Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Bianca

Iran through the halls of The Met like a bat out of hell, tears streaking down my face. My eyes were blind to my surroundings, focused on the mental image of Tiernan’s face breaking in two as Bryant exposed him for who he really was.

A Morelli.

A sob broke free like a trumpet call at a funeral.

It felt like that. A death.

A death of a dream I didn’t even know I’d fostered until it was ripped from me by the cruel hands of Bryant Morelli.

I’d thought…

I’d thought Tiernan was becoming family.

That together with Ezra, Henrik, Walcott, Brando, and Picasso in that great, big, unnerving house of Lion Court, we were becoming something bonded. Something stronger than what I’d had with Aida because I wasn’t the only one taking care of our unit. Henrik taught me to fight and Ezra watched out for Brando like a second, hulking shadow. Walcott tended to the house and grounds, but he also tended to our souls, appearing as if by magic whenever someone needed anything.

And Tiernan, master of us all.

If he was just out to use Brando and me to crucify the memory of our father, then why had he been so devastatingly kind?

Why the Hulk action figure, the doctor’s appointments, and Picasso for Brando?

Why the kisses that broke through my soul like sun through a stormy sky?

Why bother?

Unless he was just that cruel, as the stories went about the Morellis, just so heartless that he wanted to reap maximum damage.

Make us start to love him and then tear it all away.

I heaved air into my lungs, then tripped on the edge of my feathered dress, falling hard to my knees. I stayed there, my face in my hands as if I could collect my tears. As if they had a purpose. Some kind of worth.

But they meant nothing to no one.

I was alone once more.

Vaguely, I was aware of the clack of heels on marble and the loud murmur of a party in mid-swing.

But it wasn’t until I sensed a presence suddenly in front of me that I opened my blurry, burning eyes and saw a pair of sky-high heels in fine velvet blue. I tracked the smooth legs up to the hem of a white silk sheath dress that hugged slim curves to the tops of slim shoulders up to a face as beautiful as a Titan painting.

Caroline Constantine, witness to my heartbreak and utter meltdown.

She stared down at me imperviously, eyes as blank as sheets of untouched ice in winter.

I wasn’t breathing, a sob stuck in my throat and swelling so I couldn’t drag breath into my collapsing lungs.

There must have been a question in my eyes, a benediction.

A cry for help.

I had nowhere to run and everything to run from.

Only in my wildest dreams would Caroline Constantine, my last known connection to my father, ever offer me solace or protection.

Yet…

I watched mutely as she bent slightly in order to reach for me, tucking two fingers up under my chin to look down into my tear-wrecked face.

“Bianca Belcante,” she said, my name rolling like pearls against her tongue. “What a surprise.”

I hiccoughed.

“Bianca,” a masculine voice from behind Caroline spoke a moment before a tall, beautifully dressed blond man stepped in place beside her.

I blinked the wetness from my eyes as my brain struggled to place the somewhat familiar face. It only took me a moment to remember, maybe because I hadn’t experienced grief this strong since the day my mother died.

He’d been the man at Aida’s funeral, the one in the red scarf who’d looked like he wanted to approach me until Tiernan showed up to take us away.

“You know her?” Caroline asked, eyebrows raised.

He hesitated as he looked down on me, sympathy in his eyes, but displeasure marring his mouth. “Her uncle was an old friend of mine.”

I tried not to let my surprise show, because there was something going on here that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I hadn’t seen my uncle since I was a young child, well before we moved to Texas and I’d never met this man before in my life.

“Oh,” Caroline said with a cat-like grin. “I assumed it was because she is friends with Elias.”

“That too,” he agreed easily. “But Bianca, what’s brought you to tears in the middle of The Met?”

I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I didn’t trust them, I didn’t know them, even though Dad had always spoken well of his wife. Even if wanted to though, I couldn’t have found the right words to explain the broken mess of my heart.

“Boy trouble?” Caroline asked coolly. “She is a teenager after all.”

I laughed weakly and nodded, because it was true, in a way.

Tiernan wasn’t a boy, but he was a man.

A monstrous one just like he’d warned me he was.

“I’m sorry,” the man said crouching so that we were on eye level. He bore a passing resemblance to my father, which could have explained why I let him reach out and take one of my hands warmly in his. “Elias is here with me, why don’t you come with me and we’ll find him. It looks like you could use a friend.”

“I could use a place to stay,” I blurted out, snot trailing from my nose.

“Hmm. I think we can find space for you at the Compound.” He looked back over his shoulder at Caroline who sighed wearily at their silent communication.

She studied me with sharp eyes, cutting into me like a scalpel, dissecting me as I sat on the floor of The Met in a thousand-dollar dress. I didn’t know what she sought, how pathetic I might seem to a woman so full of beauty and grace. Shame and trembling sorrow coursed through me, but I let her see it. All of it and all of me. I prostrated myself on the Constantine altar and hoped its matriarch would take pity on me. It was a poor choice, to turn to a woman who would hate me if she knew who my parents were, just because my dad had said she was a good woman. But I was out of good choices.

It was the devil I knew or the devil I didn’t.

At this point, the devil I knew, Tiernan Morelli, could go straight back to hell.

“Well,” Caroline said finally. “You better get up and come with me. If we are going to present you to polite company, I can’t have you looking like a broken dove.”

I flinched at the reference, but she only arched an eyebrow at me, unsympathetic but helpful.

“I…” I sucked in a deep breath, rooting for my voice where it had dropped into my stomach. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Nonsense,” Caroline said, eyes flashing as she came forward beside the crouching man and deigned to give me her manicured hand to help me to my feet. “You’re a friend of this family, Bianca. You’ll come with me.”

“Why would you help me?” I asked.

I’d learned the hard way things that looked too good to be true, often were.

She cocked her head to one side and smiled, this time large enough to see her perfectly straight, white teeth. “Because, my dear, no friend of the Constantine family will ever be left out in the cold. Not while I’m head of this family.”

Her words reverberated through me, striking chord after chord until I thrummed with new hope.

I hesitated then placed my hand in hers.

Her smile widened.

For the third time in my life, I was changing course. I knew if I accepted Caroline’s help, I’d never see Tiernan again. She’d help me get Brando and we’d leave Lion Court for good. The haunted house would go back to being the echoing home of a monster and Brando and I would be where we belonged.

With Dad’s family.

Everything I’d always hoped for was literally at my fingertips.

So why did it feel like heartbreak when I slid my hand into Caroline’s and she clutched it tight?

*     *     *

Thank you for reading DANGEROUS TEMPTATION! We hope you love Giana Darling’s forbidden romance, the first book in the Dark Dream duet. The final book is available now…

Bianca has finally found her rightful place amid the powerful Constantines. But all is not what it seems in this glittering new world. And Tiernan Morelli refuses to give up her up…

READ BEAUTIFUL NIGHTMARE NOW >

And Tiernan’s older brother, Leo Morelli, has an epic romance!

The beast hides a dark secret in his past…

Leo Morelli is known as the Beast of Bishop’s Landing for his cruelty. He’ll get revenge on the Constantine family and make millions of dollars in the process. Even it means using an old man who dreams up wild inventions.

The beauty will sacrifice everything for her family…

Haley Constantine will do anything to protect her father. Even trade her body for his life. The college student must spend thirty days with the ruthless billionaire. He’ll make her earn her freedom in degrading ways, but in the end he needs her to set him free.

READ SECRET BEAST >

The warring Morelli and Constantine families have enough bad blood to fill an ocean, and there are told by your favorite dangerous romance authors. See what books are available now and sign up to get notified about new releases here…

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