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There they were—anger and jealousy rearing their ugly heads. All the Zola kids had a bit of a temper. I could hold mine better than the others, but just like the rest of my siblings, when the cap came off the soda bottle, I exploded.
This man had played me. He had strung me along, made me believe I loved him when he was engaged to another woman. And then he had left me to raise our daughter by myself.
He doesn’t know that, whispered some little voice inside me.
I didn’t really care.
The anger had been wiped off Xavier’s face, replaced with solemnity. And, if I wasn’t mistaken…maybe grief? “Lucy. Fuck, that’s right—that was just when you and I…”
I didn’t know why, but the idea that he had forgotten a cancer patient he was supposed to have married enraged me even more. “You forgot? My God. You really are a sociopath, aren’t you? Is Xavier Sato even your real name?”
His blue eyes bulged as Xavier cleared his throat. Then his expression flashed with something a bit more dangerous. “It’s not what you think.”
“Oh, it’s not? Because from my perspective, you were engaged but decided to have a little fun on this side of the pond before the big day.”
He growled. “I was a different person then. I can explain if you’ll just—”
“Explain what?” I was on a roll now. No need to stop. “That you seduced me for a few weeks? Cheated on your sick fiancée? Fucked around on both of us and made me believe you lo—”
I smashed my lips together before the last word came out completely. But we both knew what I was going to say.
Love.
Because he had said it in the end, hadn’t he? Just like I had. Cast under a spell of May jasmine floating through a window and eyes the color of a lagoon gazing down at me in a nest of clean white linens, clear with utter adoration.
In a few short weeks, Xavier Sato had made me believe that the stories I loved so much weren’t just stories, and that I, Frankie Zola, unremarkable middle child from Nowhere Special, Bronx, could be a heroine too.
Now those eyes were scowling at me through the night. Fiery, but rimmed with sadness. Disdainful. Like the villain he was.
Xavier took a deep breath. Then another. Then another. His hand raked through his hair, causing a few shiny locks to stick up, then flop forward over his brow. It was disarming. Charming, even, the way I clearly disturbed his impeccable veneer.
It would be so easy to hate him if he didn’t look like that.
Desire seared through me. And once more, go.
This time, I didn’t let him grab me as I ran down the street.
“Francesca! Fucking—goddammit, will you just wait! FRANCESCA!”
I whirled around two steps from the curb. “Oh my God. It’s Frankie. Absolutely no one calls me Francesca.”
Xavier caught up to me with a few long strides. The streetlight above cast a halo around his looming form. How ironic.
He leaned down so I could see his face. And smirked. “I do. Remember?”
Francesca.
Francesca.
My Christian name, shouted by Xavier’s utterly kissable lips as he grabbed my body, wound my hair around his wrists, held me down as we both shook in the throes of passion and lust.
Oh, yes. I remembered.
I gulped. “What—what do you want? Beyond tormenting me, that is?”
To my frustration, he checked his watch. His watch, which, if I wasn’t mistaken, was a genuine Patek. Or something equally flashy.
“Right now?” he replied. “Dinner. It’s late, but I came straight from the airport and didn’t get much more than a drink at the party. There’s got to be something decent in this city, and I couldn’t possibly discuss something like a broken engagement on an empty stomach.”
