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Carter waits a beat too long and then addresses the man, seemingly lowering his voice to match the stranger’s. “Who are you? What do you want?” His tone doesn’t come close to the stranger’s.
“Doesn’t matter. It has nothing to do withyou.” The stranger’s eyes find mine for the first time since breaking into my bedroom. Dark. The look we share… I find myself unable to tear my gaze away.
“I’m here,” he says, “for Ophelia.”
CHAPTER 2
Haze
I saw her,I wanted her, now I’m here to take her.
I need a wife. I demand revenge. This girl will give me both.
When I moved to Italy at the age of twenty-five, my boss offered to arrange my marriage. Liam thinks young men transplanted from New York should marry upon arrival. He worries that the beautiful Italian women drawn to the Villa distract us from our work. Lydia, a local vineyard owner’s daughter, was offended when I politely declined to arrange a meeting with her father.
A decade later, I’m still single.
I don’t do relationships.
I prefer casual, one-night-only hook-ups with women who know I will not be calling the next day or any day after that.
Frustrated by my never-ending bachelor status, Liam’s now holding the promotion I want over my head, telling me I’d be better suited for the position if I “settled down.” Despite everything inside me screaming to run back to the family branch in New York, I decided to take advice from Liam’s sweet, well-meaning wife.
Sitting beside Emilia in her private library at the Villa, I allowed her to create an online dating profile for me.
The profile was the catalyst for beginning the chain of events that now, eight months later, with no promotion in sight, have led to me standing in the bedroom of an eighteen-year-old girl?—
And a boy standing beside her who’d best get his ass out that window.
“Now,” I say.
The boy asks me what I want.
It’s simple. “I’m here for Ophelia.”
Her gaze stays steady on mine—wary but brave.
Petite with porcelain skin, her bright, blue eyes starkly contrast with her dark, almost black hair. With rosy cheeks and lips, she resembles an edgier version of a fairy-tale Snow White. Her long hair is still damp from showering. She wears cream pajama bottoms adorned with Christmas trees and a white tee. Judging by the peak of her nipples under the shirt, she wears nothing underneath.
No makeup, tattoos, or jewelry, other than the unique string of three intertwined strands of pearls hanging around her slender neck that I’ve been told she never takes off. I want to tear her shirt and pants off and have her stand there in just those pearls, dark hair spilling over her bare breasts. Feeling my eyes on her chest, she crosses her arms in front of her.
My revenge, my retribution in the flesh. My fingers itch to reach out and touch her, to punish her for her mother’s actions.
It’s wrong—she’s only a child. I should punish the mother.
The boy pipes up again, saying something about calling the police. He’s like the midges, the non-biting flies we have at the lake—a bother, but not worth killing. My full attention is on the beautiful girl in front of me.
“The boy should be going now,” I say to her. “I’m here to discuss your mother’s debts. I believe she owes me something.”
The pink in her cheeks slowly drains as my words settle in. She knows. She must. How could she have afforded such an expensive necklace?
“My mom…” Her words trail off as if acknowledging her family’s guilt.
Under thick, dark lashes, her attention flits from me to him, then back to me.
She speaks to him while never taking her eyes off mine.
“Go,” she finally says. “I’ll be fine.”