Page 4

Who the hell was she?

Hayden.

I went home, my feet barely touching the ground as I floated up the steps to my third-floor apartment. Hayden had taken a disastrous night and made it so much more.

Effervescent.

Like she was.

With her bright smiles and carefree laughs.

Vaguely, I heard my phone ring as I fought with the ancient lock on the door. I shoved my door open and fished my phone out.

“Dad?” I answered, frowning in concern. It was late, far too late for them to be awake at all.

“Frankie, I’m sorry it’s so late,” he said, his voice strained like he was out of breath. My spine stiffened and my heart fell three stories. “It’s your mother, she’s had a heart attack.”

Chapter two

It’s Just Business

Hayden

“You’redistracted,miamore.”

I hummed, not turning to look at Vinny. We both lay in bed, the early morning sun glimmering through the curtains and warming our skin. I rested my head in the cradle of my arms, my stomach pressed into the silk. The tips of his fingers traced over my shoulder blades in lazy circles, the silk sheets warm beneath our bodies.

“Just thinking,” I murmured, my gaze fixed on the smattering of clouds beyond my bedroom windows.

There was a rustle and the weight on the bed shifted behind me, and Vinny groaned as he lay on top of me. I chuckled as he got comfy, burying his face in the crook of my shoulder.

“You do that a lot,” he said, pressing his lips to the curve between my neck and shoulder. A soft laugh slipped through my nose, a vacant smile pulling on my mouth.

“It’s why I’ve gone absolutely insane,” I told him, tilting my head to give him more access. He moaned, his teeth gently scraping my skin.

“I can help,” he offered, his hands massaging the knots on my lower back. “If you want a distraction, there are many ways I can steal away your problems.”

“You,” I chuckled, gently pushing him away, “are a tease, and I have to get ready for work.”

He pouted at me and I kissed him. Just once, a small peck on his full lips.

“Very well.” He sighed wistfully, stretching his arms over his head. The sheet slipped further down his torso, stopping just below the delicious dips of his V-line. “I suppose I have a shoot to get ready for anyway. Even though it’s in three hours, and I’ll besobored until then.”

I slipped into the shower, the conversation already forgotten as my thoughts turned to the pretty redhead from last night.

Frankie.

I sighed as the boiling spray of the shower hit my back. I couldn’t stop myself from stepping in when I noticed her, sitting across the table from someone she obviously didn’t want to be around.

It was probably stupid. Definitely stupid.

Especially because now she dominated my thoughts. Her hazel eyes, the dip of her cupid's bow, the freckles strewn across her nose and cheeks like the stars in the sky. And her laugh… the memory pulled at the corners of my lips.

Shit, I was a little too invested.

I tried to shake her face from my mind and went about my morning routine, only distantly aware that Vinny pouted from his spot on the bed.

“If you frown like that,” I sighed, patting the moisturizer into my skin, “you’ll get all wrinkly before you reach thirty.”