Page 1 of Angel
Prologue - Paige
He came in out of nowhere, whirling and twisting around me like a storm, obscuring my vision. Once he showed up, I couldn’t see anything but him.
Angelo Salvatore. Just his name alone set off a chain reaction of need, desire and lust through my body.
My twin sister, Sophia, told me to stay away from him. As my twin sister and the only real family member I had, maybe I should have listened.
Sophia always had my back. Through thick and thin, she was there. Losing our parents at fifteen meant that we had to become each other’s rock. I’d be lying if I said she didn’t carry most of the burden.
Still, I’d done my best. I’d left our apartment, gone out into the big city of New York, finished college, looked for a job.
The last part had been the trickiest one. While Sophia built her musical career as DJ Sophie B, one of the hottest spinners in the city, I jumped around from job to job, the temp agency that got me gigs being the closest thing to stability that I had in my life.
I didn’t want to be temping at twenty-four, with my quarter of a centennial mark only weeks away. Try as I might, though, things just wouldn’t look up in the career department.
The same went for my love life. That peeked in college before fizzing down to a slow simmer.
And then came my three-week assignment as a database administrator for Neville Industries.
And with it came Angelo.
I should have known it when I saw him in that coffee shop on my way to my job interview at Neville Tower: the man was trouble. It wasn’t his impeccably tailored suit, his broad shoulders or tall, commanding stance. It wasn’t the way he looked at me like not only did he know what I wanted, but he could always be the guy to give it to me.
It was all of that.
Men like Angelo, ones who can have basically whatever they want whenever they want it, tend to develop a certain pomp. It’s not something I usually go for.
But here’s another problem. When you haven’t felt a man’s touch for… Well, an embarrassing amount of time, you tend to overlook certain things.
It’s not that I didn’t try to stay away. I did. But Angelo made it difficult. He got me away from my sister, took me out to that place I like to call an alternative dance club. Sharing the experience with him did something to me. It lit a fire that couldn’t be put out.
I was the one who brought him to my apartment. I let him take my clothes off. I ran my hands all over his body, enjoyed being touched in ways I hadn’t even known existed.
And it all backfired.
With Angelo falling asleep next to me in my bed, I let myself believe that he wasn’t as dangerous as Sophia claimed.
Maybe things would work out after all. Maybe he and I could get to know each better. I wasn’t desperate for some kind of long-term commitment, but maybe we could keep going out. We could see where things went.
Morning came. I opened my eyes. He was gone.
