud look-over. “You were a boy when you left. You’ve grown into such a handsome man now.” She reached up and pinched both my cheeks.
“Nonna,” I complained, feeling my cheeks flush. Only she could get away with pinching me like I was still eight.
She patted my cheek. “It’s good to see you again.” My frosty heart felt like it warmed for the first time in eight years. She turned back to the oven. “Dinner’s almost ready, so go on into the dining room and sit down. Mercutio, can you help bring this roast out?”
“On it,” he said, slipping his hands into a pair of pastel floral mitts.
Within minutes we were sitting around Nonna’s round wooden table. I groaned with pleasure as the taste of rosemary roasted chicken and garlic potatoes exploded in my mouth. “I haven’t eaten this good…” I mused between mouthfuls of food, “since I left, Nonna.”
“I don’t believe that for a second, Roman,” said Nonna, but her smile said she was pleased. “Europe has great food. Tell us all about it.”
I shrugged. “Europe was…” as far away from Verona as I could get. “Good.”
Merc snorted. “Yeah, I heard it was good.”
I shot him a shut the fuck up look. “How have you been, Nonna?” I asked, quickly changing the subject from me.
I ate and listened as she talked about the studies that Mercutio had completed, pride in her voice. Then about her garden, the new varieties of tomatoes and herbs she was growing. All the while my mind kept going back to the woman from the graveyard.
Julianna Capulet. The most stunning creature I’d ever seen.
Perhaps if I had just seen her, if I’d not spoken to her, I might have had enough grace to leave her alone. The second we’d touched, it sealed her fate. Electricity had lashed up my arm. I didn’t want her to let go. Ever. I had grabbed her hand with my other, trapping her tiny soft fingers between my palms, my hands doing to hers what I wanted to do to her body. To cover her completely. To own her, possess her. Dominate her.
I wanted her.
I wanted her with a force that surprised me. That was almost painful.
I would have her.
She had been shocked by it too, her beautiful eyes widening and her breath hitching. Her nipples hardened through her dress. Good to see she was as affected by me as I was by her. I had to use all my willpower not to bend over and take those tiny buds into my mouth through the material. Or rip that damn dress off right there. Instead, I was a gentleman. No use scaring her off on our first meeting. I brushed my lips on her knuckles in a kiss, letting myself taste her skin, sweet as honey. She had let out a soft moan. That one little noise had me so hard that it hurt. I vowed then and there, I’d coax more of those noises from her before this day was over.
“Roman?”
I snapped out of my head, shifting in my seat to adjust my semi-erection under the table. Had someone asked me something? I hadn’t heard a single word in… I glanced between Merc and Nonna. “Yeah?”
Nonna lifted a bowl. “More potatoes?”
Twenty minutes later, Nonna and Mercutio had put aside their plates while I was helping myself to a third serving.
Nonna watched me with an affectionate smile on her face as I tore into a chicken leg with my teeth. “I forgot how much food you can put away.”
“That’s because he’s a growing boy.” Merc punched my arm. “Still.”
I swatted back at him, which instigated a mini punching war, like when we were kids. Except now our punches hurt a damn sight more. And threatened to knock over the table.
“Boys,” said Nonna with a warning tone.
“He started it,” Merc and I both said together, fingers pointed at the other.
Nonna rolled her eyes but there was a smile on her face. “It’s like you never left,” she said quietly, her eyes brimming with tears.
Guilt flooded my belly. I stared down at my plate, picking at th
e remains of the chicken leg I had only half-devoured. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry anymore.
I had been eighteen when I left Verona. It felt like a lifetime ago. And yet, it felt like yesterday. On the plane from Verona to London I’d shed hidden tears into my airline-provided blanket for Nonna and Merc. I’d missed them immediately, feeling like two pieces of me had been torn from my soul. They had been the last tears I’d shed.
After the plates were cleared away, Nonna brought out hot drinks and ginger snap cookies.
“I have gifts for you,” I announced.
“Gifts?” Nonna asked.
“From Europe.” I riffled through my brown aged-leather duffel sitting on the empty chair beside me, the only luggage I had brought with me. I found Merc’s present, gift-wrapped by the store in matte gold paper and a matching bow, and threw it at him. He caught it and stared at the square box. “If this is an engagement ring, I will hit you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Just open it, fool.”
I found Nonna’s present, a larger box, also gift-wrapped to perfection in silver paper with a black ribbon. I walked around the table to hand it to her, placing it in her hands with a sheepish grin.
“Roman, what have you done?” she said, surprise in her tone.
“Open it.”
There was a moment where the only sound was the tearing of paper. My stomach flipped as I waited for their reactions.
Nonna set the black suede box on the table beside her cup of tea before opening it. “Good lord.” She sank back into her chair with her hand over her heart. “Roman, it’s beautiful!” She stared at the necklace inside, a circle of metal links meant to be worn around the base of the neck. She brushed the stones set into the metal with a shaking finger. “Look at it sparkling. Roman, don’t tell me it’s real.”
Merc hid a snort with a cough.
I hid a smile. “I won’t, then.”