Chapter 3

Luca

A year.

Exactly one fucking year.

That was how long it had been since the last time I saw her—since the night I swore I’d go back, tell her my name, take hers, and finally fuck her until we both forgot where we began and ended.

And I meant it. Christ, I meant every word.

But then the accident happened.

One moment, I was a man counting down the days until I could finally have the woman who’d ruined me in every conceivable way. The next, I was burying my twin brother, my parents, and trying to hold together a company that felt like it was cracking under the weight of their absence.

I wasn’t ready for her to see me like that. 

A hollow… broken… utterly gutted shell of a man who barely had enough strength to breathe—much less… love.

And I DID want to love her. 

God, I did. 

If anything, it was the one thing she deserved more than anything else. 

My heart, I was pretty sure she had already—carved out and claimed before I’d even realised I’d offered it. 

But I wanted to give her more.

More than money. More than the fleeting distraction of my body. More than words that meant nothing without the time to prove them.

I wanted to give her all of me—the man I’d been before the wreckage. 

The one who could laugh without choking on grief. Hold her without trembling from the weight of his own emptiness. 

But that man was gone. 

And what was left wasn’t something I had control of anymore.

So I stayed away.

I told myself I’d go back when I was stable, you know? 

When I could… offer her something more than the ashes. 

When the business was steady—for heaven's sake.

And finally… when poor Nico—my nephew, my son now—was no longer waking up screaming in the middle of the night, crying for parents who weren’t coming back.

Fuck, it hurt.

So damn much.

He was like an extension of me, and it absolutely KILLED me… to watch him break a little more every time he opened his eyes and remembered. 

To know that the sight of me—an exact replica of his father, Luis—only made it worse.

And I could do nothing about it. 

I wanted to fix all of that. 

Patch up every crack before I even thought about her again. 

I told myself I’d wait until the dust settled and I could live without choking on the guilt—of being the one alive with Nico instead of who he really wanted… his dad.

But when all of that was finally done, the chaos had dulled a little and I could finally go back…

She wasn’t there.

God, I nearly died. 

It’d been hard enough to stay away before. But however much it hurt then, at least it had been my choice.

Now, it wasn’t anymore.

I missed her.

Fuck, missed wasn’t even the word. I ached. I burned. I fantasized about her every goddamn night. I used the memory of her… the sight of her on that stage, the sound of her moans, the way she said my name without ever knowing it… to get myself off when the loneliness got too heavy for me to bear.

My cock didn’t respond to anyone else. No matter who touched me, who spread their legs, who begged—none of it worked. Not when the only body I craved was hers.

Cherry.

That fucking name haunted me.

It was ridiculous, wasn’t it? Six months. That’s all it had been. Six months of Friday nights. Six months of watching her tease herself for me, tremble for me, fall apart for me.

Six months of not being able to touch her the way I wanted—of keeping myself from losing control.

And still, she had ruined me.

Now as I sat behind my desk, poring over documents that threatened to split my skull open… I felt that same emptiness gnawing at me. 

The board wanted an answer about a merger. Nico’s therapist needed a decision on his schooling… And I couldn’t fucking think! 

Because the ghost of a woman I’d once known wouldn’t get out of my fucking head—

The door opened.

And my world tilted.

The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen walked in.

The first thing I noticed were her legs… They were long and toned—the kind of legs a man dreamed of having wrapped around his waist during sex. And men dreamed of sex a LOT. 

Me, especially.

Her skin called to me. 

It was smooth as silk. Pale as porcelain. 

The sight stirred something dark within me. 

That sick… twisted part of my brain that found purity so damn appealing it made me ache to stain it. To drag that innocence so far beneath the dirt and see how sweet it would taste once it wasn’t so pure.

It reminded me of Cherry.

I frowned. 

What the fuck was that comparison? Cherry had always worn fishnets.

I forced my eyes higher. 

Her hips were full and perfectly curved… the kind that begged for a man's grip. Her waist was just made for hands like mine to hold. And her tits… they were supple and straining against a blouse that looked one more breath away from surrendering.

And then… there was her face.

Fuck.

She looked nothing like Cherry.

Nothing.

Although… In truth, I never really knew what Cherry even looked like. Not beneath the mask. The costumes. The neon wigs and brightly painted lips…. 

She’d always kept herself hidden. 

And yet, in my mind, I’d built a version of her. A fantasy. 

An idea of what I thought she might look like beneath all that…

And it wasn’t this.

This woman's hair was a breathtaking strawberry-blond… Her smile was soft yet bright—and so damn innocent it made something deep in my chest ache. 

Yet, despite the innocence… The short skirt she wore, the too-tight shirt, coupled with the subtle sway of her body… every inch of her screamed sin.

And I was a bloody sinner.

This was ridiculous. 

I badly wanted to know exactly what lay underneath her ill-fitting clothes.

And I hated it. 

I hated that my cock was already hard, straining painfully against my trousers. 

Nah… I wasn't going to hire her. That was the plan the second I saw her. She was a distraction—a dangerous one. And I didn’t need distractions. 

I had a company to run. A child to raise. 

A fucking legacy to uphold!

But I couldn’t tell her to leave without hearing her speak first.

No matter how much I wanted to.

So even if my cursed body kept responding like it knew something I didn’t… “Miss Angelo?” I called, using the name my butler had given me—anything to stop my thoughts from going where they were badly wanted to go.

It didn’t even sound like a name Cherry would have, but what the hell did I know?

“Y-yes,” she stammered.

And fuck me—the sound of her voice went straight to my cock. It was sinfully low. Sultry. Slightly husky. The kind of voice a man imagined whispering filth into his ear while he was buried deep inside her.

Jesus.

What was it about her that got under my skin like this?

“Please,” I said, pushing the lust down as hard as I could and gesturing to the chair across from me. “Have a seat.”