Page 1 of Yours

CHAPTER 1

New York City, New York

Kiera Delaney

In retrospect, I probably should have never opened my mouth.

But hindsight was a luxury I didn’t have that night. All I’d had in that moment was the sting of cheap vodka buzzing through my veins, and Marco Benedetti being exactly the kind of dirtbag who deserved to be told off.

So…

I did exactly that.

At the time, I didn’t know his name. To me, he was just some arrogant rich asshole in an expensive suit prowling the club like a wolf sizing up its prey. Someone who thought the flashing lights and pounding bass gave him the right to put his hands on whomever, wherever he pleased.

It wasn’t something I could just let go… right?

It had begun like any other Friday night at our favorite club, Velvet, in Manhattan, crowded, loud, and beautifully chaotic. Leena had dragged me out for a much-needed break from our college senior year, claiming I needed to ‘live a little.’

Honestly, I thought she was probably right. I spent too much of my time curled up in books and studying to really be any fun, so this was a nice change of pace.

The plan had been simple: drinks, dancing, and forgetting, at least for a few hours, that we were college seniors teetering on the edge of graduation and the scary thing called adulthood and the even more terrifying thing called a career.

And for the first hour or two, it had worked. We’d laughed over overpriced cocktails, dodged a couple of bad pickup lines, and found a corner of the bar where the crowd was thin enough to breathe and chat a little bit.

Leena had even managed to flirt her way into a free drink from a guy who’d seemed harmless enough, his goofy smile more endearing than threatening. Truthfully, he seemed kind of wholesome. I sipped my drink watching the whole thing with a smile plastered all over my face.

But… then I sawhim.

At first, Marco Benedetti didn’t seem any different from the other cocky Wall Street asshole types who crowded the club. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with slicked-back hair and a suit that probably cost more than my entire college tuition.

His grin was wide, his teeth white enough to glow under the black lights, and he moved through the room with the swagger of a man who thought the world existed solely for his benefit.

But it wasn’t just the way he walked, or the way people instinctively got out of his way each time he took a step.

It was what he was doing that really got under my skin.

The first girl he moved in on didn’t even see him coming. She was dancing with her friends, her arms up in the air, her head tilted back in a laugh, when Marco slid behind her and put his hands on her hips. She flinched, twisting away from him, but he just laughed like she was playing hard to get.

Then he moved on.

The second girl was even more taken aback by him than the first. She was on the edge of the dance floor, looking down at her phone, when Marco reached out and tugged on the strap of her top. She startled, clutching it to her chest, but he just grinned and leaned in to say something I couldn’t hear over the music. Whatever it was, it made her face go deathly pale, and she disappeared into the crowd without another word.

I felt my grip tighten on my glass.

By the time he got to the third girl, I couldn’t look away. She was dancing near the center of the floor, her curly blonde hair bouncing with every sway of her hips. She was completely oblivious to Marco until he grabbed her wrist and spun her around to face him. Her smile faltered, confusion flashing across her face as she tried to pull away, but Marco just laughed and tugged her closer, his free hand sliding down her back all the way down to cup her ass and squeeze it tight.

She shoved at his chest, but he didn’t budge. He leaned in close, his lips brushing her ear as he whispered something that made her freeze. She wasn’t dancing anymore. She was just… standingthere, rigid, her eyes darting around like she was looking for the first opportunity to escape.

And Marco just kept smiling.

I felt something hot flare in my chest—anger, instinct, maybe both—and before I even realized what I was doing, I was weaving my way toward the dance floor, toward him, my drink clutched in my hand.

“Kiera!” Leena called from somewhere behind me, but I ignored her.

Marco didn’t notice me at first. He was too busy gripping the girl’s waist, his fingers pressing into her skin like he owned her. I shoved past a guy in a leather jacket, stepped around a couple grinding on each other, and stopped just short of Marco’s shoulder.

“Hey!” I snapped, my voice loud enough to cut through the music.

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