Prologue

ZOLA

“ I still can’t believe you’re actually here,” I exclaimed with a small laugh of happiness.

My father chuckled and it made me realize again how much I loved hearing him laugh in that low comforting way that he only did when he was with me. Whenever we were together hearing him laugh wasn’t rare, but the problem was we were rarely ever together.

“How long are you going to torture me about not being around enough?” he asked softly.

“Forever,” I replied as I stirred the cake batter.

“Trust me, it will get better. I will reduce my workload,” he promised.

“But by then I probably won’t be here anymore.” I lifted my eyes and watched the smile slowly disappear from his face.

Silently, he slid the lined baking pan over to me.

I bit my bottom lip and set the spatula down. “I don’t want to make you feel bad, Papa. I just want us to take advantage of the precious time we have together now. Don’t forget, soon I'll be graduating from high school and off to college. And after that, I’ll probably be too occupied finding a job and life in general. Or am I wrong?”

“I’ll do better, Zola,” he said gravely, but his eyes were twinkling with amusement. “But please don’t do that passive-aggressive thing with me. It intimidates the hell out of me.”

That amused, guilty look tugged at my heart but I couldn’t show him that. I folded my arms, one eyebrow raised. “That’s all you have to worry about? Me being passive-aggressive.”

That smile stayed, curving the corners of his lips. “I suppose it could be worse. You could be doing drugs or … getting pregnant.”

My eyes widened and suddenly I was so embarrassed I couldn’t meet his gaze.

“Your cheeks have gone red. Is it too hot in here?” he asked innocently.

I pretended to laugh airily. “Why do you have to be so awkward all the time, Papa?”

“What is awkward?” he asked. “Because I mentioned you getting pregnant? You surely can’t possibly know how that works at your age.”

Now I was horrified. “Oh, for heaven’s sake!”

But he was on a roll and refused to stop. “Oh wait! You know how that works?”

“Papa,” I warned. “I swear, I will walk out of here this instant if you don’t stop.”

“Why are you so shy?” he asked, staring directly into my eyes.

I squirmed internally.

“Oh, my God. I really have been absent, haven’t I? You seem to know more than you should.”

I set the bowl I’d been about to empty into the pan down on the counter and turned to walk away, but he caught me by my wrist and drew me toward him for a hug. I relished every single moment of this closeness. Though, of course, the last thing I was going to do was let him know.

I pretended to groan. “Let me go.”

But he only squeezed me tighter and playfully growled, “Never.”

“Ugh yuck,” I complained, but I couldn’t help giggling.

“I better hold on tight before I'm not able to anymore,” he said and planted a sloppy, noisy kiss on my cheek as if I was still a child. “You’re already sounding way too mature for me. I can’t even make up my mind if it's a good thing, or if it’s my fault you had to grow up so fast.”

I didn’t bother sparing his feelings. “It’s a hundred percent your fault. The cake’s gonna burn,” I said, pulling away.

“Impossible,” he refuted. “We haven’t put it into the oven yet.”

“Well, we should. It’s almost midnight and if we don’t do it now, it’s not going to be ready for my birthday at midnight.”

“Calm down and enjoy being a teenager, Zola,” he murmured gently. “You're not an adult. Stop being so fixated on time and results.”

“Look who’s talking,” I teased.

I hurried over to the marble counter, transferred the batter into the round baking pan, banged the pan on the hard surface a few times to let the air bubbles out and slid it into the oven.

“Done,” I said, shooting him a smile, but I was disappointed to see his cell phone had once again made its appearance.

I was determined not to say a word in protest as he scrolled through his messages. Instead, I focused my attention on making sure the oven temperature was right. But when I turned around and saw him texting rapidly into his device, a huge frown across his forehead, I knew I had to say something or he would be lost to me again.

“Papa,” I called just as his phone began to ring. He lifted a finger in my direction and, taking the call, began to bark out orders in rapid Italian, probably to one of his staff.

My heart fell as I tried to convince myself there was no need to worry. He’d promised that he had cleared the entire night for me. And so far, whenever he had said that, especially on my birthdays, he always came through.

I returned to the counter and grabbed a napkin to wipe my hands before turning on the iPad so I could review the instructions on how to make the cream frosting.

Fabiola, the housekeeper, had stocked up on all the ingredients I needed so I headed over to the refrigerator to retrieve them. As I was grabbing a pack of strawberries to add to the pile I’d already gathered in my arms, my father came over to help me.

“Here, let me,” he said, but his voice was different. It was no longer playful but full of tension.

I let him, but I didn’t have the courage to look at him. I already knew what was coming. He helped me set the ingredients down on the counter, but his mind was elsewhere. I could feel my throat begin to clog up. Eventually, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I knew I had to let him go.

“When will you be back?” I asked.

“One hour, tops,” he said, and the relief in his voice was palpable.

“One hour?”

“Yes,” he replied with a grateful smile. “This is an emergency. You know I won’t leave on your birthday. I just need to go pick a kid up and bring him here.”

“You’re bringing someone here ?” I asked, surprised.

“Yeah,” he replied. “He’s just a kid who needs a helping hand. He will stay with us for a short time while I handle his case.”

I didn’t know how to respond. It made no sense as to why my father was suddenly bringing a stranger to our home, and the absence of any details left me feeling muddled.

“Don’t start icing the cake without me,” he said, his eyes on the oven. “It should be perfectly cooled and ready by the time I return.”

“The cake and I will be waiting right here for you,” I assured.

“Good, because I always keep my promises,” he said and hurried out of the room.

I stood in the middle of the kitchen and listened to his footsteps echoing in the foyer. I heard the sound of his keys, and then the front door shut.

Once he was gone, I was surrounded by a persistent, pervasive, dense silence. It was nothing new though. It had come to live in this house since Mama died four years ago. She left me with a father who distracted himself from dealing with her loss by filling his time with endless work and pursuing noble causes.

As he was doing tonight.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop him or make him understand how much I longed for him to spend a bit more time with me. I didn’t know how to intrude in his intentionally busy life so I chose to trust instead that someday, hopefully soon, he would reduce his workload, and I would have him home again the way he was when we were a happy family of three.

With a sigh, I headed over to the living room.

I lay on the couch and tried to keep myself entertained by scrolling through Instagram. Eventually, the oven’s timer pinged. I switched it off and took the cake out. It smelled good. I left it to cool and went back to my phone. Three hundred and thirty-three images of gorgeous birthday cakes later I slipped into sleep. I awakened to the sound of the door lock clicking open. I could hear masculine voices, but I couldn’t quite make out the words.

My father called out to me, but I was still somewhat half-asleep and a bit grumpy so I didn’t respond to the first call. Still, I could never stay angry with my father for any length of time, so by the third time he called I felt remorseful enough to lift my hand and wave it.

“Here,” I called drowsily.

He came over to the living room and cocked his head at the sight of me sprawled on the couch.

“You became tired?” he asked, and I spied a bit of guilt in his voice.

“I lost interest,” I replied.

“Go easy on me,” he murmured and turned to the unwanted guest he’d brought with him. “Come over, Dante, and meet my daughter.”

I immediately shot up, horrified that he would think to introduce me in such a state.

“Papa!” I muttered, shaking my head and straightening the oversized T-shirt I was wearing.

“Dante, this is Zola,” he introduced.

I lifted my gaze. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but the vision in front of me was not it. My father had called him a ‘kid’, but the young man standing before me was surely no one’s idea of a kid.

He looked more like an avenging angel.

Tall and broad with jet-black hair that curled around his collar. His features were so perfect he looked as if he’d been chiseled from stone. He was … indisputably, and undeniably beautiful. He stood there like a living, breathing work of art.

A fiercely beautiful, staggeringly beautiful masterpiece of creation.

The most astonishing thing about his tanned face was his eyes. They were the most piercing, brilliant blue I’d ever seen. They burned like twin blue fires and I had to tear my gaze away from their awesome beauty.

He had jammed both his hands into his trouser pockets, which to my inexperienced eyes, just made him look both rebellious and so impossibly cool that none of the boys in my high school could ever compare. Saying nothing, those electric blue orbs stared at me with neither shyness nor awkwardness while I could feel my face begin to heat up and flush like crazy.

Confused and disconcerted, I turned towards my dad and tried to look normal, but it was hard to overcome my body’s reaction to how obviously attractive the young man was.

My father smiled benignly. “He’ll be staying with us temporarily until a few issues with his case are sorted. So don’t be startled if you see him lurking around.”

He was going to be staying with us!

I became even more curious about him. Even if he looked darkly dangerous, he must be the victim and not the accused. I knew my father would never bring someone even slightly risky into our house to stay with us, kid or no kid.

“I’ll just show him to the guest room, then we’ll ice the cake together, okay?” my father said.

But I had completely lost interest in the idea of icing the cake with him. Nothing we did could live up to those hundreds of amazing creations I’d seen on my phone. I took a deep breath to control my racing heart and shook my head. “No, don’t worry about it, Papa. It’s already way past midnight. I’m going to bed.”

“Zola,” my father called plaintively.

I felt guilty at the unhappiness in his tone as I was aware he had been looking forward to icing my cake together, but the presence of the beautiful but broodingly silent young man had totally thrown me. The longer I stood here the more I felt those eyes burning into me.

“It’s okay, Papa. It’s just a cake. Not the end of the world if I don’t have one,” I said with a forced smile.

Then I fled from the room like the devil himself was at my heels.

I locked my bedroom door, got into my bed, and pulled the covers up to my chin. My wish was to sleep, not to entertain any useless thoughts about the young man or how I had just utterly and completely humiliated myself, but an hour and a half later I found myself still wide awake. I kicked the covers away and thought of what I could do instead of restlessly tossing and turning in bed.

Since it was already technically my birthday, I didn’t want to entertain sulking of any type. I looked toward the shelf that was stacked with books, but I couldn’t bear to read anything new due to the potential for disappointment, which I didn’t want to deal with on my birthday. I got out of bed and headed over to grab my favorite story, As You Wish .

But my hand stilled as it reached for the spine of the book.

No. Not that now.

The truth was I felt agitated and no longer wanted to stay in my room. It was a hot, sultry night and my air-conditioner was playing up. I opened a window and leaned out. The night sky was filled with stars.

Without my consent, my lips whispered his name. “Dante.”

It was the name worthy of such a ferocious avenging angel. It suited him perfectly. A thrill ran through me. I remembered the way his remarkable eyes had moved over my body … making my body flush with heat …

Oh, God.

I stopped myself cold, right there, and quickly I thought about my mom instead. I imagined her wishing me a ‘Happy Birthday’. I could almost smell her soft sweet fragrance. Tears filled my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall. I didn’t want to cry on my birthday.

A swim. A swim was what I needed.

I changed into my swimsuit, grabbed a towel and headed out to the kitchen. Underneath the starlit sky, the pool glistened invitingly.

I dived into the cool depths.

Oooo … bliss.

DANTE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT44aQ_10XM

Marco Leone’s daughter was way too hot.

And I wanted to fuck her.

I was lying on the bed thinking how inconvenient that was when I heard the splash. I sat bolt upright, immediately on alert. Acting purely on instinct, I switched off the bedside lamp, sprinted over to the window, and parting the blinds with my fingers, peered out.

I could see a pool illuminated by the light from the pavilion.

Zola was in the water, doing laps. I stared at her body moving through the water for a few seconds. She was a very beautiful girl with a very, very sexy mouth, but she was forbidden to me. But even more importantly, I was in too much trouble to be thinking about girls, no matter how delectable. I told myself to turn away, but at that very moment, she began to lift herself out of the pool. Water ran down her delicious body in rivulets and dripped onto the tiles.

I couldn’t look away from the sight.

I was frozen with an irresistible desire to have her. Her white swimsuit glimmered in the dark as she walked toward the cabana. Then suddenly, and without warning, I felt a rush of sensation in my gut, the old instinct that had always served me well.

Something bad was about to happen.

Even as the thought became a shape in my head, her foot slipped on the wet tiles and she lost her balance. It happened so fast. One moment I was lusting for her, the next moment, her arms were flailing as she landed on her back. I saw her hand flutter towards her head and realized she must have hit it. Grabbing the edge of the pool with her other hand, she twisted her body and tried to get up, but her body suddenly became limp, as if had lost consciousness.

And she slipped into the water noiselessly.

Fuck! I turned from the window and ran from my room through the unfamiliar house. Most of the lights were off and navigating through the dark was a nightmare. It felt like a lifetime passed before I finally burst through the back door.

The water’s surface showed no ripples. It was eerily still, but a dark shadow was slowly sinking. I dived into the cool water, grabbed her descending body, and pulled her towards the surface. The moment I emerged out of the water I began to yell out to her father.

“Mr. Leone!”

“Mr. Leone!”

I laid her on the tiles and looked down at her pale, motionless face. Up until that moment in my life, I’d been attacked with every sort of weapon imaginable, but I couldn’t recall ever feeling as afraid as I did then.

“Don’t die, bella Zola. Please don’t die,” I urged urgently.

Then I opened her blue lips and, taking a deep breath, put my mouth over hers.