"The damage was done the moment our eyes collided."
~Xavier De Luca
***
One life-altering night ignites a soul-scorching passion between a gangster and a good girl...One that could burn everyone they know and love to ashes.
Loyalties and legacies...
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I should have guessed that Mr. Broody-Britches had a fiancé, but I wasn't at all prepared for how stunning they looked together. Xavier and the woman his mother called, Mia, were intimidatingly beautiful people. The kind of unobtainable glamour you see lounging on the pages of fashion magazines at the dentist's office.
He spun her into a gentle waltz, cupping her petite frame with his manly hands like it wasn't their first dance (or their last).
As my butt unclenched, my heart slid into my stomach to dissolve in the shame boiling my insides. My momentary attraction to Xavier was just that, mine. He was hers.
Thankfully, Gannon and Cillian didn't witness my fleetingly childish crush on a total stranger. My supreme naiveté was one of their favorite things to tease me about. It's not my fault I'm awkward around the opposite sex. I blame the all-girls Catholic high school I attended (and the fact that I still lived at home with more than a few overly protective family members).
Then again, I couldn't work out why I felt the loss of someone who could never be mine so acutely. Like a haunting requiem, Xavier's captivating presence lingered in my mind.
It was heartbreaking to look at them, and yet, I couldn't stop. I kept peeking from under my home-cut fringe, watching the way the room watched them.
The jeweled patterns on the train of Mia's diaphanous gown twinkled under the restaurant's lighting. She didn't seem to have a lick of trouble with her sky-high crystal stilettos either, gliding along to her partner's lead with a superior smile on her heart-shaped lips.
I briefly wondered what their life was like. Whether Mia felt the same crackle of electricity when she stared into his deep-set eyes. Did she get the same thrill being so close to him? The entitlement writ on her face said yes.
Xavier's flinty gaze shot to me as if he'd felt my mind on him. Flustered and red-faced (and still in dazzling agony), I snapped back to the wistful ballad.
The song was nearing a close and I'd been given permission from the boss lady herself to take my break.
I didn't just need a Band-Aid for my bloody foot, I needed a frontal lobotomy to forget what I saw in Xavier's eyes.
For a fleeting moment, I'd glimpsed into the boundless depths of a stranger, and it scared the bejesus out of me.
Ignoring the smattering of applause at the song's end, I gathered up my orchestra folder and slid to the end of the bench, determined to escape.
As soon as I stood up a bolt of pain buckled my knees. I'm no waif, but my (mostly average) weight was just too much for my long-suffering pedal foot. Luckily, I had the piano to steady myself.
And something else, or should I say, someone else.
The camphoraceous notes of a sophisticated cologne invaded my nostrils to set my skin on fire. It was a seductive fusion of masculinity and refinement. I didn't have to turn around to know it was Xavier a few centimeters from my backside.
