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So, no, there would be no love, no relationships. Those were off the menu for him. The one-night affairs were far simpler and safer. He risked nothing. His heart was barred, and yet he didn’t have to be alone either.
He picked up his glass, swirling around the alcohol, orange peel and ice as he watched the people on the dance floor. He spotted more than a handful of famous faces among the heaving bodies. He smiled inwardly at the many whose movements mimicked actions that he was certain they wished they could do elsewhere: a bedroom, maybe, if they even made it that far. This was what he needed, this surge of energy and carnality—overwhelming, drowning. This was his medication. It meant he never had to be alone with himself, with Emilio De Luca.
After all, who would want that? The only person he could think of was dead. The grief from losing his mother was choking. Boulevard was the one place he didn’t have to feel it.
Still toying with his glass, Emilio pulled himself from his swirling thoughts in time to see a woman cut a path to the bar with bouncing blonde curls in a devastating, blue sequin dress that reminded him of sparkling Mediterranean waters. He couldn’t fully see her face, but he couldn’t look away either.
***
Jasmine held her head high as she made her way through the cavernous space of the glossy club. Dancing bodies thronged around her, barely a hair’s breadth between them. She couldn’t hear the clack of her four-inch heels on the shiny dance floor. Her height meant that her head rose above most others, making her feel as if she were floating through the tide, taken by the current towards the bar. There weren’t very many seats open, but she snagged one at the end beside the black mirrored wall.
Her long legs crossed, with stiletto sandals on her feet. Her dress, short and sparkling, with thin bands tracing around her neck. Her back, entirely exposed. It was the most daring thing Jasmine had ever worn. She turned away from her reflection and called the handsome bar tender over.
‘What will it be?’ he asked, leaning closer to hear her better.
‘A Pinot Gris, please.’
He nodded and moved away, giving Jasmine a chance to scope the crowd. There wasn’t a single face she recognised—as planned—but there was one watching her, a man lounging on a scalloped couch. His arm was draped along the back rest, and in his fingers dangled a drink. As she stared, a spotlight flashed over him, giving her a proper glimpse. Perfectly cut dark hair, a little long on top. A fitted suit, his shirt button undone at the base of his throat. Neat, well put-together.
A civilised costume for a ravening beast.A flutter passed in the depths of Jasmine’s belly.
She consciously replaced the flutter with a flash of annoyance and turned back to find her wine had arrived. She didn’t want to feel a flutter after the way her day had gone. Jasmine reached for the glass then stopped, staring at her ring finger. Herbarefinger.
God, this day was supposed to have gone so differently. She was supposed to be wearing a diamond ring and a sparkling wedding band. She was supposed to be here on the top floor of New York’s hottest hotelwith her husbandhaving a celebratory drink before they left on their honeymoon. It was supposed to have been her wedding day. If everything had gone to plan, she and Richard would have danced for hours here before getting on a plane destined for the Maldives.
But none of that had happened because her fiancé had run off with Zara, her maid of honour, just before Jasmine could walk down the aisle. Neither of them had even had the decency to tell her. Instead, they had snuck off and left a letter.
Jasmine scrunched her hand up in a fist, took a breath and let it out. It did little to quell her anger and hurt. She took a large sip of her wine instead.
How had it all gone so wrong? She’d had a plan. One she had formed as a child, watching her single mother trying to make ends meet alone and still be everything Jasmine needed in a parent. A plan she had stuck to, with hard work and determination. She’d wanted to graduate by twenty-one, make management by twenty-six, be married by thirty and have a child at thirty-five. That would have given her enough time to ensure the foundations of her life were solid before starting a family and she would have had the financial freedom to take care of her mother.
She was twenty-eight now, and had been ahead of her milestones—until today.
Today was a catastrophic failure. And now any future hopes of marriage and family had gone out of the window. By leaving her at the altar, Richard had definitively proven to her that she could not trust men, ever. No exceptions.
Her father had been the first to teach her that lesson, by walking out on her mother and her when she’d been five. Jasmine had been viciously independent and untrusting ever since. That was until Richard had come along.
‘You can try to push me away but I’m always going to stand by you, Jasmine. I’m not your father.’
Words like that had thawed her heart, brought her walls down. But today he had shown her that she’d been right the first time. And as for her maid of honour, her so-called best friend… Well, Zara had just taken a sledgehammer to what little trust remained in Jasmine. And, if she couldn’t trust, she couldn’t have a marriage, and no marriage meant no family. She wouldn’t be a single parent like her mother had been.
Suddenly Zara’s teasing jokes made so much sense.‘You’re so lucky to have Richard. I wish I’d found him first!’
Or Richard’s little comments.‘Promise me you’ll always keep Zara around. She’s good for you. We all need a Zara in our lives.’
They hadn’t been well-meaning as she had first thought. They’d been a prelude to the infidelity she was enduring now.
God, what a mess!
An unexpected buzz startled Jasmine back to the club with its pounding music and flashing lights. She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone. It was another missed call from her mother. She’d already tried several times. Even Richard had called twice. Jasmine didn’t want to speak to anyone, especially not the man who had wrecked all her plans. The man who had hurt her even more than her father had.
The man who had said she was too controlling. Stifling.
Well, she’d show him.
Tonight Jasmine was out to forget. Forget about her plans, her ruined wedding, the years of careful control, the betrayal…everything.
Tonight, she was letting her hair down.