Page 3 of Dark Romeo

He stopped at the back of my mother’s headstone and placed his hands lightly on the top of the gray stone. We were only meters away from each other now, separated only by a grave’s length. It felt too close. His eyes were intense, focused on me, yet revealing nothing, while I felt like an exposed wire, an open book.

Say something, Julianna. Something. Anything!

Weirdly, my voice had stopped working. Why was I reacting this way to him? I had never reacted like this to anyone before.

He spoke, breaking the silence. “You didn’t have to help me.”

Holy shit. That voice.

I learned in high school science about how sounds at certain pitches could make a tuning fork hum, but only at the perfect frequency. Whatever frequency his voice was, I had been tuned to it. It sent a vibration through my body unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Deep and raspy, it was the kind of voice you’d hear on an old-time jazz vocalist. The kind of voice that induced images of sultry summer nights, soft sheets and nothing but skin on skin. It wasn’t fair. That voice on this man. It was too much. Too much beauty. Too much…sex.

Somehow my voice kicked in. “I know I didn’t have to help you.” I gave him a half-smile. “Obviously, I have a soft spot for damsels in distress.”

He laughed. The sound was glorious, rich and rolling and full. I wanted to weave his laughter into a blanket and wrap it around me. I grinned at him like a fool, pleased at myself that I could elicit such a warm response from such a stunning-looking man.

“Well,” he said after his laughter had faded, “thank you, my valiant knight.” He bowed low, making me blush.

I turned my face towards the direction where Scarface had disappeared to. “I don’t suppose you’d tell me why you’re running from him?”

“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”

“Try me.”

His lips twitched before he spoke. “I just arrived in town for a funeral. I thought I could fly in, come straight here and fly out tomorrow without having to see my father but…he’s determined to pin me down.”

His father? I tried to picture Scarface birthing the god before me. I couldn’t. How could such beauty come from such ugliness? “You’re right. I don’t believe you. That man looked nothing like your father.”

He looked like he was about to say something else about it, but he didn’t. “Are you here visiting someone?” He indicated the grave between us, firmly changing the subject.

The sadness I’d been feeling before he showed up leaked back in. Funny how it seemed to have disappeared around him. I nodded down at the grave, pinpricks behind my eyes. “Yes.”

“You loved…him?”

“Her. My mother. Deeply.”

“I know what that’s like.” His voice was tight and low, pain squeezing out between his words. “I lost my mother too.”

Strangely, my pain eased, soothed by the silence that descended over us. A shared silence. A moment of perfect understanding, when you both spoke without words. I’d only ever shared these moments with my mother, who had been my best friend when she’d been alive. Now I was having this moment with a perfect stranger…a beautiful, intriguing stranger.

I was about to blurt out everything I had been thinking about perfect moments when my phone rang, saving me from myself. My heart sank when I saw the name across the screen. I knew what was coming. I should have expected it.

I answered the call, feeling the beautiful man’s eyes on me. “You’re not coming, are you?” I said into the receiver, my voice working around the golf ball at the base of my neck.

“Sorry, honey,” my father said. “Work.”

“Of course.” It was always work. My chest tightened.

“I’ll come by later for dinner, okay? Your place? About sevenish?” Which meant I’d be lucky if he arrived by nine p.m.

“Sure.” I hung up, staring at my mother’s grave again, gripping my cell in my hand. Her fucking birthday and he couldn’t make this one day a priority. He couldn’t make me a priority. Work needed him so he went. Work always needed him. What about when I needed him?

I let out a curse as bitterness flooded over the back of my tongue. Before I could stop myself, I threw my phone. It hit the ground and bounced once before half disappearing in a cluster of untrimmed grass. I could feel the beautiful man’s gaze on me like a cloak. I pressed my hands into my face to avoid his scrutiny, embarrassed that I had let a stranger witness this rare show of emotion from me. He probably thought I was mental.

“Are you okay?” The concern in his voice was a finger plucking on my heart strings.

I sucked in a breath and wiped under my eyes before lifting my head. He’d walked between the gravestones over to my phone, picking it out of the grass. I didn’t move to take it from him.

“It’s my father,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “He was supposed to meet me here. It’s her birthday. Was her birthday today.” I didn’t know why I was telling him. I didn’t even know his name.

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