FIVE
I muttered a string of colourful words the second I was out of earshot, just to make sure the cavemen didn’t catch it.
I should have seen this disaster coming – the whole interview had all the charm of a misogynistic talent show. One wouldn’t stop ogling my backside like it had arrived with its own bloody CV, and the other couldn’t even form a coherent sentence. A real masterclass in professionalism, that was.
Professionalism, my arse.
I rubbed my temples as I slid into my little Fiat, the frustration from the day threatening to boil over.
The sting of rejection burned hotter because, if I was being honest, a part of me had wanted him to be impressed by me.
Not just my CV or my books, but me. The thought that Cain D’Angelo – model-turned-dark-romance-writer – might’ve been even remotely affected by me was strangely satisfying.
But the reality was – he wasn’t going to call. Men like him didn’t go for women like me – not professionally, not personally. I was too late, too ordinary, too… something.
I’d received a notification from the Obsidian app earlier. Ghost had sent a calendar request for tomorrow night, and I’d accepted it without much thought.
The tension coiling in my gut wouldn’t wait for tomorrow’s release, though.
There were only two ways I knew how to deal with this kind of pressure: sex or exercise.
Sex wasn’t on the table – not with the constraints of the contract, and definitely not with anyone else. The mere thought of showing my vulnerable side to someone other than Ghost made my stomach churn.
I sighed at the absurdity of my life.
D’Angelo was a chauvinist – or at least acted like one. But damn if there wasn’t something inviting about him, something I couldn’t quite shake. Perhaps it was better if he didn’t hire me. I wouldn’t be able to work for someone like him.
Fishing out my phone, I saw three missed calls from my brothers’ numbers. I couldn’t deal with them now. I thumbed my cousin’s name and pressed call, listening to the beeping like an infernal summoning spell gone wrong.
And she didn’t disappoint.
Gianna answered on the third ring, her voice thick with Italian disdain.
‘What do you want?’
It wasn’t a question – it was a threat dressed as one.
‘Jesus, woman. Who pissed in your espresso?’ I winced.
She gave a long, dramatic sigh. I could practically see her yanking the hair tie off her black ponytail, redoing it tighter – as if strangling her scalp might squeeze out the stress.
‘Work. I hate people.’
I snorted. ‘You do realise you work in tourism, right?’
She ignored me. There was a pause, then the sound of her breathing until the background fuzz of yelling tourists and honking cars faded.
‘Tell me something good, amore.’
I gave a non-committal shrug even though she couldn’t see it. ‘Had a few interviews today.’
‘That’s good?’
‘Not remotely.’
She went quiet for a beat.
‘You have a really warped definition of good, you know that?’ Her chuckle bled warmth through the phone, and it hit me in that tender place – the part of me that liked knowing I could still lift her out of her daily hell, even for a minute. And it lifted me right back.
I launched into a rundown of today’s failures, letting her laugh at the more pathetic bits, until she suddenly gasped so hard I had to pull the phone away.
‘Wait—not Cain D’Angelo? As in the Cain D’Angelo? The dark romance god himself?’
And there it was… I had forgotten about her weird taste in men.
‘The devil himself.’ I scrunched up my nose.
‘No fucking way! Is he hot in person or is it all Instagram filters and strategic shadows? He’s like… forty, isn’t he? No way he looked that good at forty without filters!’
I sighed, conceding with a raised brow. ‘He’s good looking, yeah. Broody. Alpha. The whole tortured-by-his-own-dick vibe.’
‘Listen here, if he hires you, swear on Nonna’s rosary you’ll introduce us!’
I made a face. ‘I’m trying to get a job, not turn you into the heroine of a smutty fanfic.’
A soundless laugh puffed through her nose.
I didn’t get it. At all. Women lost their minds over men like Cain. And I couldn’t decide whether it was emotional constipation, allergies to commitments or the square jaw that did it.
‘I need to blow off some steam. Coffee?’
‘Ah, no. Dad wants a family meeting.’
I clicked my tongue, silently praying he wouldn’t call me.
I loved Uncle Alessio – I really did – but for a man in law enforcement, his hobbies strayed into much murkier waters than I’d liked to admit. He knew things he shouldn’t about the kind of crimes he was supposed to prevent.
Blowing a kiss over the phone, I hauled myself home, grabbed my gym bag, and headed out again – only to find myself stuck in an endless sea of rush-hour traffic.
By the time I reached the gym, over an hour had passed, and my nerves were frayed to the breaking point.
As I parked, I slammed the car door harder than necessary, relishing the brief satisfaction of the noise.
Inside, the place buzzed with music, clanging weights, and relentless motion. I changed fast, shoved my earphones in, and climbed onto the treadmill, setting the pace punishingly high.
Each stride pummelled the frustration out of me. Sweat clung to my skin within minutes.
And despite it all, he was on my mind – Cain D’Angelo, that smirking bastard with cheekbones too sculpted to be nonfiction, and eyes too clever to ignore.
He intrigued me. Not because of the way he looked – though God help me, he looked like every dark fantasy ever written – but because something in him didn’t quite fit. There was a stillness, an aura. Something untouchable.
Wrong.
Typical of me to react to that type of man.
Tugging at my long sleeve, I regretted the shirt I had thrown on in haste. The gym was hotter than I’d thought, and the fabric clung to my skin in the worst way.
I bit back a laugh as I moved to an exercise bike – I was a mess.
Complete and unforgivable mess. Luckily, Ghost would take me apart tomorrow, break me in ways only he could, and I would finally feel grounded again.
But tonight, it was just me and this gym.
I’d hold myself together, no matter how much the day tried to unravel me.
I paused as I caught my flushed reflection. But before I could think too hard about it, the light above me vanished. A shadow blocked it. I turned my chin.
Cain – fucking – D’Angelo.
Un…believable.
I lost all sensation in my legs, the grind of the pedals fading as they slowed to a stop.
Sweaty, breath ragged, with a shirt plastered to him, he looked nothing like the man from earlier.
His black hair was pushed back in loose, effortless waves, save for one unruly strand that fell across his brow.
Every part of him looked cut from shadow and bone – from the strong line of his jaw to the way his shirt strained over his chest.
He dropped onto the bench beside my bike as though gravity had made a fucking exception for him, power burning beneath the calm. But it wasn’t his body that stole the air from my lungs. It was what he was holding.
One of my books.
‘See,’ he started, scratching the back of his head with his free hand, ‘I don’t understand why Elisabeth went for Charles instead of Franklin.
’ His tone was casual, almost conversational, but his amber eyes gleamed with an intensity that made it impossible to tell if he’d been serious or baiting me.
His gaze didn’t waver, and the trace of amusement pulling at one side of his mouth suggested he was clearly doing both.
Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees, the book balancing casually in one hand. His black outfit made him look every bit like the dark antihero that lived in the pages of his novels.
Tapping the book’s cover lightly with his index finger, he added, ‘I’ve been turning that over in my head.’
I blinked, stunned. Of all the sections in my book to fixate on, he had chosen that? It wasn’t even the darkest or the most twisted part of the story.
‘Really?’ I asked, trying to make myself seem nonchalant as I started pedalling again. ‘You skimmed through The Hollow Warden and got hung up on the simple love triangle?’
Cain reclined in his seat, a wolfish grin spreading across his face.
‘Haven’t read the whole thing, just flipped through it.
And I’m not hung up. Just intrigued. Franklin was the plan.
Dependable. But Charles was the pull. She didn’t pick him because it made sense – which it didn’t, mind you.
’ He angled his head, watching me like I was the mystery he was trying to unravel.
‘Elisabeth didn’t want dependable,’ I said. ‘She wanted someone who would drag her into the dark and make her admit she liked it.’
His gaze snapped from my knees to my eyes, a dangerous spark catching behind them.
The smile faded.
The quiet between us twisted until I wasn’t sure if I’d just won something or signed a contract I couldn’t read.
Then he huffed softly, a sound that sent a ripple of irritation through me, but there was something else too – something electric.
‘You let Elisabeth pick the guy who challenged her, but you stopped short of making him really test her. You could’ve pushed it further. Elisabeth should’ve despised Charles – before realising she couldn’t live without him.’
I stopped pedalling and folded my arms, leaning slightly towards him. ‘You think hate is the price for passion?’
He tilted his head, eyes narrowing. ‘No. It’s the mortgage.
Love’s just paint on the walls,’ he said, his voice low and teasing.
‘It’s the kind of connection that can’t be ignored.
When you blur the line between love and hate, you get tension.
Real tension. Something that twists a knife in your chest and makes you feel something. ’
The way he said it… I almost moaned.
His eyes bore into me, as if he wasn’t just critiquing my work but dissecting me piece by piece.
Swallowing hard, I was suddenly gripping my composure to stop it from fraying further.