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Wolfe took her arm in his and led her downstairs, not sparing me a look as I wilted on the cement stairs. I could hear his date murmuring something, his dry response to her, and her laughter ringing in the air like a wind chime.
When the door to their limo slammed shut, my lips stung so bad I had to touch them to make sure he didn’t set them on fire.
The power outage wasn’t coincidental.
He did it.
He took the power.
My power.
I yanked the note out of my corset and threw it against the stair, stomping over it like a tantrum-prone kid.
Wolfe Keaton was a kiss thief.
Chapter
Two
FRANCESCA
A war raged inside me as I studied every cobweb and imperfection on my bedroom ceiling that night, puffing on a cigarette.
It was just a stupid, fun tradition. Hardly a scientific fact. Surely, not all the predictions written in the notes turned out to be true.
I probably wouldn’t even see Wolfe Keaton ever again.
However, I was bound to see Angelo soon. Even if he canceled our date next Friday, there were many weddings, holidays, and community functions we were both attending this month.
I could explain everything, face to face. One stupid kiss wasn’t going to erase years of verbal foreplay. I’d even gone so far as imagining his remorse once he found out that I only kissed Senator Keaton because I thought it was him.
I put out my cigarette and lit another one. I didn’t touch my phone, resisting the urge to send Angelo an over-apologetic, hysterical message.
I needed to talk to my cousin Andrea about this. She lived across town and, since she was in her early twenties, was my sole, albeit reluctant, advisor when it came to the opposite sex.
A curtain of pinks and yellows fell over the sky as the morning rolled in. Birds sang outside our limestone manor, perched on my window ledge.
I flung an arm over my eyes and winced, my mouth tasting of ash and disappointment. It was Saturday, and I needed to leave the house before my mother got any ideas. Ideas like taking me shopping for expensive dresses and grilling me about Angelo Bandini.
For all the tacky clothes and shoes in my wardrobe, I was a pretty simple gal by Italian-American royalty standards. I played my part because I had to, but I absolutely hated being treated like an invalid, airhead princess.
I wore little to no makeup and liked my hair the best when it was wild. I preferred horseback riding and gardening to shopping and getting my nails done.
Playing the piano was my favorite outlet. Spending hours standing in a dressing room and being assessed by my mother and her friends was my personal definition of hell.
I washed my face and slipped into my black breeches, riding boots, and a white pullover jacket. I went down to the kitchen and took out my pack of Vogues, lighting one up as I nursed a cappuccino and two Advils.
A plume of blue smoke rose from my mouth as I tapped my chewed-up fingernails over the dining table. I inwardly cursed Senator Keaton again.
Yesterday, at the dinner table, he had the audacity to assume that not only did I choose my way of life, but I loved it, too. He never once contemplated that maybe I merely made peace with it, choosing instead to pick my battles where I would emerge the victor over those that were already lost.
I knew I wasn’t allowed to have a career. I’d come to terms with that heartbreaking reality, so why, then, couldn’t I have the only thing I still wanted?
A life with Angelo, the only man in The Outfit I actually liked.
I could hear my mother’s heels clanking upstairs as she fussed about, and the whiny old door of my father’s office pushing open. Then I heard Papa barking at someone in Italian on the phone, and my mother bursting into tears.
My mother wasn’t a spontaneous crier, and my father wasn’t in the habit of raising his voice, so both of these reactions piqued my interest.
