Page 3 of Kissing the Villain

To our left, men smoked cigars and played poker. Women sat on their laps, laughing and drinking. Everyone seemed happy, maybe even enchanted.

Luca tugged on my fingers and picked up his pace. My feet hurt from walking so fast, but he wouldn’t slow down until we stood at the cliff’s edge, staring out at the bay.

His house stood at the center of Devil’s Creek. Lights twinkled below from the neighboring cities. Water splashed from a distance.

I stared down at the massive drop to the beach. His view was better than that of my grandparents, who lived opposite him on Founders Way.

Luca drank from the champagne bottle and handed it to me. I took a sip, and the sweetness exploded on my tongue. He played with the ring on his finger. Platinum with onyx chips formed what looked like an S… or a snake. A snake shaped like an S?

He appraised me with curiosity. “Are you afraid of heights?”

“No,” I lied.

I hated heights. In high school, I’d almost fallen from a cliff during a skiing trip and never wanted to tempt fate again, staying far away from anything dangerous. At least, that was my goal until the day I met Luca.

He turned his piercing gaze on me. “I jumped once. The drop isn’t as bad as it looks.”

“Why would you do that?”

Luca rolled his broad shoulders, and my eyes wandered down his thick biceps that bulged beneath his fitted dress shirt. “To get away from my dad. I wanted to cross the bay without him finding me.”

“Did you make it?”

He laughed like a villain from a horror movie. “There’s no escaping Arlo Salvatore. Once you’re in Devil’s Creek, he owns you.”

“Did your dad do that to your back?”

“Pain is weakness leaving the body. Once you understand that, it doesn’t hurt as much.”

My mouth fell open in shock, but I got the impression Luca said things to scare me. Did he enjoy inflicting pain on others? Was he just as sick and twisted as his father?

“I know what your parents have done,” Luca said, his deep voice like a melody. “Your scars are on the inside, and that pain hurts much worse.”

I let his words roll over me, closing my eyes for a few seconds and listening to the water crash against the beach. He understood me in ways no one ever had, not even my twin brother.

“My family isn’t like yours,” I said, though I wasn’t sure my statement held much truth.

Luca sipped from the bottle. “Why do you think you’re here? You’re the only granddaughter of a Founder. You are one of us. Youbelongto us.”

“No, I don’t,” I snapped, annoyed by his comment.

Luca ran a hand over his jaw, eyes on the bay. “Our families decided our futures a long time ago.”

I thought about the woman from the ballroom and wondered if my grandfather had secretly arranged my marriage. He’d never mentioned it. However, he had said that I would be expected to fulfill my duties as a Wellington one day.

“I just graduated from RISD last month,” I told Luca. “I’m not ready to get married.”

He released a dark chuckle. “How do you think you got into art school?”

“I applied.”

Luca shook his head. “You’re talented. But a recommendation from the Franco Foundation goes a long way at the Rhode Island School of Design.”

His mother’s foundation.

“What are you talking about?”

He handed me the champagne. “I made sure you got into that school.”

---