Page 122 of Kiss Me Like I Didn't Kill You

Alsomine.

Whatever this is, it isn’t love.

This—this is something else entirely. Something darker.

Primitive.

Absolute.

Chapter 42

Ophelia

Eighteen months earlier | Paris, France.

The man watching me is something else.

He looks like he’s stepped straight out of one of the romance novels Piper reads late into the night. I always roll my eyes and tell her they’re ridiculous. I lie. I secretly love them too.

But this, him, feels worse than fiction.

His hair is dark, styled just enough to look careless. His eyes aren’t one colour at all, blue, but shifting with the light, darker at the edges, pale in the middle.

His suit fits like it was made for him. Broad shoulders, defined jaw, and there’s no doubt what’s under that fabric.

Strong, lean… sinful. I can almost picture it, abs, the defined lines of a V, veins running along his forearms, every box, neatly ticked.

I catch myself staring and my cheeks warm. I did not just imagine what he’d look like without the suit.

He doesn’t have tattoos, at least none I can see, but he doesn’t need them. He looks too put together, but there’s something dangerous underneath it.

The way he looks at me makes it hard to think. There’s heat in it, barely contained, and I know it shouldn’t be there. Not for a stranger.

And yet I want to know his name. I want to hear it, say it, hold it on my tongue.

I want to make it mine.

I’ve never even been on a date in my life. I’ve never been allowed to.

Growing up in an Italian mafia family means every move I make has already been planned for me.

I was born a Bellanti daughter, an alliance waiting to happen. My father made sure I understood that early on.

No dating.

No scandals.

No men.

I’m to stay untouched, pure, a bargaining chip with a heartbeat.

But one look at this man, and I know I’d burn every rule my father ever made.

And that thought terrifies me.

My phone rings. I startle, tearing my gaze away and fumbling for it.

Octavia.