Chapter 1 #2
A soft sigh leaves my lips.
I’m sure he feels the heated edge of my stare across his chiseled cheekbones, his jawline, his delicious lips, and his hardly-there stubble.
I’ve been studying his shaving habits more than I’ve been studying ancient history in my free time.
I know when he does it, how he does it, what he wears when he does it, and whether he looks in the mirror at all.
He routinely gets up early and steps into the vast bathroom next to his bedroom on the top floor, where he sleeps alone.
And that happened even before my mother’s untimely death, regardless of their arrangements.
He showers first, and then he shaves.
A black rough-to-the-touch towel always sits low around his hips, hugging his muscular rear, failing to hide the perfect lines of his muscular legs.
The tattoos on his body highlight ancient hieroglyphic inscriptions, and he also smells divine.
His favorite male cologne is always shipped from an expensive boutique in Paris, the same place where I’ll be ordering my favorite perfume next.
Money is not an issue for him, although the blend of money and dark power might be.
A man like him is not what I’ve missed.
In fact, there haven’t been any other kinds of men in our house.
Since I can remember, and despite how they looked, men couldn’t be trusted.
He can’t be trusted either, but unlike the others, he can give a woman the kind of pain and pleasure she will repeatedly ask for.
He begins to tilt his stare up, and my eyes are about to collide with his, so I quickly shift my focus the other way and pay attention to the freshly dug grave.
With every passing moment, my heart works itself into a frenzy, the heat of his stare leaving pockets of charred skin on my face.
I’m so delusional to think that he’s watching me right now when normally I wouldn’t catch his gaze on me if my hair were on fire.
Swallowing in secret, I close my eyes and tilt my head down, so no one can see my pained expression.
Not even him.
My chest gives me away, though, moving up and down too quickly, pushing my breasts against the low-cut neckline, making the heat inside my body grow at a worrying pace.
Please let this be finished soon.
Someone in the family touches my elbow, and I grunt in response, refusing to turn my eyes to them, and interact or speak.
“You can go,” the woman says. “Frank will take you home.”
I whip my eyes to Sylvia.
“I don’t want him to take me home.”
My grandmother shoots me a stern look.
“Don’t be difficult, Leilani. There’s nothing here for you to do. We’ll all be home in an hour. You go now. And please change.”
Her eyes almost slip to my cleavage.
She stifles her impulse to give me another caustic look and also a piece of her mind.
I spent a lot of time picking out this outfit last night.
I knew I’d make a splash and also attract the wrong kind of attention.
I knew I’d be berated by someone in my family, but I thought it was all worth it, since I dressed for him, not them, and for sure not my deceased mother.
She’d be enraged and foaming at the mouth if she saw the skintight dress I wear under my tailored coat, the scoop necklines perfectly matching, highlighting the top of my chest, my waist, and slightly curved hips.
My dress hits below the knee, covering my legs entirely, but my best ammunition isn’t there, although they sure can drive a man crazy.
My dress can’t hide my face, my lips, or my eyes.
It can’t conceal my long cornsilk-like hair that moves around my shoulders like a cape of bloody violet red.
I’m going through a phase, coloring my hair every other month, trying out different shades, not happy with any of them, mostly because nothing works on him.
I could wear my dress backward or walk naked into his bedroom in the middle of the night, and he’d still ignore me.
So this time around, I spent an hour at the hair salon trying to compel my hairdresser to change my hair color to something brighter.
She almost fainted when I told her what I wanted.
Aware of the possible repercussions of messing with the Gallos’ new heiress's locks, she said no to me at first.
Unimpressed with her protests, I put more pressure on her, testing her resolve, yet nothing worked. Not my poignant threats or my shameless blackmailing.
The woman realized it was less risky to say no to me than to get in trouble with the Gallo family and have her business ruined and end up with a bullet in her head.
Eventually, a girl at her salon had slipped me a note with the hair-coloring instructions, and I followed them religiously.
The result was a violet storm dipped in crimson blood that makes my entire black attire pointless now.
My lipstick, a blend of dark blood and midnight sky, makes my complexion pop and my eyes look like green poison.
I knew someone would comment on this, and I could bet my money on it being the matriarch.
“Go, Leilani,” Sylvia says, nudging me to leave.
My coat is open, and no matter how harsh the wind is and how deeply the cold cuts into my skin, I won’t button it up now.
If I am to leave, I need to do it as I had planned it all along––not before earning a glance from him.
I need to stare into his eyes, rifle through the secrets of his heart, and give him a fair warning that this is not over.
It will never be.
Whatever happened between him and my late mother can’t stop what the future holds for us.
He and I are not done.
We will never be.
“All right,” I say in a voice that sides with ominous more than agreeable. “Where’s Frank?” I ask louder this time to attract everyone’s attention, but mostly his.
It doesn’t work.
“Don’t make a fool of yourself, Leilani. It’s embarrassing to us,” Sylvia slips under her breath, leaning closer and shaking my shoulder rather hard.
I can’t help but notice that she looks like a movie star with her wavy platinum blond hair, red lips, tailored coat, and gloved hands, even now––today––as she puts her younger daughter into the ground.
“Ouch,” I say, annoyed, pushing her hand away with a clipped gesture.
If this doesn’t make him look my way, I don’t know what will.
A few people witness the exchange, compelling Sylvia to back off, biting her lip in frustration.
Her eyes are filled with simmering anger.
She must know I’m up to no good, although, honestly, I have a hard time telling who’s spying for her in our house.
Is it the housekeeper? One of the younger maids?
My grandfather moves his eyes between the two of us, noticing the tension.
He peels his eyes away and gestures at Frank, when I flick my hand up.
“I don’t need him. I can find my way home,” I say, bringing the funeral to a standstill as I step to the side, careful not to sink my heel into the saturated ground and pick up mud on my shoes.
The crowd’s murmurs waft through the icy air as I fight my way away from them, yet no one dares to stop me.
“I’ll take her home.”
His voice splits through the air like a flying dagger, and no one in the crowd moves or breathes.
My grandfather whips his eyes to him, while Sylvia keeps her stare fixed on me, overly unhappy with how the entire story unfolds.
Something tells me she deeply dislikes that I’m being escorted home by Callum.
She might want to bite her nails in aggravation, but I can’t hide my satisfaction.
I’ve dreamed of this moment––to be acknowledged by him, even though regarded as a nuisance at the same time––since he became part of our family.
He knows how to bring a woman’s blood to a boiling point, and mine is just about to melt my veins open.
With great effort, I keep my jaw locked to suppress a smile.
“See. It wasn’t that hard,” I mutter, pulling away from my grandparents and heading his way, while he and his men pivot away, locked in step, and make a beeline for the cars parked in front of the most notorious cemetery in Queens, New York.