Burn Baby Burnt

K.L Mann
Copyright © Feb. 2022

All Rights Reserved

Intellectual Property of K.L Mann

 Author’s Note & TW’s
First of all, thanks for being here! Author’s notes are sort of like, the bane of my very existence.
It’s much easier writing as someone else, than it is writing as myself. So I’ll make this awkwardness
quick! Burn Baby Burnt, while being my sixth publication, is the first novella I’ve written
successfully. And as a lover of all things short and smutty, it’s become a big part of this crazy writing
journey. I found writing Jasper and Dixie’s story to be my most difficult project so far. Their story has
a lot of plot shoved into your face quite quickly, but I’ve never been fond of patience.

If you haven’t read my challenge night series, there are character crossovers here. Aside from one
thing about our Princess Arianna, there are no real spoilers that can’t be found in the blurbs of those
stories. To be fair though, if you read the first couple bits of her book, you’d know how her HEA was
meant to be. The girl gets what she wants. Always.
If you want to skip the bonus chapter, you can avoid the bit of information. The power is left with
you all. So that’s your semi spoiler warning.

Now to get into the good stuff. This book is taboo lite, as I like to think of it. There is a large age
gap and forbidden aspects at play.

The TW’s are as follows:

Infertility
Depression
Trauma/Panic Attack due to Trauma
Blackmail/Manipulation
Firearm Use
Casual Discussion of Unaliving
Swearing
Overwhelming Guilt

Now, I would also like to add that this book isn’t meant to weigh you down. There will be aspects
that hurt, but the passion is worth the ache.

Happy Reading, Beautiful Souls

 To Maddie and Aspen,

for your unwavering love and support. And for telling me my writing makes your day even when I
can’t stand to look at it. You will never understand how much meeting the two of you has changed my
life. I love you my smutt sluts.
 Playlist
Don’t Forget About Me ─ Cloves
See You Later ─ Jenna Raine
Dandelions ─ Ruth B.
Love in The Dark ─ Adele
Falling Apart ─ Michael Schulte
Stop and Stare ─ One Republic
Like I Can ─ Sam Smith
Not Over You ─ Gavin DeGraw
Good Grief ─ Bastille
You Are The Reason ─ Calum Scott
The Scientist ─ Coldplay
Give Me Love ─ Ed Sheeran
Dancing On My Own ─ Calum Scott
Unsteady ─ Erich Lee Gravity Mix
Hold On ─ Chord Overstreet
Say Something ─ A Great Big World
Can’t Help Falling In Love ─ Haley Reinhart
Someone You Loved ─ Lewis Capaldi
Amber Run ─ I Found
A Thousand Years ─ Christina Perri
Home ─ Phillip Phillips
 Blurb
Dixie Wallows is practically sweating as she steps onto the Aroselyn Estate property. Her heart
aches in a way it has been for three years; punishingly.

Three years have molded her into a cold shell of her old self, but that shell is cracking with every
step she takes toward the mansion she once called home, the one she left, leaving her soul behind in
her dust.

Sacrifice for love is something she had only ever experienced in movies and nightmares. It
quickly became her reality when saving the reputation of Jasper Aroselyn meant breaking his heart
and crumbling her own into dust.

And now, now, she was walking into the Lion’s den to… interview him. She wishes she was
given a name before accepting the responsibility because she might throw up before she even lays
eyes on him, given the circumstances of the newsworthy story.

Her phone vibrates in her dress pocket, and it sure as hell isn’t an email.

It’s him.
 Chapter 1: Catalyst
“A flower does not use words to announce
its arrival to the world; it just blooms."
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Dixie
Present

The Aroselyn Estate is exactly how I remember it. Beautiful high ceilings, crown moldings,
marble sculptures, chandeliers that cost more than my apartment, and staircases that dreams are made
of. An airy, light academia feel to every inch of it, perfectly suited for any gala.
Even though it’s familiar, there’s a haunting to it now. It’s not safe or comfortable breathing in
the air that settles around me as I force my feet to cooperate and send me past the threshold. Instead,
every intake of oxygen feels heavy with regret. I loved living here for the short time that I did.
I loved the man that I shared it with even more.
“Are you okay?” Claire, my boss asks. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Dixie.”
I feel like I’m the ghost, walking through the memory of my life.
“I’m okay,” I lie, taking a sip of the champagne she hands me. “It’s just a lot to take in, I feel
like we’re intruding even though we’re working.” Another lie. I feel like I’m intruding because this
was my home, and now I’m an unexpected, unwelcome visitor.
She dips her chin in understanding. “You’ll feel better when the interview starts. That’s why
you’re here, you're by far my best reporter at the moment and the only one willing to interview
someone like Aroselyn.”
Yeah, well if I knew who I would have been interviewing before an hour ago, I would have
said no. I’d rather interview the mayor again, and he gave me his phone number on the back of a
coffee cup. And he’s sixty.
There are tons of fancy businessmen in Belle City, I wouldn’t have even imagined Jasper
would be on the list of possibilities for this job. Especially considering I’m interviewing him and his
fiancée for their wedding announcement.
 Yeah, that part stings.
Fuck, all of it stings.
But I would have known if I didn’t stop meticulously keeping tabs on him this past year. The
obsession with him became too consuming and if I didn’t stop following his every move, I would
have gone to see him. I would have broken down so easily.
I would have ran back and told him everything, hoping he’d forgive me. Pipe dream, Dixie.
You don’t deserve to be forgiven. Not after all of this time.
It’s been too long.
So I couldn’t. Destroying his life couldn’t be my fault. I don’t think I could survive it. The
guilt would be intolerable.
“We have less than a half hour before the interview starts, I’m going to use the ladies room
and make a few calls to check in on some leads for the Burke story.” I hand her back the half empty
champagne glass and slowly make my way to the back of the entrance hall.
Eyes travel with me, sticking to me as I scramble to avoid the ache of it.
Few know who I am, my boss not included. She wouldn’t have brought me here if she were
aware. She probably wouldn’t have hired me if she knew.
No one is in the bathroom when I get there, meaning I can take a damn breath and try to calm
down.
That is, until my phone buzzes in my dress pocket.

Jasper: What are you doing here?

Fuck. Why couldn’t he have missed me until the interview?

He found my new phone number.
Be cold, Dixie. Keep saving him.

Dixie: Working. Is that a problem?

Jasper: Working for who?
Dixie: Belle City Digest. I’m a reporter now. I can’t get out of this. I didn’t know you’d be the
person I’m interviewing until an hour ago.
Jasper: You shouldn’t have come back.
Dixie: I didn’t plan to.
Jasper: Meet me by the fountain in ten minutes.
Dixie: That’s not a good idea.
Jasper: Fountain. Ten minutes. Or the interview is canceled.

Claire needs this. Shit.

Dixie: As you wish.

Shaking out my hands, pacing back and forth a few steps around the room, I’m officially terrified.

Why the hell does he want to see me? He can’t yell at me at a gala, even the fountain isn’t
far enough away for that. Christ, I’m going to see his face. I’m going to see his face and have to
keep myself from crying.
 Forcing myself to get out of my head my neck rolls, releasing some pressure as it cracks. I
calm my nerves, trying to push myself into professional mode.
This is my job, that’s all it is. I have to be nice, gracious and polite.
I don’t even bother checking the leads on the Burke case. Choosing to leave the bathroom
quickly and head toward the back exit closest to the garden. I know this place better than most, and I
could get to our former spot of choice blindfolded if I needed to.
My Aphrodite fountain.
The structure isn’t illuminated and flowing with shimmery water like it always used to be. It’s
dark and murky, turned off without an ounce of beauty to show for.
It’s abandoned, like I abandoned him.
The entire garden is. There are dead plants everywhere, crunching underneath the weight of
my heels. The only source of light stems from a few lamp posts and some security lights attached to
the pool house.
My heart aches, taking in the graveyard of our former garden.
A tear crawls down my cheek before I can stop it.
“Sad, isn’t it?” The buttery voice of my former love creeps up behind me. “It used to be quite
a sight out here. Obviously things have changed.” I wipe the tear away quickly, hoping he won’t
notice, but he does. “What exactly do you have to cry over, Dixie? You left me. You did this to the
garden. You.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Jasper.” I can’t look at him and he can’t look at me.
We’re standing side by side, staring into the remnants of our lifeless yard.
Our dead love.
A moment passes. Maybe two.
“I want you to admit it,” he growls, grabbing my arms and spinning me to see him. As he
meets my eye, I’m given a look into the pain I’ve caused him. Nothing has ever felt worse than facing
him here and now.
Jasper is still, deliriously handsome. Denying that would be laughable.
He’s thirty-six now, dressed in the sexiest tuxedo a man could wear. Classic black coat, crisp
white shirt, with a solid black skinny tie. His hair is still dark brown and his eyes are pools of
caramel that I love more than the candies themselves. His skin is tanned like it always used to be in
the summer months. Strange, since it’s February. Jasper is even more fit then he was when we were
together, but I knew that. He practically lived at the gym when I left.
“Admit what?” My voice cracks under the pressure of his scrutiny.
“Admit why you left. I know you lied, admit why.”
More pathetic, soft tears roll down my face. “Jasper. I can’t.”
His nostrils flare. “Why the hell not? I’m standing here, right here, asking you. After three
fucking years without you, I’m standing here begging you to tell me it was a lie. Tell me, Dixie.”
“It won’t change anything. You’re engaged and your life is better now without me here to mess
it up, again. I can’t Jasper, I can’t,” I chant, hopelessly starving to let the truth come out.
“What do you mean? You didn’t mess anything up, not until you left! What are you hiding?”
His fingers tighten around my arms, urging me to open up.
He wants to know. He needs to know. Say it.
I–
My mouth opens as my resolve crumbles–
“Darling, are you out there?” a feminine voice calls out. Jasper's hands let me go and I
immediately wipe away my tears with the backs of my hands. “There you are, the Chronicle would
like a photo– oh, who’s this?”
Lilian Howard, the woman marrying the love of my life. She might as well be a damn
supermodel, except she’s not a supermodel, she’s a lawyer and a ridiculously good one. Her short
blonde hair is impeccable and her body is enviable.
I throw on my professional voice as fast as I can. “Dixie Wallows,” I say with a smile,
holding out my hand. “I’ll be conducting your interview in a bit, I was just on a call when I ran into
Mr. Aroselyn. It’s very nice to meet you, I should get back.” I smile again, fake. After shaking her
hand lightly, I make myself scarce.
Not even two minutes later, as I’m finally calming myself down in a private hallway, my
phone buzzes again.

Jasper: It would make a difference. Tell me, please.

Dixie: I can’t put you at risk anymore. I won’t.
Jasper: What risk? I would have done anything for you. I still will.
Dixie: I did do anything for you.
Dixie: It’s best if we just get through the interview. You’ll never have to see me again after, I
swear. You deserve to be happy with her. I’ll see you in our next lives. Maybe it’ll work then. Maybe
I won’t ruin it, maybe the garden will survive next time.
Jasper: Damnit, Dixie!
Dixie: I’m so sorry. It’s better this way.

“There you are!” Claire smiles as she finds me, clapping her hands together and rubbing them
excitedly. “Let’s go get you set up in the interview room.”
“Sounds good.”
Luckily, this interview should take less than a half hour. Unluckily, some of these questions are
going to fucking sting.
It doesn’t take long to set up the chairs and equipment.
“Hello, Mr. Aroselyn, Ms. Howard. I’m Claire Wright, senior story analyst for the Belle City
Digest. This is Dixie Wallows, our special interests interviewer.” Claire introduces herself, shaking
each of their hands. I shake them both in return like we haven’t met.
Special interests interviewer my ass. I interview hotheads no one else wants to deal with.
Why? Because no one else will, and I don’t care enough to argue about it.
“Please, have a seat.” I try to smile and point to the chairs in front of me. My stomach rolls
uncomfortably while Jasper looks at me with longing eyes. It’s torture to turn my focus on Lilian. “I
understand this will be your first interview as an engaged couple, congratulations.”
“Yes, thank you. I’m very excited,” Lilian says with a sweet smile. She sets her hand in his
and I almost choke.
I’m not a violent person. But when her fingers flex around his, I can see myself ripping her off
of him and killing her. With my bare hands.
“That’s wonderful, I do have a few non–romantic questions but they are quick,” I promise,
looking down at my questions even though they are memorized. I had an hour to prepare but, an hour
of memorizing for me is a cakewalk. “Will you be pursuing the position of district attorney in the
future? Given the new public image you’ve created with your last few big wins, the people of Belle
City are curious.”
 “Actually, I’d like to stay out of prosecution for the time being. I’m hoping to move into more
pro-bono work, and continue to work as a defense attorney helping the underrepresented members of
our community.”
How lovely, she has a heart.
“That’s very important work,” I comment, fixing my eyes to Jasper as the next question is for
him. “What would you say to anyone questioning your ability to juggle planning a wedding and your
newest business acquisition, Mr. Aroselyn?”
“I’d say it’s foolish to believe that there is anything I can’t handle, Ms. Wallows.”
Dear lord. If only you knew, babe.
“Now for the fun stuff,” I prompt with a halfhearted smile. “I’ve been told you’d like to
announce a date for the big day, is that true?”
“Yes, this next Fall. The estate is beautiful when the leaves are orange,” Lilian answers,
beaming with a smile at Jasper. He gives her a tight smile in return.
My heart is nearly jumping out of my chest. They’ll be married in less than a year, in our
favorite season. Probably in the garden. My garden.
“Wonderful,” I fake excitement, trying to steady my heart. “Of course everyone would like to
know if you are planning on starting a family, but I understand you may not be comfortable
answering–”
“We’d love children, we’re hoping to have one sooner than expected.” She giggles, wiggling
her brows playful. Jasper winces as she says it.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
She’s pregnant. She’s fucking pregnant.
This can’t be happening. No. Anything but this.
He told me…
He said he didn’t want…
He said that we were enough… he didn’t need...
I’m going to throw up.
“Dixie? Are you okay?” Claire asks from her seat, looking up from her notes.
I can’t breathe.
No, I’m not okay!
“I’m so sorry, I’m not feeling well. Claire will finish the last two questions. I wish you both
the best.” I practically fall out of my chair, racing out of the room.
People part ways as I storm through the building, avoiding bumping into any guests. My feet
carry me out of the entire fucking building, halfway down the driveway, and then I snap. Tears spill
down my face, drowning me in an uncomfortable, stuffy sadness. I don’t stop running, kicking off my
shoes like a psychotic Cinderella, making my way down the driveway. I’m going to run all the way
home. It’s like two hours driving, but I don’t care.
I. Can’t. Breathe.
This is all my fault.
I did this.
I could have told him.
Three years ago, I should have told him.
Once I’m off the property and outside of the gates, I slip and fall to my knees in the grass,
letting a scream rip from my lungs. I scream like I’ve never screamed before. My voice cracks into a
million pieces and my chest heaves as I try to breathe. I’m suffocating in my own panic. It feels like
something is crushing my throat and all of the air I can get in isn’t enough.

Jasper is going to be a dad and I’m never going to be a mom. All of the promises we made
have been broken, every single one of them.
The grass is wet from the sprinklers, ruining my dress but I can’t bring myself to care. I can’t
move, or breathe or think and I’m pretty positive that my whole body is trembling. From the corner of
my eye, headlights are visible approaching behind me. Assuming it’s a guest leaving, I stay put. I
don’t care who sees me. I’ll fake an injury or something if I have to.
But the car doesn’t pass by. It stops.
“Dixie, get in the car,” Jasper commands.
“I can’t,” I manage to choke out, covering my eyes with my palms.
“I’ll take you home. No one should see you like this, come on,” he says, as if it’s so simple. A
car door shuts. My head shakes while I sniffle and continue to cry. His hands wrap around my waist
and he picks me up. I don’t have the strength to fight him.
He places me carefully into the passenger seat of a dark car, buckles me in and shuts the door
carefully. He gets into the driver's seat, pulling out onto the open road.
He starts the trip in silence, giving me time to settle.
Eventually my tears stop falling and a carefully trained numbness sets back in.
“Are you alright?” he finally asks.
I manage a whisper. “She’s pregnant, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
My heart might as well be a pile of useless bloody pieces.
“Do you love her?”
He doesn’t hesitate, not even a second to think. “No.”
“Just pull over please, I’ll walk.”
He shakes his head. “You’re not walking 60 miles. I’ll drive you home.”
“Why do you know where I live?”
Silence.
No answer, not until moments later.
“Dixie, tell me why. I can’t keep trying to work it out in my head. It’s been three years, I’m
going crazy. Tell me.”
I blow out an exhausted breath.
Here goes nothing…
 Chapter 2: One Way to Celebrate
"Flowers didn't ask to be flowers
and I didn't ask to be me."
— Kurt Vonnegut
Dixie
4 years ago…

“You know it’s my birthday today,” I boasted, jumping onto the couch next to him, putting my
feet up on the leather ottoman next to his. My painted pink toes next to his soft black socks was like
something of a dream to me. The simple contrast of sweet bubblegum pink nail polish on my fair skin
set so closely to his much bigger covered feet made me giddy. It put the idea of a future into my head.
A future where our feet intertwined rather than refusing to touch.
Jasper had always had that effect on me. Granted, I’d only known him for eight months. Still,
he gave me butterflies without even trying to do it. At least, I was pretty damn sure he wasn’t trying
to.
“It is?” he asked with a frown.
I laser focused on the movement of his lips, fascinated by how soft they looked. Pink, maybe a
blush color despite his more tanned complexion. Soft, middletoned pink like some of my favorite
flowers. “Your mom didn’t say anything.”
Don’t ruin the mood, I begged internally. Don’t bring her up.
 But he already had. The damage was done.
“Why would she? She never remembers. You’d think eighteen might be the one she at least
shoots a text for, but no such luck.” I shrugged, fixing my eyes on whatever movie was playing. I
didn’t actually want to stop looking at him, I never did. But I was nervous and observing how
ridiculously handsome he was didn’t help.
“Why didn’t you say anything earlier? It’s 8pm now, we could have celebrated or something,”
he complained, rubbing his temples. “I feel like an ass.”
I smiled. “Why? It’s not like you’re my dad. You're just my mom’s boyfriend, who I happen to
live with. You know, since she’s hardly home. So really, that makes me just your girlfriend’s
annoying, pestering daughter.” Self-deprecating comments weren’t rare for me.
“Don’t say that,” he chided, giving me a stern look. I shrugged, unwilling to take it back.
“Besides, you’re only annoying sometimes,” he joked, elbowing my arm playfully.
The simple touch gave me a jolt of electricity down to my fingertips. I could feel my blush
creeping up my neck, warming my face, but played it off.
“Yeah yeah, whatever. I just wanted a cake, but the bakery I like isn't open on the weekends.
I’ll have to wait until Monday.”
“What bakery?” he asked, raising a brow at me. One of those thick, sculpted eyebrows that
defined his deep and delicate eyes.
“Sheryls. Her chocolate layered cake is unmatched,” I sighed, stealing a handful of his
popcorn. It had already gone cold, but that meant the butter was absorbed inside of each piece and I
sort of enjoyed that.
He nodded absently, pulling out his phone to check a chirping noise it had made. “I have to
make a phone call, put on a movie you actually want to watch. I’ll be right back,” he said, jumping up
from his seat and disappearing into the kitchen.
I watched him leave, careful not to linger on any one of his features for too long and miss
another. I was so transfixed by him. His stature, his brown, almost green eyes, his dark hair and the
stubble on his face that dawned his sharp jawline. Not to mention his body. The body I could swear
was sculpted specifically to make women melt.
He was my mother’s boyfriend, but in my mind he was mine. She was never home, always
away on business and he was always around. I used to find it strange that he was a billionaire
business mogul and around the house more than my lawyer mother. I did not, however, complain about
that fact. His company was my favorite thing in the world. With it, I didn’t need much else.
We bickered about my clothing choices, when my music was too loud and anytime I came
home too late. Sometimes treated me a bit like a kid, and I wanted him to treat me like the woman that
I was.
No, I wanted him to treat me like his woman. I was completely and unapologetically in love
with Jasper Aroselyn. And I wanted him to know that. Soon.
“We’re watching Me Before You, bring tissues!” I called out, flipping through my digital
movie collection and putting on my favorite cry-your-heart-out film.
Just as the movie began, he came back into the living room, box of tissues and all. He was
dressed like he always was on Saturday nights. Silky black pajama pants and no shirt, his tanned skin
practically glowing in the fluorescent lights. Jasper was a perfect example of God playing favorites.
If there was a God. I wasn’t religious. I’d worship him though, anytime he asked.
The leather couch was his addition to the house when he moved in. It was comfier than the
ugly statement piece couch we’d had before. He handed me the box of tissues and I put it in the small
gap between us. I had already decided I was going to kiss him on my birthday, but I hadn’t had the
nerve to do it just yet.
“You know, watching the same movies or tv shows repeatedly constitutes an obsession,” he
teased, tossing a piece of popcorn at me.
The only thing I’m obsessed with is you, I wanted to point out.
“What else am I supposed to do? Try a movie outside of my favorites?” I scoffed, the idea
making me shiver. “What if I hate it? Then I just wasted two hours.”
He sighed, smiling and shaking his head. “We’ll make a movie buff out of you one day, Dix.
One day.”
I smiled in return, unable to help it. “Sure we will.”

Over an hour into the movie, the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” he said nonchalantly, lifting himself off of the couch and shuffling out of the room.
Who the hell is at the door at 10pm? I thought, but shrugged it off, caught up in the story on
my screen. It was just getting better and better after all.
Jasper reappeared with a big white box and a silly smile on his face. “Happy Birthday.” He
handed it to me and I gasped.
“No way!” I set it down on the coffee table so I didn’t drop it and jumped up to hug him.
“How’d you get this!? They aren't open today!”
He got me exactly what I wished for. A layered chocolate cake from Sheryls. He laughed as I
hugged him, and I let go before I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted to kiss him right there, but I couldn’t,
not yet.
“I made a few calls, kid, it was no big deal.”
Ugh, kid.
“Hey! No more calling me kid. I’m a woman, that’s rude.”
“Is that so?” he teased, laced with his flirty tone. He only ever used it once and awhile and it
never lasted long.
“Yup. Now get forks so we can eat this entire thing and cry at the sad movie.”
“Ay Ay, Captain,” he saluted, and ran off to the kitchen.

By the time the movie ended, my face was wet and the cake was half gone. While I looked
like someone threw water at me, Jasper hadn’t shed a single tear. Sociopath.
I mean come on! She falls for him and he is going to die. On purpose!
“How are you not crying!? That was gut wrenching! And I’ve seen it before!” I demanded,
laughing and wiping away my tears.
“He did the right thing. He’d never be himself again, he’d always be in pain and he’d hold her
back,” he shrugged, setting his cake plate down.
“What!? He absolutely did not do the right thing! I would be furious! I would turn the tables
on that man so fast. If he dies, we both die. Selfish bastard,” I mumble, shaking my head and taking the
last bite of cake from my plate.
“You’d kill yourself?” he asked with a baffled expression.
“If the man I loved was going to do the same? Yes.”
He flinched. “Dixie, that’s dumb. You shouldn’t waste your life for someone else. What if he
asked you to live for him?”
I huffed. “I’d tell him that’s hypocritical and cruel.”
 “He couldn’t take you dancing or swimming or bungee jumping or travel without hassle. He’d
never feel like a man, feeling disappointed every time you had sex. Not disappointed with you, but
with himself. He couldn’t do anything he wanted to do to you, it’d be awful.”
“Love is supposed to supersede all of that stuff,” I countered, sitting up to face him. “Who
cares about traveling or dancing or having great sex if you can’t see the person you love every day?”
“Have you had great sex before? Do you even understand what giving that up would mean?”
Shit, he got me there.
“I’ve had plenty of sex,” I lied, really badly too.
He crossed his arms over his chest as if he were interrogating me. “No you haven’t, you're not
good at lying, Dix. I’ve known you for almost a year and you’ve never been good at lying.”
“I’ve totally had great sex, I’m not lying, I swear,” I lied again, even worse this time.
“You’ve never had sex at all, have you?” His eyes widened as he put the pieces together.
“Shit, we shouldn’t be talking about this stuff.”
Before he could get up, I swung my legs around his lap and threw my mouth against his. It was
rushed and messy and wrong, but sue me, I’d never done it before.
His abs hardened against my body and I pulled his face closer to mine by the back of his neck.
He didn’t resist at first, his lips met mine, kissing me back with a mixture of shock and anger. When
my mouth parted, his tongue slipped inside, coaxing mine to play with his. I moaned and rolled my
hips, unable to help it.
That’s when he pulled his face away, pushing me off of him. “What the hell, Dixie?”
“Show me,” I begged, trying to get closer to him again. “Show me why it’s impossible to give
up. Blow my mind for my birthday, Jasper.” I jumped back into his lap and sunk lower, letting my
pussy settle against his growing erection. “You want to, I can feel it. Please, I want you so badly. No
guy excites me like you do,” I admitted, moving my lips to his neck.
I knew very few other guys. But I still wasn’t lying. Not a single man had ever made me want
to do the things I wanted to do with Jasper.
“Fuck,” he hissed, tipping his head back. “Dixie, I can’t cheat on your mom with you, it’s
wrong.”
“Oh please,” I giggled, grinding a bit on his cock through our pants, seeking friction. “We both
know you guys are hardly exclusive. You’re telling me neither of you fuck other people while she’s
away? I’m not stupid.”
“Christ, Dix. You shouldn’t know these things and you definitely shouldn’t be grinding on my
fucking cock right now,” he groaned without pushing me away.
My lips continued to plant kisses up and down his throat. “I’ve never even fingered myself,
you know? I’ve only ever come rubbing circles around my clit. I bet I’ll be so tight for you,” I taunted,
licking up his neck slowly. “I’ll scream for you too, I’ll do whatever you want.”
Jasper groaned, lifting me up, flipping me down on my back, and caging me in with his arms.
“Don’t say things like that, you have no idea what I want to do to you and this fucking body, Dix.”
Sweet, sweet confirmation.
Jasper thought about my body too.
“Show me,” I panted, rubbing a hand against his chest. “Just give me a safe word or
something. Then do every single filthy thing you want to do to me. I won’t stop you, I won’t even
consider saying whatever word you tell me. Defile me, sir.”
His eyes were hot with lust when he swooped down and locked his lips on mine. His kiss was
harder, destructive and fucking delicious. He tasted like whiskey and my favorite cake. His teeth
nipped at my lips and I whimpered, arching my back.
“Tell me to stop, Dixie. Now, tell me to stop now,” he panted, putting his forehead against
mine.
“Never,” I breathed, pulling off my pajama shirt and tossing it aside. “Touch me, touch me
everywhere. Show me what living is about,” I begged, trying to pull at his waistband.
“Christ, you’re so damn beautiful,” Jasper praised, grabbing each of my breasts in his hands,
squeezing them for the first time. Even through my bra, the intimate touch was wonderful.
“So are you,” I whimpered against his touch. “Take my leggings off, please Jasper.”
His fingers laced around my waistband before he stopped. “Fuck, I shouldn’t Dix. We
shouldn’t.”
I couldn’t let it end, I wanted everything he could offer. “I want to touch you, I’ve never
touched a cock, sir. Please let me touch yours… Let me put it in my mouth.”
His eyes widened and his jaw clenched. “Who the fuck taught you that ‘sir’ shit?” He wasn’t
complaining though, he was mesmerized by every stroke of my voice to his ears.
I shrugged. “Just feels right to say. Can I try? I want to do it so badly, Jasper.”
The resolve he had remained faded. “You want to learn how to suck me, baby?”
My panties nearly caught on fire when he called me that, well they would have if I were
wearing any. I nodded frantically as he pulled me up off of the couch. Getting to my knees before him,
I reached for his waistband and slowly pulled his cock free, letting his pajamas fall to his ankles. He
was quite literally throbbing and bigger than even I imagined in my dreams.
“Sit down, I want you to relax,” I encouraged, pushing his thighs. He did.
I crawled closer, staying on my knees in only my bra and leggings in front of him. My hands
glided up his thighs and wrapped around his cock. I couldn’t fit him in both of my fists, he was too
long and my fingers couldn’t even close around him. “Show me how, I want to do it so good for you.”
Jasper took my hair in his hands and used the grip to bring my face closer. He kept one of my
hands at the base of his cock and pulled the other way. He told me to kiss the tip and lick the shaft
before he finally asked me to open wide for him. He barely fit in my mouth without scraping my teeth.
“Screwed,” he said. “So fucking screwed for you, dollface.”
The thought of Jasper being ruined even a fraction as badly as he’d ruined me motivated my
every move. I sucked harder, explored him with my hands, massaging his balls softly while I worked.
He moaned more curses as I sucked him deeper. His slightly salty taste forced me to salivate
and drip all over his pelvis. Jasper’s skin was softer than my favorite silks even with as hard as he
was and I couldn’t get enough of the intoxicating combination.
I let his cock fall from my lips with a pop as my jaw started to hurt. “Can we see if it will fit
somewhere else?” Licking the wetness from my lips, I blinked at him.
“Shit, Dixie,” he groaned, carefully letting go of my hair. “Let’s go to your room. Your first
time shouldn’t be on the goddamn couch.”
I got to my feet before he could change his mind.
We stumbled into my doorway, kissing like the couples in my favorite movies always did,
except Jasper’s pants were missing. I liked that very much.
As we slipped into my bedroom, Jasper turned the lights to dim and ordered me to strip. He
instructed me to go slow, and to keep my eyes on him. I didn’t need to be told twice, especially
because he fisted his cock with every move I made. It was difficult to look away from the act. Jasper
stroked himself, circling the head and pulling down to his base tightly. I decided I was going to
remember that he liked that specific movement and store it away to use later on.
 I let my bra fall off of me like a natural, letting gravity do most of the work for me. When I
slid my leggings down each of my thighs and stepped out of them, his eyes darkened. Those eyes
scanned me, hot on my skin like a blaze.
“What’s a girl like you doing without panties on, Dixie?”
“Waiting for a man like you to notice I’m not wearing them and do something about it,” I
breathed, attempting to be brave.
“A man like me, dollface?” he asked, stalking closer. We were inches from each other, the
tension nagging at me. All I wanted was for the talking to end. I needed so much more than his words.
I needed him to savor me and allow me to do the same to him.
“No. You. Just you,” I promised honestly. It was only Jasper I saw when I played with myself.
It was him in my dreams and it always would be.
He nodded, reaching out to touch me. “Don’t move.”
That was not an easy task. Not as his warm fingers traced the shape of me, running along my
hips, stomach, ribs and then higher, just beneath my breasts.
“Beautiful,” he murmured absently, tracing my collarbones instead of going for the touch I
wanted desperately. “Every inch of you. Fucking. Perfect.”
I swallowed. “For you.”
“You sure, dollface? It’s not too late to back out. I don’t fuck like a gentleman, Dix. Even if
you're a virgin, I can’t take it easy on you,” he warned, finally pulling one of my exposed nipples
between his fingers and pinching. A moan rippled through me when his mouth clamped around my
neck. “It’s just how I do things. I fuck hard, and I don’t cuddle afterward. Do you understand?”
His lips pecked at the sensitive skin underneath my ear.
I sucked in a gasp. “Stop warning me, please. I’m nervous because you’re you and I’m me. I–
I’m not good at being sexy, and you might as well be a professional at it. But I want you to fuck me
harder than you’ve ever fucked anyone. Don’t hold back because you think I need it. Make me cry
when I come. Please, pretty please, sir–”
My begging was cut off by his mouth slamming into mine so hard I thought my lips would
bleed. He picked me up by my ass and wrapped my legs around his waist, locking them into place.
“Fucking pretty please. Jesus.” The feeling of our bare skin wrapped together made my head
tip back. “I can feel you dripping on me, Dixie,” he groaned, moving his mouth back to my throat and
sucking hard enough to make me squirm.
“Do something about it then,” I whimpered, tipping my head back further as he nipped harder
at my neck.
“Was going to taste you first,” he mumbled. “Was going to make you orgasm all over my
tongue. Repeatedly. Going to have to save it for next time because I think what the birthday girl really
wants is to break herself in on my cock. Hm?”
I shook with chills. He said next time. He wanted me again too. “Yes! Oh my God, please!”
“I don’t have a condom,” he warned. “I’m clean but if you want to stop, we can.”
“I trust you,” I vowed breathlessly. I didn’t want the barrier there as it was.
He grinned wide. “This is going to hurt, baby. Say Aphrodite if you want me to stop. No other
word will work. Not stop, not please and definitely not no. Do you understand?” He lined his cock up
between my center and paused, waiting for my answer.
“Yes.”
No pause, no slow slip in, no gentleness, no manners, Jasper shoved himself all the way
inside of me. I cried out and wrapped my arms around his neck as tight as I could. The searing pain in
my pussy was almost unbearable, but the source of the pain was Jasper. And I wanted him more than I
wanted anything else.
His chest rubbed tightly against mine, stimulating my sensitive nipples. Each breath he took
brushed against my neck and the sound of his groaning kept me wanting more.
“Hurts,” I shivered honestly.
Jasper stilled, an unfamiliar look of compassion taking over his face. “Do you want to stop?”
“No,” I whined, biting my lip. “Don’t ever stop.”
His thrusts started again, deep but unhurried.
“Christ, you’re squeezing me like a goddamn cobra, dollface.”
Worry and confusion hit. “I’m sorry, am I doing something wrong?” I asked, trying to relax and
loosen up around him.
“No! It’s fucking perfect,” he growled, backing us up and setting me down on the bed. Jasper
placed a hand on my hip, settling the other on my breast and squeezing both points with equally
delicious pressure. My legs stayed wrapped around him, keeping his body as close as possible to
mine. The searing sting of him ripping into me slowly subsided every time he fucked me deeper until I
felt pure bliss.
He shifted to put his arms on the bed, leaning down to press a kiss onto my lips. Jasper kissed
the center of my chest too, then latched around the peak of my tits, rotating between the two. His
pelvis grazed my clit at this new angle, sending me tumbling toward the edge of something big
building inside of me.
“I think… I think I’m going to–” I tried to speak, but I couldn’t form the full sentence. All I
could do was moan and grip on to his forearm that caged me under him. My nails dug into his skin
while I choked back a scream.
“I know you are, baby, do it. Come all over my dick and make a fucking mess of yourself.
That’s what good little fuck toys do,” he insisted, taking one of his hands down my stomach and
pinching my clit. The pressure was so hard that my hips jerked and I let out that scream. “That’s right,
scream louder. Scream my name and come all over me, Dixie.”
His vulgar words made my stomach do a flip and electric pulses spun through my whole body.
My clit throbbed in his fingers while his cock swelled even bigger as I lost control. “Jasper!” I
rasped, squirming under him as the orgasm rippled through me. “You’re so- ah!”
A few more vicious thrusts sent him spiraling, he pulled his cock out of me and plastered my
stomach with his cum. He looked ravenous as I slipped a finger through the mess he made on me and
brought it to my lips. I sucked it into my mouth, watching his nostrils flare while I tasted his cum. My
lips wrapped tighter around my finger as I sucked every bit of semen off it, swallowing down my first
piece of Jasper Aroselyn.
“You’re a filthy little thing, aren’t you?” He cocked his head at me and smirked.
“I’m whatever you want me to be.”
I grinned up at him, smiling through the post orgasm glow. He sighed, taking my hands into his.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, you’re bleeding, baby.”
“I am?”
I definitely was. It wasn’t horrible, but little pink stains were running down my thighs as he
started the shower for us. My legs wobbled a bit, but he steadied me and cleaned up my body. Jasper
washed me like he was worshiping me, slowly and carefully.
When we finished, I was so exhausted I could barely move back to bed. I’d never come so
hard, and I thought maybe not ever at all if that was what it was supposed to feel like. He tucked me
in after he put me in a night dress and a pair of panties. He even put a towel under me, to save my
sheets from any remaining blood, and then he left me to fall asleep.
But I didn’t wake up alone.
Turned out, Jasper didn’t cuddle after sex. With anyone other than me.
 Chapter 3: My Flower Girl
"I am in awe of flowers. Not because of their colors,
but because even though they have dirt in their roots,
they still grow. They still bloom."
— D. Antoinette Foy

Jasper
3 years and 9 months ago…

A lot of things made me into the person that I was. I was cold for much of my life. Empty and
content with the reality of my emptiness. There was no real motivation in my life aside from success.
I liked the feeling of conquering a business deal or seeing the numbers of an investment rise
overnight. I liked the feeling of getting a woman into bed more than the actual act of fucking her in it.
Challenges kept my mind occupied.
When I met Gio Colombo years ago, I was already a billionaire.
He was the only person that ever made me feel as if I were good. More than just a twenty-six-
year-old shark in a boardroom. It was for a pretty simple reason too. If I was cold, he was colder. If I
was dark, he was darker.
Gio was one of the few heirs to an organization of mercenaries. The Vitale Mafia. He’d killed
more men than I’d graduated Harvard Business School with. And he wanted to buy my building. I
wasn’t selling it. At least, I wasn’t until we met in person. The charming Italian man convinced me to
sell in a matter of 48 hours.
He was the kind of man that made other men feel insecure with a simple glance. But I didn’t
feel insecure with my new friend. We hit it off and he became the reason that I could like myself.
Friendship wasn’t something I had experience with, and his friends consisted of family, mercenaries
and Luca and Lorenzo, whom he considered family. So, we became each other’s balance.
If he was looking for some light to his dark, he came to Belle City. If I needed an edge to my
Heaven, he took me to his Hell.
 He was the first person that I told about Dixie. Mostly because it freaked me the fuck out. I’d
never wanted a woman for more than a night. Ever. Fuck, most of the time I didn’t even want them for
the hour it took me to finish with them.
I had a traumatic past with sex, so I avoided it on and off. It’s why the arrangement with Anne,
Dixie’s mom, worked so well. Publicly, we were a power couple. Successful bitch lawyer and
overly successful dickhead business mogul. Thing was, the relationship was faker than her tits and as
inflated as her ego. We kissed and held hands in front of onlooking eyes but once the eyes closed and
the cameras cut-off, I couldn’t get away from her fast enough.
She wanted more of course. Women like Anne always did. But it was easy to appease her by
throwing even younger, actually interested parties her way. We lived together to make the relationship
seem more legitimately serious, but I couldn’t pout about it. Anne hardly made time to stay in Belle
City, constantly traveling for work. This allowed her to fulfill her lust elsewhere.
Besides, living with Anne meant living with Dixie. And I liked that.
I wasn’t a blind man. Even when I met her at seventeen it was difficult to ignore how stunning
she was. I refused to do anything about the little looks she would give me. Legally, it would have
been a-okay, morally I wasn't sure. The girl was sheltered as hell. Home-schooled with private tutors,
not a single girl-friend outside of her online gardening club or her elderly neighbor Pauline who she
sewed with on Sundays. She had a gift for growing things and spent most of her time doing just that.
I had no idea if she had secret friends, maybe a secret boyfriend but I wouldn’t have blamed
her if she did. Anne kept her locked away from the world because of her condition. Endometriosis.
Admittedly, I didn’t know much about it, only that it wasn’t hereditary but seemed to run in some
families, meaning it carries some hereditary factors. Anne bitched about it constantly. It made it
impossible to have biological children, or at least, it did in a lot of cases. Anne was one of the lucky
ones, able to conceive with a semi low-risk pregnancy. Dixie wasn’t given the same gift.
From what I knew, she had a hysterectomy at fifteen to help with her symptoms. This pissed Anne off
the most, because of course the absentee mother needed grandchildren. Not because her daughter
needed an extremely taxing surgery at a young age, or that she’d had her decision to get pregnant one
day taken from her, but that she couldn’t be a factory for grandchildren for her.
I felt guilty for even knowing so much about it, because that was something Dixie should get to
tell people, not her mother. And I liked Dixie.
Not because she was beautiful and flirtatious. Because she was funny, easy to talk to and
smart. She was determined, proud of what she liked and could make anyone laugh. She could devour
a three-layer cake by herself as long as it was chocolate and cried like a baby during almost every
movie she watched. She had a personality. An identity. I envied her for it.
We became close over that year. Eating every dinner together, watching movies on the
weekends, playing board games and just existing in the same space.
I’d never planned to bring her into my world. I wanted her to find someone who could give
her everything she needed. And I knew I didn’t have the ability to.
I swore it couldn’t be different, until it was.
Until I’d cleaned her up, tucked her cute sleepy face into bed, and slipped out of her room to
freak out. I called Gio, recounting probably too many details.
“Jasper, bud, are you done overthinking now?” he sighed, chuckling at me from thousands of
miles away.
I grimaced. “What am I supposed to do? I want to go back there and hold her. What the fuck is
wrong with me?”
 “I think you mean, what the fuck is right with you.”
“This is not funny.”
“No, it’s hilarious actually.”
“I’m going to hang up on you.”
“Good. Go cuddle your little pretty redhead. Eighteenth Birthday present. You let an
eighteen-year-old flower lover seduce you like a sucker. Let me know when the wedding is. I’m
expecting the best man position, you know?”
“Sometimes I hate you,” I grumbled.
His rough laugh echoed through my speaker. “I’m just fucking with you. Age is but a number,
man. It’s just 14 years. Who’s to say that it’s wrong?”
“I don’t care what people think. I care that she deserves more.”
“And that’s exactly why you are right for her. A man who knows the woman he wants is
deserving of everything the world can give her, that’s the kind of man who tries like fuck to provide
every want, need and desire. That’s being worthy.”
“When did you get wise regarding relationships?”
He chuckled. Gio had never been in a relationship before and he was only six years younger
than me. “Lorenzo’s papa is a husband first and a man second. We all are when we meet the right
woman. You’ll see. Now go wrap your arms around her and stay put until the sun rises.”
“I’ll try.”
“It won’t be hard,” he promised.
And it wasn’t.

Looking at my beautiful red-headed Dixie, I was lost in the memories of the last three months
and the blueness of her eyes. I couldn’t believe I’d ever been with anyone besides her. If I’d known
that I had to wait until I was 32 to meet her, I would have. I would have waited so that she could be
the only woman I ever touched. She was already the only one who meant more than getting off. Dixie
was everything and it only took a night with her body pressed against mine, surrounded by the soft
sounds of her breath as she slept to prove it. She made my heart beat harder and my dick solid at the
mere sight of her gorgeous face. Oh and that laugh. Her giggle sent shivers down my spine, every
single time.
I hadn’t been so horny since college, when I preferred taking care of the problem on my own.
Masturbation became a thing of the past quickly with her around. She was a needy little thing, always
tempting me to get my mouth on her, not that I was complaining.
She was naughty too, considering when I offered to break things off with her mother the first
morning she bit her lip and said it was ‘kind of hot’ sneaking around. Of course, I’d already explained
that I hadn’t and wouldn’t be touching Anne either way.
And I had to agree. It was definitely arousing, sneaking around with her, playing house and
hiding away from reality for a bit.
“I’m leaving your mother,” I finally said it out-loud. I finally let her hear the words I’d been
dying to say. “These last few months have been beyond belief, but I want you to myself now. No more
hiding, dollface. I need you to come with me. I bought an estate nearby, you can finish your classes
online there. Come with me, Dixie.”
As nervous as I was, I was surprised to see her eyes glitter with tears. I was about to
apologize for pressuring her after only three months of being together. I thought I may have
overstepped, but I didn’t. The smile that followed the tears gave me her answer before she even
spoke.
“Oh yes! Of course I’ll come with you!” she squeaked, jumping into my arms. “I told you, I’d
go anywhere with you! Take me away, let’s go right now.”
And so we did.
I left the arrangement with her terrible excuse for a mother via email and took my Dixie away
with me. I moved her and myself an hour away, into a secluded estate with a garden she could make
her own. A garden with a fountain of Aphrodite to marvel at. A garden I planned to propose to her in
one day.
Anne still believed her daughter had simply moved in with a friend to finish high school with
a support system. Dixie didn’t want to deal with her mother’s rage until she graduated and felt truly
free. I understood, but I wanted to scream it from the damn Belle City Towers that she was mine. I
wanted to paint it on her skin every day before she left the house. I wanted to be her everything, and I
planned to be.
She beamed, smiling at me from across our dining table. “Everything here is so perfect!”
She’d told me a few hundred times already, each time more sunny than the last.
We had all of her things moved in, and mine as well. We spent the day together, running
around the house, plotting out our new lives and plans for each room. Our closet was decidedly, not
full enough. I made plans to take her shopping for more things. All of the things. More clothes,
jewelry, products for her hair, whatever she wanted.

Dixie spent a few hours babbling about the garden on and off, throwing ideas at me and
smiling each time I liked one. And then we made dinner together, something I found I liked a whole
lot. I grilled our steaks while she made potatoes and green beans to pair with it. She didn’t stop
smiling the entire time and neither did I.
“I can’t wait to see what you do with the garden, it’ll be good practice,” I told her, setting
down my silverware. Her dreams were simple and beautiful and I could more than afford to fund
them, so I was going to. I was going to give her the perfect world if it killed me.
“You really meant it, then? You’ll help me open a flower shop?” she asked, holding her heart
with her pale pink manicured fingers interlocking.
“Baby, I’m already looking for locations. You’ll have the flower shop as soon as you
graduate, unless you’d like time off before of course,” I assured her, sipping on my glass of wine.
Dixie promptly dropped her fork onto her plate and crawled underneath the table with a devilish grin
on her face. “What do you think you're doing, you wicked little minx?” I chuckled, looking down at
her as she came to her knees beneath me.
“I’m thanking you,” she whispered, reaching for my belt.
“You know you don’t have to thank me that way, Dix,” I reminded her as she stripped off my
belt and pulled down my zipper.
“I know, but I like it. I want you to fuck my throat like you like so much. I like when you run
your fingers through my tears and smear my mascara all over my face.” She was a freak, my girl. She
loved the rough stuff, and she was so damn good at taking it from me.
“Then get to work sucking my cock, dollface.” I winked down at her and tipped my chin,
waiting for the show to begin. The way she pulled my cock out and immediately slipped it into her
mouth could only be described as immaculate. My blood rushed to it quickly, hardening it between
her lips. Her soft wet little tongue worked perfectly on me, torturing me with licks, twirls, and sucks.
“Fuck me, your mouth is downright sinful.”
 “I’m thirsty,” she pouted, licking up the length of my shaft. “And I don’t mean for wine, come
in my mouth so I can drink you, sir.”
I ground my teeth down, relaxing into the touch, fighting the usual desire to last longer. My
fingers threaded into her soft hair, holding her in place. I wanted to savor her mouth, but I also wanted
to give her everything she asked for. I was hers way more than she was mine. Dixie owned my heart
and soul. I let myself fall into the pleasure she was giving me. Pure ecstasy hit me like a truck as I
came into her mouth. She drank me down like the greedy little doll she was and smiled up at me
happily.
I pulled her to her feet, slanting my mouth down over her swollen lips. The pink floral
sundress she wore suffered at the hands of my impatience. I ripped it down the center to get my mouth
on her taut nipples.
She gasped, but pushed into the touch.
“If I put my hand up what remains of this dress, how wet are your panties going to be for me,
dollface?”
Her cheeks flushed bright red. “I’m not wearing any.”
My hands found her ribs, lifting her up to sit on the table. “Feet on the edge, spread those legs
for me. And hold your knees to stay sitting up. I want to see your face when I make you come all over
my tongue, Dix.”
She scrambled to obey, doing exactly like I asked, her legs spread for me, pushing the fabric
of her dress to her waist. Tits out, glistening pussy exposed, face flushed, she presented herself to me,
looking absolutely mouth-watering.
One swipe of my tongue through her soaking wet pussy had her mouth falling open and her
fingers tightening around her knees.
“I fucking love dessert,” I groaned before continuing.
“Ah!” she cried. “M–more.”
Whatever you want, I thought, filling her with two fingers.
Pressing them deeper, I curled them up to nearly pull them out. Repeating the motion while
flicking her clit with my tongue, I had her moaning louder and louder.
“That’s it dollface. You’re taking it so well. You gonna come for me?” I asked, teasing her
with my teeth before sucking her clit between my lips carefully.
“Jasper, yes! Oh, yes,” she gasped, leaning into my face.
Her pussy pulsed around my fingers, squeezing the fuck out of them. She flooded my hand with
her release, her eyes rolling and toes curling.
When the wave calmed, she sighed happily, fisting my shirt to pull me into a kiss.
“Best. Move in day. Ever.”
“I think we can make it even better,” I mused, kissing each of her cheeks.
“Yeah? How’s that?”
I smirked, pulling her into my arms. “We can go break in our new room.”
And we did.
 9 Months Later,
Lilith’s Lair, Italy.

It’s brutal how time can so effortlessly murder a memory.

The private club bathed in neon blue hues of light surrounded me. The familiar warmth I used
to experience in the building didn’t wash over me anymore. I was cold, and uncomfortable as each
modern style burlesque waitress floated by, giving me flirtatious smiles.
“Haven’t seen you in awhile, my friend,” Gio said, gently squeezing my shoulder into his hand
and taking the seat next to mine.
He’d been in the back, probably finishing up a poker game while I waited. I didn’t mind. I
showed up on short-notice after all. Can’t exactly plan the sort of visit I was experiencing.
Throwing back my most recent shot, grimacing at the burn, I attempted to smile at my old
friend. He hadn’t changed one bit since I’d seen him last and it had been over a year. He was a tall
fucker, wide too. Given his profession, it was fitting. His dark features were similar to mine, maybe a
bit sharper. He’d always had an edge to him that I lacked. He was dangerous and I was just… me.
“I take it that this surprise visit isn’t a social call without a cause, given the five shots of
whisky and that long face you’re sporting,” he prompted, sipping on a glass of red wine. We both
usually preferred lighter alcohol but I wasn’t feeling much like myself as it was.
He might have assumed I needed a favor or hell, to hire him for an official job. But really, he
was my only friend, and that’s exactly why I needed him.
“She left me,” I muttered, clenching my hands into fists tightly.
He frowned. “Dix? But…”
Shaking my head, I tossed back more burning liquor fighting the ache. “We were fine. Perfect
even. She was thriving and smiling every day. Then I come home to her packing her bags, telling me
she never loved me and never wants to see me again.”
The memory is all too thick, being three days old.
He rears his head back in shock. “Dixie said that? What the fuck?”
Confusion took him, his brain trying to make sense of this.
Me too buddy, me fucking too.
“She didn’t mean it,” I swore hastily. “I know when she’s lying. I just don’t understand why or
fuck, how she could leave me like that. She wasn’t using me for money, she didn’t take anything that
wasn’t hers when she left. Even gifts she left behind. Her car, her new phone, her jewelry, everything
is still with me. She hasn’t said a damn thing and the men I have watching her say she hasn’t stopped
crying in her apartment.”
Gio frowned. “Have you tried to talk to her?”
I groaned. “Of fucking course I have. She won’t answer her door, or emails or anything. I send
her flowers and she won’t look at them, just brings them inside when the delivery man leaves and sets
them on her counter. She’s not even taking care of them, man. Flowers. Dixie.”
“Jesus,” he cursed. “What are you going to do?”
The million dollar question that no one knew the answer to. Let alone me.
“I want to kidnap her and force her to tell me what the hell she thinks she’s doing. I want her
to be honest and come home. Gio, she could burn down a city-block full of innocent people and I
wouldn’t be able to turn her away. She’s mine.”
“But you’re not going to,” he mused, taking another sip. “Why not?”
His question was casual for him, easy to ask because Gio was a man who would do exactly
what I just said and more.
Running my hands down my stubbly face, I fought back tears. “She’s nineteen, Gio. What if
she’s confused or hurting and I only make it worse? What if she’s hiding something that I can’t help
her with? What if… what if she resents me for not letting her go? I’m thirty-three for fucks sake.
Maybe love isn’t enough for her, maybe I’m not enough for her.”
He considered this and shook his head. “I’ve only met her once, and from what I can tell,
she’s far from malicious. I don’t think she could have faked that look she gave you. So, I agree that
she lied about never loving you. But what I don’t understand is what would possess her to leave and
lie about it. Could someone be making her do this?”
The thought had crossed my mind. “No one had talked to her outside of the staff that week and
I checked her phone records. Everything is clean and nothing makes sense. I feel like I’m goddamn
dying.”
It’s silent for a moment. The blue hues of the neon laced room looked exactly how I felt,
fucking sad. “I need to give her time. I know I do, but I can’t shake the feeling that she’ll move on and
I never will. I don’t want anyone else. Ever.”
My friend grabbed my forearm, squeezing reassuringly. “You’ll do the right thing, you always
have. It’s what makes us such a complimentary pair. My Hell mends with your Heaven. Look, give her
space without letting go. Wait her out. If it takes months it takes months. Hell, if it takes years, you
wait. Dixie is it for you, so don’t give up on her. I’ll look into her communications from this last year
and let you know if I find anything suspicious. We’ll keep in touch and go from there. You don’t want
to be the bad guy, not for her. Fuck, maybe a part of her wishes you’d come and wisk her away. But if
there is even a chance that she wouldn’t want that, you can’t and I know you won't.”
The advice wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted him to make me go get my girl. But it was the
advice that I needed. I couldn’t risk even a chance of hurting her and losing her forever. I’d give her
years if that’s what it took.
I would wait.
She would be mine again. Time be damned.
Because fuck time. It can’t murder her memory. Not my Dixie.
 Chapter 4: A Lie’s Opposition
“A flower earns its honor in the dirt.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo

Dixie
Present

“I don’t know how to say it all, Jas,” I tell him quietly, rubbing my temples to soothe the
headache that crying earned me. “I know you’re going to be so mad and I just can’t make it seem
justified unless you listen to it all. You can’t interrupt me or it will seem worse. Can you do that for
me?”
Really I’m not sure that even the whole story will make him less angry, but I’m hoping that
he’ll understand me. He was always the person I could count on to comprehend my feelings.
He sucks in a breath. “Tell me everything. I won’t interrupt.”
The desire to fling myself out of the car into oncoming traffic is alarmingly potent. Saying the
words I haven’t allowed myself to divulge to anyone in three years is almost too overwhelming. So, I
avoid looking at him as I finally push down the coward inside of me to let the words escape my lips.
“That day, the day that you came home, and I told you that I didn’t love you, I was lying. That
much you know is true, or at least, I really hope you do. I’ve always loved you, Jasper. I loved you
before my birthday when I came on to you. I loved you before you and I had an actual conversation. I
just– you were always mine. But…” I sniffle, trying to find the words.
“My mother wasn’t ever going to let us be happy. She was relentless in her verbal attacks
which we both handled. We knew she wouldn’t understand. But even when we’d thought we cut off
contact with her, it was incessant. One day, she found my old journal. Basically, I wrote about you in
it, before I was eighteen. Just silly stuff about how much I wanted you. I thought it was innocent,
really, but I shouldn’t have done it.”
I glance at him quickly. Jasper’s hands have tightened around the steering wheel. He continues
to hold it tightly as he switches lanes. Shifting my sight back to my fingers, I pick up where I left off.
“She made copies of it, and had these stalker–like photos of me smiling at you as if I were a
love sick idiot since the day we met. She said she would release everything to the public and try to
have you arrested for grooming a minor. She swore even if the charges didn’t stick, your reputation
and business would be ruined. The worst part wasn’t that someone might believe her, it was how she
made me feel about being in love with you. Like it was fake and wrong even though I knew it wasn’t.
I thought maybe you would feel like I seduced you for some game or something. I don’t know…”
She didn’t stop there, though. “She said no man would ever give up his Public imagine to
fuck some useless teenager when they could have any young woman they wanted. She said… she told
me that I should tell you I never loved you, that it was a stupid crush and I realized I wanted someone
my own age. She grabbed me and got in my face to promise me that a man like Jasper Aroselyn
would never settle down without his own kids. I couldn't give them to you, so I was hurting you by
being with you.”
He grunts under his breath like he’s angry, but still doesn’t interject.
“I swear I thought about telling you. I promise I considered letting you handle it, and I know
now that you probably could have. I know that now, but what she said about me being infertile, it hurt
so bad. I was trying to protect you but also save you from a life without a family. I was so selfish, I
know. I should have given you a choice in the matter.”
And I should have, because even if he didn’t choose me, he wouldn’t have been left with so
many questions and so little closure.
“Still, I thought I was being more selfish holding on to you. I stopped planting flowers and
gave up on the stupid shop dream of mine because I couldn’t allow myself joy. I studied fucking
journalism at a University I didn’t care about, stalked you like a maniac on drugs and cried daily
thinking about answering your calls. Then, you stopped calling. You stopped sending flowers to me
and I knew you must have moved on. I moved apartments, took a job with Claire and planned to live
like the shell I am. Until she told me it was you I’d be interviewing. The engagement and the baby… I
just can't believe I’m even telling you the truth now. You’re better off hating me and being with her.
It’s easier–”
“Stop talking,” Jasper spits, pulling off the side of the road into a random abandoned parking
lot.
“Jasper, we shouldn’t–”
His hands grip around my cheeks tightly and he pulls my line of sight into his.
“Fuck that. You think I’m better off without you? Have you learned nothing from the year we
spent together, Dixie? I’m yours. Always yours. For God's sake, marrying Lilian is an arranged thing
for publicity and business. Yes, I slept with her, and yes she says the baby is mine but I don’t think it
is. I wore a condom and it was one stupid depressed fuck that I can barely remember because I
needed to be trashed to even look at another woman naked. You should have told me everything,
dollface. I could have handled your mother so quickly. You really have no idea how far my reach
goes, do you?”
“But–” I frown. “She would have ruined us. She would have made it shameful. I didn’t want
you to go through that, even for me.”
“Nothing could ruin us, dollface. Do you hear me? Nothing,” he declares, pulling my face
closer to his. He wears the same woodsy smelling cologne and it’s melting together with the scent of
rain, stunning my senses, overwhelming me even further. “Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you and I
won’t.”
“Jasper, I–” I shake my head and try to think of an excuse, but I fucking can’t. “I can’t say
that.”
His lips quirk slightly at my admission. “I’m vowing to you, right this second, that you’re
mine. I will handle every single thing that you're concerned about, and you’ll come back home. I’ll
forgive you. Even though it hurts so fucking bad that you left. I’ll scream from every rooftop that
you’re mine. Baby or no baby. The wedding is fucking canceled and you’ll agree. If you don’t, I can’t
promise that I won’t take you against your will this time. Because there’s things you don’t know about
me, Dixie. Dark things that mean I’m willing to steal you away like I should have three years ago. Say
yes, don’t say yes, it doesn’t really matter because you’re all mine, dollface. Mine to love, mine to
cherish, mine to fuck for hours like a dying man, mine to ruin, and mine to keep.”
My gasp doesn’t stop him from slamming his lips into mine. A crushing weight of desire hits
me and I scramble to unclasp my seatbelt, searching for more of him. His lips taste like scotch and
nightmares against mine; terrifying and smooth. Jasper’s tongue dominates my mouth like it used to
and my body twitches. Holy fucking, swoon.
We’ve been kissing for seconds, or fuck, maybe minutes. Time doesn’t work properly in the
place Jasper sends my mind to. The need for him grows into an ache between my thighs as we start
panting. The air is thick and the windows are fogging as he helps me across the center-console and
into his lap. My legs fall on either side of him. As I sit deeper to straddle him, he palms my ass in my
dress, pulling our bodies together.
“Fuck me, please. I swear I nearly orgasmed listening to you talk like that,” I exclaim, rushing
to touch him underneath his shirt without letting our kiss end. “I need your cock in me, sir. Please.” I
break a few buttons to get my hand inside, planting it against his thundering heart.
I don’t know how he does it, but he unhooks his belt, pulls his cock free of his pants, pushes
my panties to the side in one swift motion and stabs me with his cock like a sword searing into my
cunt.
Immediately I cry out, tossing my head back. It hurts, just like the first time.
“That’s right, my needy little thing, take it.”
It’s all too much. Every kiss, every touch, every breath forces me to turn into a whining mess
before him. “Holy. Fucking. Shit,” I scream, orgasming seconds after he’s entered me. My body
doesn’t stop though. My hips buck, begging for more of him while ignoring the punishing stretch,
basking in the pleasure instead.
“My crazy dollface,” he murmurs, nipping at my neck. “Fucking desperate for it, huh? Like
always?”
“Yes!”
We rock together, struggling in the confined space, my elbow throbbing in pain every time I hit
it on the window. He used to fill me up like this daily, and after years without being fucked, the
sensation of being stuffed full is equal parts pain and regret. Jasper paws at me, grasping my ass
tighter in his hands for leverage.
I’m out of breath and somehow never felt better.
“My– fuck, Jasper.”
“My fucking pussy. Did she miss me?”
You have no idea. “God yes. Your cock belongs in me. I haven’t let myself put anything else
inside of me for three years. This whole time, Jasper. I promise. I needed you, just you.”
 He moans and bites my tit through my dress, making me squeal. “You’re going to take my cock
for hours, Dixie. There are 26,280 hours in three years, and you’re going to make up for every single
fucking one of them.”
“Yes, yes, yes!”
“Good girl. Keep riding me, and make yourself come again, you Goddess.”
“Jasper!” I hiss in agreement eagerly.
He shifts to grab my hips. His fingers dip into my skin hard enough to make me bruise, forcing
me down onto his cock harder with each movement. Every moan comes out of me like a yelp.
“You hear how wet you are? No one gets you this wet, only me. You’ll never come for your
hand again, only this cock and my tongue, you understand me?” Another orgasm piledrives through me
like a hurricane and I scream out, grabbing at his chest with my nails and nodding frantically. “The
interview will be retracted, you’ll quit your senseless job, and you’ll rebuild our garden before I give
you the keys to the shop on 5th street. I’ve been paying rent on an empty building for three years and
it’s in need of some fucking flowers, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, yes. I’m so, so, sorry,” I vow, pushing my lips into his again.
“I’m sorry too,” he swears, continuing to fuck me roughly. “I shouldn’t have let you leave. I
should have chained you to the damn fountain and never allowed you to walk out on me. I couldn’t
stand the thought of you hating me, but I still dreamt of trapping you until you admitted you loved me.
Every. Single. Night.” His breathing is ragged as he pumps inside of me faster, punishing me. “Now?
Now I don’t give a fuck if you hate me or not. You’re coming with me, and you’re never going to
escape. Try and run away again, try and lie to my face again, see what happens, dollface.”
“Never again,” I swear.
Jasper comes to his end, shooting his cum deep into me. The familiar throb of him filling me
with his release has me slumping into his chest, gasping for air as the car stops rocking beneath us.
The heat of his lips against my forehead hits softly.
“I’m going to make you pay for denying us this, baby. I hope you’re ready.”
“I’m ready. Punish me, ruin me, and make me regret it even more than I already do. Rip my
heart out, feast on my sorrow and then put me back together again, Jasper. I deserve it. I deserve your
wrath and your hate. Make me sorry in ways the souls in hell can’t even fathom.”
“Welcome to purgatory, dollface. We’ll see if you can make it out alive.”
 Chapter 5: And the Axis Tips
“The flower said to the sun,
"You can't live without Me.”
― Bert McCoy
Jasper

I have my Dixie back, and she’s never going to leave me again. Never.
I don’t even bother explaining myself as I turn the car around and head back to the estate.
Lilian doesn’t live there, the gala is over and she knows to make herself scarce unless I grant her
permission otherwise. The wedding was a stupid gesture of goodwill between businessmen. Her
father thought we’d be a good match, but we both know I don’t need him or his connections. I run
Belle City behind the scenes and fuck if I’m letting anything keep me away from my Dixie girl any
longer.
I should have trusted my gut. I should have kidnapped her in the dark of night and trapped her
inside the safety of my reach. I hate myself for believing even for a second that she didn’t want that
too. I knew my girl. She’s crazy and there isn’t anything she wouldn’t do for my love. She tried to
protect me and I should have seen that.
“Why didn’t you sell the building on 5th street?” she asks in a soft, breathless tone.
“I guess I always knew I could never let you go completely,” I admit, looking over at her
adjusting her dusty orange hair that I’m addicted to. “I couldn’t keep the garden alive. I have no
fucking idea how to do what you do with plants. And I couldn’t bear to see anyone else working out
there to keep it intact. But I could keep the building, so I did.”
“I don’t deserve it.” She frowns, looking away from me and out her window.
“Doesn’t matter,” I counter, speeding up because I need her in my bed, now. “I say it’s yours,
so it is. That’s how this works until I’ve decided you’ve paid for your sins.”
“Yes sir,” she agrees with a faint smile. “I missed you, Jasper,” she whispers, placing her
hand on my thigh.
 “I missed you too, dollface.”

The cars that once filled the estate’s grounds are gone as I pull into the garage. I’m extremely
tempted to bend my little minx over the hood of the Audi we’re in and make her scream until she
passes out, but I need to handle logistics first. As we both get out, I examine the poor state of her
dress and sigh.
I could tell she didn’t really care for it to begin with. The simple blue cocktail dress, while in
one of her favorite colors, was not her style. Still, I didn’t like the fact that it was covered in mud
because of the pain she felt. Because of me.
“Go shower, put on one of my shirts, and get something to eat. Pam is still the live-in chef, I’m
sure she’ll be happy to see you. I have a few phone calls to make.”
Pam will probably faint and then dote on her. We hired her a couple of weeks after moving in
together. We enjoyed cooking but most nights it was nice to have the help. Pam was Dixie’s
immediate choice, and I had to agree with her. The thirty-year old single mom was a great fit. I
couldn’t let her go when Dixie left. So we mourned the loss together. She’s a good friend, even if she
only interacts with me as her boss.
“Okay.” She nods and follows my lead before parting into our bedroom. Because that’s what
it is again, ours.
Now it’s time to handle business.

The first step is obvious. Ending things with Lilian. The relief I feel while texting her is
immense, like a huge weight being lifted off of my shoulders. The whole thing was becoming more
stressful than it was supposed to be. I was positive the pregnancy couldn’t be a result of me, but I
wasn’t a monster. If it was my kid, I could be a good father without loving her. I would take care of
my baby, no matter the circumstance.

Jasper: Change of plans, wedding is off. Pending a paternity test, we’ll figure out the baby's
situation.

She reads, types and replies in a matter of seconds.

Lilian: What?
Lilian: Why?
Jasper: It’ll be announced soon.
Jasper: When the baby is born, if you continue to insist it’s mine, a private doctor will
perform the blood test to confirm.
Lilian: I thought you were starting to like me…
Jasper: I don’t not like you.
Lilian: The baby is yours.
Jasper: And I have no problem being its father, if it is mine. We’ll see when the time comes.
As of now, we will not be involved with each other. Contact an assistant if you need to speak with
me. Goodnight.

As I finish up, I press dial on a number I never wished to call again. The recipient answers
immediately. Her voice is just as unpleasant as it used to be.
 “Jasper?”
“Anne,” I reply coldly.
“Is something wrong? It’s been a long time.”
“Yes it has. Four years since I left you, and three years since you blackmailed your daughter
into leaving me.”
She doesn’t speak for a moment; a dead giveaway of guilt.
“You’ve seen Dixie then?”
I want to throttle her.
“Good for you Anne, understanding who you can and can’t manipulate with lies.”
She huffs. “Did I really lie though? You left me for my daughter, it’s not exactly reaching to
assume you primed her to be yours one day, Jasper.”
Delusional bitch.
“I met her less than a year before she turned eighteen, in a state where the age of consent is
seventeen. I never once touched her before she was eighteen and asked me to. You’re well-aware of
that fact, but you're jealous of your own daughter and you always have been. The fact that you had the
nerve to use her condition against her to get her to leave me shows just how unworthy of happiness
you truly are. Dixie is mine again, and she will never leave me. If you even consider trying to smear
her name or mine, you’ll be in for a world of surprise when you realize I have far more of your dirty
little secrets wrapped up than you can imagine. Understood?”
Her breath catches. “She came back to you?”
Yeah, she did. She’s not getting away again either.
“Yes, Anne. Love doesn’t die out because you try and force it to. Fate brought her back to me,
and I’ll die to keep her here, got it? I’ll also kill to keep you the fuck away, so bear that in mind, hm?”
I hang up, not bothering to wait for her understanding. I hope she tries to go to the press. I
hope she gives me an excuse to destroy her like she did me. Giving her name to Gio on a little black
card would be simply too satisfying to pass up. Maybe it’s just because he’s on my mind, but if I’m
being honest, it’s probably because the idea of Anne disappearing off the face of the planet is
goddamn beautiful.
The next call is an obvious one. He picks up on the second ring, always available despite his
schedule.
“Jasper. How’s it going?” Gio’s rough voice is unmistakable and funnily comforting.
“I got her back.”
His smile is practically vocal. “She’s in so much trouble. Isn’t she?”
I can’t help the grin that takes over my face. “Yes and no,” I admit. “She thought she was
protecting me.”
“Doesn’t she know that’s my job?” he jokes. “From what?”
I explain the diary and her mother’s threats and he hums in understanding. “I would be more
pissed at her for not thinking I could handle her mother if she didn’t tell me the insult to injury bit of
it.” Pausing to scowl, I crack my neck to rid the uncomfortable feeling. “Her own mother looked her
in the eyes and told her a man like me would never be happy without a family of his own and she
could never give me kids.”
Gio makes a gruff noise on the other side of the phone. Pissed. “And it poisoned her into
thinking she wasn’t good enough for you. Have you taken care of that cunt yet?”
I sighed. “A warning for now, but I will. Not to worry my friend, I will.”
“Good.”
 “She’s still perfect.”
Chuckling, he responds, “I bet. Better than that arranged shit you had going on that’s for damn
sure.”
For someone in organized crime, Gio was surprisingly adamant when telling me to avoid a
marriage of convenience but of course, accepted my decision. Apparently his family doesn’t fuck
around when it comes to marriage.
“Oddly enough, that’s what brought her back to me. Dixie was working for a small magazine
in Belle City and got assigned the engagement announcement interview.”
“No fucking way.”
“Yep,” I promise.
“And Lilian, she’s still claiming the spawn is yours?”
“Yes, but it’s nearly impossible unless she pulled some sperm-stealing psycho shit. You know
I touched her once, protected. Doesn’t matter if it is or isn’t. I have Dixie back. We’ll make it work.”
I can hear him agree with a hum. “Well, I’ll let you get back to your girl. Keep me posted.
We’ll have to do dinner. Arianna is going to want to meet her.”
I blink, my mind blanking for a moment. “Holy shit. You did it?”
Gio and Arianna… damn.
“We both did it,” an amused voice chimes in. Luca.
“Back up a minute,” I bristle. “You’re both… with Lorenzo’s baby sister? And you’re still
breathing?”
Luca’s laugh rings through the speaker. “For now, we’re still breathing fine. When he finds out
though… Well, it’s two against one so we might live to tell the tale.”
“Arianna won’t let him hurt you. Princess Vitale always gets her way,” I tell them.
“Don’t I know it,” Gio grumbles. “We’ll plan a night out or something. Show Dixie around
Italy. Now go punish your flower girl, my friend.”
Right. “Talk soon.”
“Ci vediamo presto.” We’ll see each other soon.

I make a few more phone calls, canceling the publication of our interviews today, having
Dixie’s apartment packed up tonight, and checking in on a few of my businesses before I decide to
change out of my Tux. When I make it into our room, the bathroom mirror is fogged up but she’s not
present, meaning she’s already ventured to the kitchen. I pull on a pair of gray sweatpants and make
my way there too.
Giggling fills the air around me, warming the ice around my heart as I step into one of my
favorite rooms here. Dixie is sitting at the counter, wet hair piled on top of her head, swimming in one
of my oversized gray shirts while Pam laughs with her. My girl is eating a grilled cheese in between
her laughs and I can’t stop myself from pausing to stare at the sight. This could have been mine for
three years...
Pam fixes her posture as she notices me. “Would you like anything to eat, sir?”
Nearly four years of employment and she still won’t call me by my first name. It’s always sir
or Mr. Aroselyn. Dixie used to joke that she may stop if we told her that Dixie calls me sir while we
fuck.
Dixie’s shoulders give away the way she stiffens in her seat at the implication that I’m in the
room. It’s cute that she’s anxious, but also a little worrisome.
“No, thank you.”
 My girl relaxes a bit, giving me a shy smile. “Pam was telling me that her son acts like a little
mime since he went to the carnival last month. He refuses to talk and mirrors everyone he sees.”
Smiling, I shake my head. “I know. He mimics the guards, standing as still as he can next to them for
as long as he can.” Pam’s son, Beau, is six and sometimes comes to work with her when she can’t get
a sitter. “Gio says hello.”
Dixie gulps. “Gio? He knows I’m back?” I nod and she frowns. “Is he mad at me?”
Planting a kiss on her temples, I shake my head. “No dollface, he’s not mad at you. We’ll go
see him soon.”
Her eyes widen comically like they used to. It has and probably always will make me smile
when she gets surprised. “In Italy?”
“That’s where he lives, is it not?” I tease.
Her teeth catch her bottom lip, a sweet, nervous little tick she has. “I better brush up on my
Italian.”
Using my thumb to slowly pull at her bottom lip, releasing it from her teeth I smile down at my
flower girl. “Soon. You have other things to get familiar with again first. Priorities, darling,
priorities.”
Dixie blushes, sucking my thumb into her mouth between her plump lips. Good girl. Always
such a good girl.
I give her a pleased grunt, pushing against her tongue, forcing a shaky breath from her nose.
Nervous little thing. How fun.
“Open.”
She does. Her mouth parts, her tongue relaxing under the pressure of my hold.
Pam has already made herself scarce, leaving us alone in the kitchen to do as we please. Not
that she hasn’t seen us before. It would be difficult to go a year living with Dixie and I and not run
into us in a compromising position. It’s our house after all.
“I’ve had three years to think about this, you know?” I ask, sliding back my thumb, forcing a
little choked sound from her. Tears are already welling in her anxious eyes. “Three years to think
about how exactly I would punish you for leaving. And now that you’re here, at my mercy, I can’t
even think of where to begin. Denial would be too painful for both of us, so I’ve scratched that out as
a possibility,” I tell her honestly, pulling out of her mouth.
She keeps it open, remaining silent.
So well trained.
“What do you think, Dix? What should I do to you today? Hm? You may answer.”
She pants as if she hasn’t been breathing, closing her lips to swallow the saliva that’s been
pooling into her mouth. “Show me what I could have had all this time. Nothing is worse.”
Tiny buds of water roll down her cheeks, some clinging to her eyelashes. Regret is a
powerful, powerful emotion. It’s a nagging pain. A never-ending dull ache that can’t be banished
easily. Dixie is plagued with it, and as much as some sick part of me relishes her regret, knowing it
means she’s missed me as much as I’ve missed her, we won’t be whole again until she’s been
cleansed of it.
“I’m giving us a week,” I say sternly. “We have a week to feel the pain of our regrets. And
then we need to stop, Dixie. No more what ifs or guilt.” Brushing my hand back, caressing her cheek,
I cup it, and lift her face into my grasp. “One week, and then we’re done being upset. One week, and
we’re us again. No more of the bad feelings. Just us. Say ‘yes sir’ so I know that you understand me,
beautiful.”
 She nods fiercely. “Yes sir.”
“Good girl. Now show me how sorry you are, and I’ll return the favor.”
She pounces, jumping from her seat and on to me, pushing her lips against mine harshly. She
tastes buttery from her sandwich as her tongue tries to wiggle into my mouth. Her warm and soft
hands scramble into my pants, tugging at my briefs and shoving them out of her way. She’s on her
knees, before I can even tell her to get there, pulling the cotton fabric out of her way.
My little beauty doesn’t waste any time, licking away at the tip, savoring the precum before
wrapping her lips around me.
“Fuuuuck,” I groan, spearing my fingers into her messy hair. Dixie hums around my cock,
taking it deeper into her mouth, forcing a warmth to come over me. “I missed this sinful mouth of
yours, dollface.”
Her hands grasp my thighs tightly before running up my skin, settling on top of my abs for a
moment, and then running back down. With only her eyes, she tells me she’s missed this. Me too,
baby. Me too.
Dixie’s mouth stays busy, sucking, licking and kissing every part of my cock. “A man can only
take so much,” I growl, bending over and wrapping my arms around her middle. She doesn’t release
my dick from her mouth as I flip her, maneuvering her upside down. Her legs open for me without
command, wrapping around my shoulders.
“No fucking panties. Goddamn, you’re still my good girl, huh?”
Only, I don’t give her the opportunity to answer before directly attacking her clit, refusing to
draw this out. Because as irresistible as this part is, I’ve been dying for a full night’s sleep, and Dixie
Wallows snuggled up against my chest is the only way I’m going to get it. Now that I think about it,
Dixie Aroselyn sounds much fucking better than Wallows. I’ll be fixing that soon.
My little minx cries out as I suck that little bud into my mouth, relishing the taste of honey on
my tongue. She tries her hardest to keep sucking, adding a hand into the mix to focus on the head of my
cock while I torture her with sensations she can’t handle.
Keeping one arm wrapped around her back, I pull her tighter into me and thrust two fingers
inside of her aching pussy. And oh does she sing for me. She screams while my tongue and fingers
work her over. She switches to using her hand on my cock, squeezing tightly with each stroke as her
teeth sink into my calf. She twists and twirls her hand around the head, working my erection just how
she knows I like it.
Dixie goes limp in my hold, whimpering as she finds her release around my fingers, filling my
mouth with her sweet taste. The flavor of her alone has me shooting into her weak hold of my cock,
grunting as I avoid seeing fucking stars.
Flipping her slowly down to her feet, I press my lips into hers, hearing her sigh as she rises up
on her toes to meet my mouth. We taste each other, basking in the glow of our pleasure. I only allow
myself a few moments of this bliss before pulling her tired body into my arms, wrapping her legs
around my middle.
Walking a sleepy Dixie into our bedroom and planting her into the middle of the mattress feels
more like home than anything has in far too long. She murmurs senselessness as she snuggles into the
bed. Grabbing one of her old silky blankets from the closet, I’m struck by the smile on my face as I
pass a mirror. Faced with my own happiness, my grin widens. It’s like she never left.
Dixie practically purrs as I lay her favorite fabric over her body. The white silk makes the
orange of her hair stick out even more. Even half dead-tired, she thrusts her body against mine when I
take my place next to her.
 I kiss her forehead lightly, thanking the Gods for bringing her back to me.
“I would have waited forever,” I tell her in a whisper. “No one else is capable of holding my
heart, my love.”
Sleep has never found me faster.

Chapter 6: All is Right

“As delicate as flower, as tender as rose petals, choosing to be tender and kind in a harsh environment is not
weakness, it's courage.”
― Luffina Lourduraj
 Dixie

Shouting wakes the both of us. Screaming is more like it. High-pitched, frustrated, voice
cracking screams of complaint, only I’m far too groggy to understand a word being said. Jasper
though, he seems worried. He wakes himself up quickly, telling me to stay where I am, shuffling out of
the room.
It’s impossible to get comfortable as voices continue to ring out. And when I finally make out
one of the frustrated cries, I’m throwing myself out of bed to plant my ear against the bedroom door.
“How the hell did you even get past security?” Jasper groans loudly, trying his best not to lash
out. He’s always been amazing at keeping his temper in check.
One time a guard was nearly run over by a garbage truck in town, and after checking on him,
he asked the driver if he was okay, rather than screaming at him like a jackass. The man had been
desperately looking for his inhaler at the time. His kindness meant that the man didn’t lose his job and
didn’t have to feel guilty for a simple accident. I sucked him off in the back of the car for the entire
twenty minute drive home, cherishing him for it. I took him slowly, worshiping him while he caressed
my hair and watched me. I can still feel the heated stare when I think about it hard enough.
“I climbed the fucking gate, because you can’t even be bothered to text me back!” Lilian
hisses.
What. The. Fuck.
“Is that safe?” Jasper questions.
Lilian laughs like a lunatic. “For the baby you don’t even care about? Is throwing myself over
a ten foot wall safe for it? Of fucking course its not. I guess its a good thing that it doesn’t fucking
exist, huh? Jesus christ Jasper, a pregnancy is supposed to make you more involved not pull-out of
the arrangement completely! Are you insane?”
If I wasn’t so relieved that there was no baby growing inside of this madwoman I would be
furious. Faking pregnancy is something pretty damn unforgivable. Especially to someone like me.
“Are you insane?” he counters, growing louder. “You faked a pregnancy off of a one-night
stand and think I’m the crazy one for not falling at your feet?”
“I hardly call it a one-night stand when you’re too drunk to fucking come! Muttering some shit
about fucking flowers. What the hell is wrong with you, I’m a catch! Men literally beg to fuck me and
you could hardly keep it up!”
Flowers. Too drunk to come. Could hardly keep it up.
He couldn't do it.
I’m giggling now, giddy that she couldn’t seduce him completely.
Good God, this is horrible. Why am I laughing?!
“I’m going to give you a courtesy I don’t grant often. I’m going to allow you to walk out of my
house without having you detained and then arrested for trespassing. And it has absolutely nothing to
do with any affection I feel toward you, because I assure you, there is none. But because your father
does good business and I’m sure he has nothing to do with this stunt. Now leave, seek some fucking
help, and don’t come back.”
There are more indiscernible screams, and then a door slamming.
I don’t have time to scramble back into bed before Jasper is opening the door. I have to cover
my mouth to stop the sounds of laughter even when he raises a brow at me. I don’t even know why
that awful encounter has me in a fit of laughter, but I can’t seem to stop finding the humor in it.
 He cocks his head at me. “You found that funny, did you dollface?”
Shaking my head and retreating to the bed, I still don’t stop laughing.
Then his eyes narrow, darkening with hunger and all of the air I was using to laugh is stolen
from my lungs. He gets to me quickly, softly wrapping his hand around my throat and backing me into
the edge of the mattress.
“I missed that laugh.”
The way he kisses me nearly knocks me off of my balance. It ends far too quickly when he sets
his forehead against mine. “We’re leaving in an hour. Your stuff is here, pack enough for a week.”
I’m not surprised that Jasper has had my entire apartment packed up overnight. He probably
got me out of my lease too, not that he couldn’t afford the fee of breaking the contract. But his name
throws around a lot of weight. I am surprised that we're going somewhere so last minute though.
Jasper is, traditionally, a planner.
“Leaving where?”
He smirks. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Biting my lip, avoiding a smile, I flirt, “I could probably convince you to tell me.”
“Not this time, dollface. Yacht attire though. I’ll give you that much.”
I’m immediately flooded with memories. Jasper bending me over the railing of the top deck,
fucking me raw a few feet away from neighboring sail boats, my hair and little blue dress whipping
around in the wind. The smell of sea water and the taste of his cum on my lips. The yacht. The yacht
we would hide away on for weekends or weeks at a time. It was our own little slice of paradise, like
the estate with an ocean view.
Beaming up at him, my lips peck against his cheek. “Really?”
“Really,” he agrees. “On second thought though, why the hell should we waste so much time
packing?” I’m thrown over his shoulder in one swift toss, my hair spilling out of my bun. His hand
lands a playful smack against my bare butt while he walks us into the on-suite bathroom. The shower
water hits loudly against the tiles and he strides directly into the lukewarm stream, soaking us along
with our clothes.
I yelp as he sets me down, swiftly pulling his now soaking wet shirt off of my body. His sweat
pants hit the floor next and then I’m pressed back against the glass door. Jasper’s tongue parts my lips,
one hand caressing my face, the other lifting a leg and hooking it around his hips.
“Put my cock where it belongs, Dixie,” he breathes in-between kisses.
I can barely see through the steamy water and the droplets sticking to my eyelashes, but I do. I
wrap my hand around his throbbing length and line it up, swiping it through my cunt to hit my clit
twice before forcing it to slip inside of me. All the while Jasper is making me shiver, kissing my
neck, sucking at my breasts and running his hands over every inch of my skin he can reach in this
position.
His hips roll, thrusting himself inside of me completely. I’m still sore from yesterday, but I
don’t dare complain. The delicious stretch calms the more potent ache I’ve been suffering for years.
My hands settle against his ribs, encouraging him to keep going with a little pull. He finds a slow but
deep pace, fusing his mouth against mine again.
“Fuck, Dixie,” he breathes. “We fit so well together.”
His pace quickens a fraction. I cry out, meeting each thrust.
“Greedy,” he whispers. “Such a greedy, horny, little thing.”
“So good,” I murmur against his kiss.
“Too good,” he rasps. “Not gonna last. Rub that clit, babydoll.”
 His next stroke has his pelvis graze exactly where I want it to touch. My eyes roll back in
appreciation. “Don’t need to. C–coming,” I sigh, arching my back and curling my toes into his spine.
His name becomes a prayer on my lips as I chant it, bathing in the moment. The water has gone from
warm to steaming hot, only adding to the comfort.
The heat wave of pleasure hits deeper than yesterday, especially as his chest presses into my
hardened nipples, adding a third point of nerves being stroked. He joins me, repeating my name
quietly, moaning deep in his chest while his cock pulses inside of me.
“Fuck, Dix. You’re still squeezing my dick,” he praises against the skin of my neck. “Perfect.
Just, Perfect.”
He lets my leg fall and his cock slip out of me, his cum falling down my thighs slowly. We
stay embraced under the warm water, soaking in each other’s presence. Until Jasper begins washing
me off, lathering my body in his soaps, and rinsing me off after I’m all clean. He does the same to
himself while I watch. His body is chiseled with sharp angles of muscle, complemented by the olive
tone of his complexion. The water and bubbles glide off of him in no time, ending the view to his
little show.
Jasper towels off the two of us in silence, never taking his eyes off of my body, kissing my
shoulders a few different times. He ends the silence after wrapping a silky blue robe around me,
securing it into place with the tie.
“All of the clothes you left here are in the foyer guest room closet. Wear the white dress for
me?”
I swallow thickly at the reminder of it. The first thing Jasper bought me. The white dress. Not
only did he keep my things, he kept them in the only other bedroom on this floor. He wanted them
close. “Okay,” I say quickly. “How do you want my hair?”
He never specifically started asking me to dress a certain way, or wear my hair how he
wanted it. I just sort of listened anytime he said he liked it in specific styles. I loved when he would
pick things for me. Thinking about it reminds me that I still enjoy the thought of it. It’s like a little
thrill each time he sees me just the way he wants me and I can never get enough of it. I thought I would
never get it again, but here I am.
He smiles. “The little tiny ponytails you do at the top on each side, with the rest down and
wavy. Like you do when you want to bake. Remember?”
My heart races. “I remember. Everything. Always.”
Jasper slowly nods. “Me too.”

The yacht stays docked at the Belle City Harbor about an hour from the estate. The northern
east coast can be quite cold during the month of February, but the weather is uncharacteristically
warm and will be for the remainder of winter. Global warming, I suppose.
Growing up so close to the unruly weather of New York has made me immune to most
conditions as it is. I don’t mind the cold, or the warmth. Jasper, on the other hand, despises the snow.
He thinks it’s inconvenient and reflects the sun too brightly. He loves a good spiked hot cocoa though.
I’m sad I missed that this year.
The small crew greets us both as we board, offering warm smiles. Pam is already on deck
when we arrive with Beau and her niece Morgan. She’ll be preparing our meals on the trip as usual,
and Beau will be able to run around with Morgan. Of course, there are off-limits areas. The private
deck toward the front of the ship is all ours.
I had only met Beau as an infant before, but he’s a charming little guy now, offering hugs and
blowing kisses while Jasper pulls me away.
“Ah, come on,” I pout. “I was making friends.”
Jasper snorts. “You can see him at lunch. We have a date with the jacuzzi, berries and
mimosas.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so? Race ya,” I say, leaping over some rope piled on the deck and
running toward the familiar sight. He laughs and weakly chases after me, letting me win.
I stop dead in my tracks when I see what he’s had set up. Flowers in and around the bubbling
hot water, trays of fruit and melted chocolate and a picture of orange juice next to a bottle of
champagne. A wave of guilt washes over me again and a frown takes over my face. Jasper seems to
read my mind, wrapping his arms around my middle, hugging me from behind.
“No pain right now, Dixie girl. Just let me do this for us. I’ll take your regret from you one day
at a time, in the bedroom. Outside of fucking, I don’t want to feel your guilt because I don’t need it.
All that matters is now. Okay?”
“You’re too amazing,” I tell him. “I don’t–”
“If you're about to say “deserve you,” I’ll spank your perky little ass before we even get in the
water. If either of us is too good for the other, it’s you to me, babe.”
Clicking my tongue, I shake my head. “You’re still stubborn.”
He laughs, kissing my shoulder and stroking down my arms. “And you’re still mine. All mine.”
“Always.”
 Chapter 7: Shipwrecked For You
“It is better for a flower to
bloom late than to wither early.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo
Jasper

Five days into our stay at sea, I have Dixie waiting in our room for me while I finish up with
the crew. We’ve just finished lunch, and our dinner plans are now sorted. The trip has been better than
I could have imagined and much needed. I haven't taken more than a few days away from work in
years.
We docked outside of a little town for night three, going window shopping and getting a late-
night dinner to give Pam a full-day off with her family. Beau has become borderline obsessed with
Dixie, sitting in her lap whenever he can, giggling like a little flirt. She’s always liked kids and
they’ve always liked her. She’s never brought up the idea of surrogacy or adoption, but if she wanted
that, I would too. We’re all I need. The two of us. But I wouldn’t tell her no.
Anything to make her happy could never be a bad thing.
As I get to the room, Dixie is still wearing a pair of gray leggings and a white blouse, smiling
sweetly as she sees me. She sits up on the queen-sized bed, pulling the dark silk sheets into her
fingers, sighing at the sensation. I’m not even sure she knows that she does it, but I notice every time.
“I believe you were told to be waiting with a couple less articles of clothing wrapped around
that body of yours. Why are your clothes still on, dollface? Are you testing my patience this evening
for the fun of it? Or are you chasing a punishment like you used to?”
“I had a dream,” she answers, dropping to her knees on the floor in front of me gracefully. Her
hair is wavy today, dried naturally and parted down the center. Her blue eyes have darkened a shade
without the sun pooling into them.
My interest is piqued. “And what might this dream have to do with your misbehaving?”
“In my dream, you took my clothes off, with scissors. It was really, really erotic, sir. I think
you may enjoy it. I thought you might like to try. So you see, staying clothed was me trying to be a
good girl this time, I swear it.”
 Disobeying an order to test a new little kink is a fair trade-off in my opinion. I’m not really a
dominant, and Dixie, though naturally submissive, isn’t a submissive. She calls me sir whenever she
likes, and Jasper when that feels right. Occasionally, she’ll kneel for me, but that has more to do with
her oral obsession than power play. There don’t need to be strict rules between us, because we know
exactly what we need from each other.
“Color me impressed, gorgeous.”
“They’re on the bed, I stole them from Pam,” she tells me proudly.
“Kleptomania and sexual deviancy,” I tease. “What am I to do about these new qualities
you're sporting, Dixie?”
Her grin doesn't fade. “Dunno. You could kiss me for being bad. That’d just be awful.”
“Smart mouth today too, hm? I’ll have to fill it up now, won’t I?”
She shrugs. “If you think it’ll work, you gotta.”
The playfulness in her tone is not lost on me. It’s been a bit of a task to get her to open up
again. But her week of feeling regret is nearly over and I’m glad she’s slowly forgiving herself
because I forgave her the moment we kissed.
The act of cutting her out of her clothes is in fact, erotic.
She stands for me, holding her arms a few inches from her body, and keeping her legs parted.
The weight of the silver tool adds some note of pressure to the interaction. Every sharp intake of
breath she takes makes it all the more enticing. I use the scissors as if they were my fingers, tracing
lightly over her sensitive skin. My girl is a mess of gasps, blushes and shivers by the time the final
scrap of fabric falls from her flush body.
She looks positively starved for touch, licking her lips up at me. Wanting her to squirm a bit
longer, I pass her the tool to do to me what I’ve done to her. Dixie takes the scissors carefully, looking
at them as if they’re unfamiliar.
“Your turn, dollface.”
She starts with my button down, cutting each sleeve up it’s middle before moving to my collar
and carefully snipping downward. She pops her tongue out of her mouth slightly, focusing closely
with every move. Dixie tackles my slacks and briefs much faster, holding onto my cock in the process,
claiming to need stability.
“It’s Valentine's Day,” I tell her, watching the lingering bit of my clothing drop to the ground.
“Did you know that, Dixie girl?”
Her lips pull into a frown. “It is? I didn’t even remember.”
I kiss off that silly little sad look, swallowing her gasp of surprise. “You didn’t need to
remember, beautiful. I got it handled.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Now we just need to burn a couple of hours. You know anyway we can pass the time?”
“I can think of a few things.”
“That right, dollface? How are you gonna set time aflame for us this afternoon?”
She grins. “We still have Twister underneath the bed.”
“Are you suggesting–”
“That we play naked Twister. Of course I am, sir.”
God, she’s a marvel.
“Same stakes as last time, dollface?”
“Uh huh.” She nods twirling at the ends of her hair. “I have the app to spin for us and
everything. Hope you don’t slip, I wouldn’t want you to lose, sir. Again.”
 “Oh I won’t lose, because you can’t cheat this time. I’m watching you, Dixie girl.”
Her tongue darts out, wetting her lips. “We’ll see.”

She cheats. The entire time. We spend an hour tangling ourselves around each other and she
teases me ruthlessly the entire time. We play naked Twister differently than the clothes-on version.
Instead of being the last one to fall, you have to avoid caving in to win. As in, caving into fucking
your opponent.
And just like every time we’ve played before, my girl makes winning impossible. She puts
those round, perky tits in my face, bends over and brushes her pussy lips against my dick, letting me
feel just how wet she already is. She touches my arms to “reach the color near me” and does it all
with a smug smile on her face.
I let it go on for longer than any man could handle, finally giving in as she backs her ass up
into me, bending over to put her right hand on red. It’s too easy to slip inside of her damp heat. She
gasps as if she didn’t expect the intrusion.
“Might as well have begged for it,” I tell her, punctuating my claim by smacking her ass. Dixie
yelps, but pushes back against me, seeking more. “Greedy girl.”
She moans deep, making a pleased ‘mmm’ sound in her mouth. “You lasted longer this time. I
still get the prize though,” Dixie brags.
“You’ll get your foot rub later,” I concede. “But right now, you’re taking this cock until I say
we’re done.”
Whimpers fill the room, echoing off of the ship walls. Bending her over isn’t something I
crave, typically I prefer watching her pretty little face contort when she comes all over me.
“Stroke that clit, Dixie, and fuck me back harder. I want your knees to cave out when you hand
over your orgasm. You get me?”
“Yes, fuck,” she hisses, lifting a hand off of the ground to play with herself. “Feels so good.
Love this so much.”
“Goddamn right you do. Your cunt loves everything I do to it.”
“Ah, yeah, shit,” she pleads.
The sound of her loud, breathless moans builds with the slapping of my thighs against the
backs of hers. I can tell she’s trying to tell me she’s close because of the way her breathing switches.
It’s harsh and urgent, needy and wanton, just the way it’s supposed to be. My girl’s knees give, relying
on my hold to keep her up. The way she relaxes while her pussy strangles and floods my length does
me in.
We stumble into bed, too tired to shower off even though we should. I like the thought of my
cum dripping out of her as she wiggles around to get comfortable. I set an alarm to wake us up in
time, running my finger through her hair while she mumbles threats about cashing in on her foot rub.

Dixie

Waking up to the obnoxious sound of an iphone alarm is never fun. Waking up to the sound and
then remembering your boyfriend owes your feet a massage and that he’s made mysterious plans for
the most romantic holiday of the year? That isn’t so bad.
Valentine’s Day may be a marketing scheme to some, but to me, it’s the epitome of romance.
The one Valentine’s Day Jasper and I spent together before was every bit as magical as I could have
dreamed. Flower pedals, strawberries, chocolate, and cream with breakfast. Couples massage and
hot masseuse role-play afterward for lunch. And a candle-lit dinner followed up with three of my
favorite sappy movies.
He could play a single part of that day on repeat today and I’d swoon. Naked Twister can
definitely be added to my mental list of holiday activities.
Jasper isn’t in the room, just his blaring phone and a dress laid out. The name of the alarm is
“You have fifteen minutes. Middle deck.”
After freshening up, I pull on the silky peach-colored mini dress he picked, opting for a pair
of strappy sandals to do with it. I fashion my hair, half up, half down quickly before running out of the
room to find him, only bringing his phone with me.
I almost knock myself out running into Jasper because my eyes are too busy trying to figure out
if the sight in front of me is real.
“Hey beautiful,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “I have some people here to see you.”
Daughtry. Daughtry is here to meet me. The whole band, and they’re sound testing their set,
which has taken over the middle deck of my boyfriend's yacht.
It feels like a dream the entire time they introduce themselves.
It continues to feel unreal until the third song, Waiting for Superman when I snap out of being
starstruck and dance in my seat.
Jasper got us a private concert from one of my favorite bands. They stayed for over an hour
before deboarding into the city we docked outside of.
Dinner came next, but nothing could compare to the overwhelming feeling I had eating at me.
Jasper projected Me Before You on one of the ship walls. We tossed popcorn at each other, ate way
too much cake, and this time, Jasper teared up as Will and Lousia said goodbye.
The universe had balance as we passed out in each other’s arms.
Our week of regret came to an end, and we became free.
 Chapter 8: Ghost
“The earth laughs in flowers.”
―Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Dixie

Saying goodbye is one of the hardest and easiest things you can do. Someone you can’t think
clearly without disappears, and your world crumbles. Shitty friend leaves you behind for a nonsense
reason? Easy. Fuck you very much for getting out of my life.
Goodbyes are funny like that, because it can mean a new beginning or a harsh end. And
nobody likes an unsatisfying ending.
Coming home to find the love of your life so distraught that he can barely manage telling you
he needs to be alone, lying about being sick, hurts worse than almost any goodbye. The fear of every
possible circumstance floods your mind faster than you can comprehend. Pretty soon you're panicking.
How do you help them? What do you do?
And you make a snap decision, trusting your gut because it’s all you can rely on at the moment.
This is that moment.
Sniffling, I press dial, gripping the phone as tight as I can.
“Jasper, it’s like 2am your time, what the hell, man?”
“G–Gio?” I choke on a sob. “Gio it’s Dixie.”
He bristles on the other end, letting out a sharp breath. “Dixie. You’re crying. Deep breaths,
tell me what’s wrong. Where is Jasper right now?”
Doing what he says, sucking in a shaky breath I force myself to relax and speak. “H–he’s in
our room and he– Gio, I think something happened to him. I think someone hurt him. H–hurt him really
bad.”
“He’s injured?”
“N–not physically. He looks like he’s seen a ghost and he won’t let me in. Told me he’s sick. I
overheard him saying something about his dad to one of the guards.”
“Dixie. I’m on my way. I’m in New York, it’s less than an hour long flight. You need to listen
to me, carefully. Get in that room. I don’t care if you have to break in by shattering the door. Get
inside and make sure he stays there. There’s a gun underneath the floorboard in your closet. Get it and
put it in the back of your jeans. It’s condition three right now, meaning the chamber is empty. You’ll
need to rack it back to shoot. Have you shot a gun before, Dix?”
My mind is reeling, “Y-yes. At the range with Jas.”
“Good. Do what I said. Now.”
As I rush into the hallway, I pant into the phone. Luckily, Jasper had unlocked the door and I’m
able to rush inside quickly. “I’m inside,” I report, hectically looking for Jasper.
“Lock the door behind you if you can.”
“Got it,” I say, clicking it into place.
When I find Jasper, my heart stops. “He’s fully clothed underneath the spray of the shower.
Gio, he’s shivering, what do I do?”
“Turn the water to warm, not hot, but warm and don’t touch him. Go grab the gun, don’t let
him see it and then sit near him and keep the phone near you. I’m about to take off. And Dixie, don’t
shoot me when I come in.”
The line goes dead. I do exactly what he says, fixing the water first then rushing around and
finding the handgun, stuffing it in the band of my jeans.
 Jasper doesn’t say a word. He breathes, his shoulders rising and falling softly, but he doesn’t
speak. I can’t take my eyes off of him, watching him in a worried silence. The knowledge that Gio is
coming is my only anchor, holding me steady while time clicks by.
I know that Jasper’s dad did bad things to him when he was a kid. Bad, bad things that I can’t
think about without feeling sick to my stomach. He’s been in jail since Jasper turned eight. I haven’t
heard him say anything about him since the night he told me about it. And since coming home again,
the topic hasn’t come up.
All I can think is how much I wish I could hug him. But Gio is right. He’ll know what to do.
“Dixie, it’s Gio! I’m coming in. Stay in the bathroom. There’s two people with me. A man and
a woman, they’re family.”
“O–okay!”
In a matter of moments, the familiar man comes into view and I break. Tears cascade down my
face. Helpless, terrified tears. Gio frowns, taking a step inside of the bathroom. A woman with dark
brown curls piled on top of her head, decked out in black leather pants and a red lace top swings
around him. She doesn’t even look at Jasper but focuses on me, slowly getting closer and holding out
her hands.
“Dixie, my name is Katherine. I’m Gio’s sister-in-law. The guys are going to take care of him
okay? Let’s get you out of here.”
Nodding at her through cloudy tear filled eyes, I let her take my hands and pull me to my feet.
A man decked out head to toe in black and white tattoos steps aside, allowing us to leave the room
before following Gio to Jasper’s side.
Katherine sits me down at the edge of the bed, but no part of me is able to calm.
“You’re hyperventilating, beauty,” she warns, brushing some hair away from my wet face.
“Gio will get him back. He’s panicking, just quietly. It’ll be okay. We got you both, alright? Breathe
for me.”
It’s difficult, but doable. She does it with me, coaching my intake and outtake of air. “Good
job, beautiful. Keep doing it. In and out, real easy like that.”
“Talk about something,” I beg. “Anything.”
“My husband kidnapped me,” she offers. The look in her eyes tells me she’s being dead
serious. “Lorenzo, the tattooed beast in there with Gio. Love that man more than mozzarella sticks
now though, so it’s water under the bridge. Really complicated back story. Ummm, my record for
shots in two hours without blacking out is seventeen for vodka, nineteen for clear rum, twenty-one for
tequila but I’m half Mexican. Marco says that’s why I can drink it out of the bottle with a straw and a
lime covered in salt. Really he’s just mad I can drink more of it than him. Marco is a little shit, he’s
eighteen now but might as well be forty-five. He’s Lorenzo and Arianna’s brother, and now my
brother too. Cause you know, I married his brother’s kidnapper ass. Oo, it’s a great ass too, you
should totally check it out when-”
“I think I’m okay now,” I interrupt. “My head is spinning, but I can breathe.”
She pushes out a breath of air. “Good. I’m totally not a comforting person, but I can babble
when I need to. You still got that gun on you?”
Nodding, I get it out, passing it over to her slowly. “I checked, it’s still condition three.
There’s no safety on it.”
She smiles. “Nah, not on this model. Safety catches can slow down home defense. Sometimes
when you’re nervous, you can forget to click it off. Everyone thinks to rack it back though. Cause,
what action movie doesn’t show the protagonist dramatically pulling back the slide before getting
down to business, am I right?”
“I’m really more of a rom-com kinda girl.”
She nods. “Arianna is too. She’ll be all over you when you visit. Just wait.”
“Dixie.”
Jasper is standing in the doorway between the bathroom and our bedroom. He’s changed into a
dry pair of sweats, but his hair is still soaked, dripping on his bare shoulders.
“C–can I hug you, now?” I ask, unmoving.
Jasper swarms me, tugging me into his arms and off of the bed. “I’m sorry I scared you, Dixie girl.
I’m okay. Everything is okay.”
“Lorenzo kidnapped Katherine,” I whisper into him. “It’s okay though, because she loves him
more than cheese sticks now.”
His laugh is how I know we’re going to be okay. He lost himself for a bit, but he’s back. My
Jasper is always going to come back.
“I know,” he tells me. “She has his balls in her sharp little claws, no matter how tough he looks.”
Lorenzo grunts. “Yeah well, my wife throws knives and gets into bar fights for fun. Yours plants
flowers and you’re just as burnt for her as I am for mine.”
“To be fair, Jasper flips, invests in and takes over businesses, while you run a crime empire. I’d
say you’re about on par,” Gio deadpans.
“Crime empire?”
Katherine snorts. “What’d you think someone who looks like Lorenzo does? Taxes?”
“Uh, I would have guessed he was a tattoo artist. But sure, crime boss fits too.” Looking up at
Jasper, I smirk. “Can I stop pretending I didn’t figure out Gio kills people for a living the first time
we met?”
He laughs again. Louder and fuller this time. “You’re good, dollface.”
“To be perfectly clear, I allowed you to figure it out, flower child.”
“Sure, sure,” I agree mockingly.
“Alright, so we get to speak freely. Any chance I can take this hit? I’m bored.”
Hit. Right. Jasper’s dad?
Gio shakes his head. “My friend. My kill. You and Dixie can go brush up on her
marksmanship if you’re so bored.”
“Or we can order pizza,” I offer. “We have tequila.”
She grins. “Sold, pretty lady.”
Lorenzo and Gio leave us. By the time the pizza arrives and two pitchers of margaritas have
disappeared, they’re back, and there’s one less evil heart beating in Belle City. This was a good
goodbye. The best goodbye.
The kind where you flip off the ground, taunting the newest soul to visit Hell.
Good. Fucking. Riddance.
 Epilogue: The Letters
“Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.”
–John Lennon

Jasper
2 Months Later…

Dixie is on a lunch date with Beau to say goodbye. He is, on top of being a little flirt,
apparently a genius. Pam started to notice him picking up on strange things about a year ago and it’s
only continued since. He solves puzzles and problems with patterns at unbelievable speeds, so I got
her in talks with one of my connections in New York. He’s been given a scholarship to an elite
elementary school that caters to gifted students.
We haven’t discussed replacing her, and for now, I have no plans to.
But, I’m using this free time to finish emptying out Dixie’s leftover moving boxes. They’ve
been unopened since we came home, so they can’t be filled with anything too important. Granted,
we’ve been busy, so I plan to make sure there is nothing to keep before having the boxes accidentally
thrown out. Now that things have calmed down, we're leaving for Italy tonight.
We did an exclusive interview with Claire last week, to make up for the wedding
announcement exclusive the Belle City Digest lost and the promising employee I took when Dixie
came back to me. She asked questions about our relationship and how we’ve been coming along since
reuniting. She seemed thrilled about the whole thing, genuinely happy that Dixie is happy.
It was the only interview I’ve done throughout my entire career where I found myself laughing
and enjoying each part of it. We went for drinks afterward and I had to inform Claire that I do not, in
fact, have a brother. Dixie informed her that I employ a couple hot bodyguards which I promptly
spanked her for.
Smiling to myself, I lift the last of the boxes, surprised by the weight of it given the size. It’s small
but compact, like maybe a thick book is inside of it. The bottom of it gives out before I can set it on
the counter, papers spilling on the floor haphazardly.
“Damnit,” I sigh, dropping down to clean up the mess.
Only, I stop dead in my tracks as I look at the words “day 1,” scrawled in Dixie's handwriting.
They’re letters. Hundreds of them. To me.

Day 1

I’m a liar, Jasper.

A horrible, horrible liar that you should never forgive. I said the most vile, atrocious,
untrue things. I said them to protect you, but protecting you meant breaking your heart and with
your heart, my soul.
That’s what you are. My fucking soul.
God, I’ve never felt so empty, baby.
I want to run back to you. I want to risk your safety just to be near you. I need your
voice in my ear telling me everything’s going to be alright. I watched Me Before You again
today. I still cry every time, but I cry harder without you.
We switched perspectives, you know? I thought Will was a dick for abandoning Lousia.
Turns out, I am Will. Self-sacrificing, cowardly and as of recently, depressed.
How am I supposed to keep living without you?

–your selfish liar, Dix

My head spins and my stomach turns reading her desperate words, still, I can’t stop myself from
picking up another, finding day 5 next.

Day 5

I didn’t know a body could make so many tears. Surely I’m dehydrated now. My eyes
leaked for hours. The flowers today… I almost caved. I almost came to you and told you
everything.
I almost ruined your life because I can’t live without you. So I’m going to have to watch
you. Hope that you catch me… drag me back.
 Please.

–your stalker-in-training, Dix

I have absolutely no idea how she could watch me without being spotted, and reading that I
missed her watching me for who knows how long, aches.

Day 18

You don’t smile anymore. Neither do I.

Have I fucked up? Did saving you hurt both of us too much?
Will you ever forgive me, Jasper?

–your regretful girl, Dix.

Always. I’ll always forgive you baby.

Day 29

I cried a lot again today. Gave me a headache.

I always watch you walk into your building in the morning. I have to stop doing it before
you catch me no matter how badly I wish you would catch me.
I wish I could get closer just to smell you again. I got your flowers. I love them, but they
won’t bring me home. You have to drag me back.
Force me, I’m begging you. Lock me away forever. Never let me go.

–your stalker, Dix

She watched me and I watched her. We just missed each other so many times…
Dixie girl, I would have taken you if I knew.
If I could have done something to quell her pain, I would have done it.
No matter what it was.

Day 51

You smiled today. It’s the first time I’ve seen it since I left. It only lasted a second, but it
happened.
I watch you a lot. Follow your moves on social media, the tabloids, and everything. I’m
addicted to you and it’s concerning to say the least. I lost 16 pounds because all I eat is soup.
I don’t want to cook without you.

–your starving stalker, Dix

Jesus christ, dollface.

Unable to stop, despite the hurt, I continue to pick up letters.
 Day 102

Three months.
The worst fucking three months in existence. I’m withering away without you. I want to
be held and hold you. I want to kiss and be kissed by only you. I want that wedding in the
garden. I want that ring that you said you’d give me one day.
Did you already buy it? Return it? Throw it away in anger?
Did you believe my lie? Did you really think I meant what I said?
I really hope not, baby.

–your lost girl, Dix

Day 151

You stopped sending flowers. You sent them for months. You giving up on me, Jasper?
I don’t think I like that very much…
I don’t blame you, really.
It’s my fault, baby.
Come kidnap me. Please.

–your lonely love, Dix

Day 207

Chocolate cake doesn’t taste the same without you.

I hate it now.

–your heartbroken girl, Dix

Fuck, this hurts. I make a mental note to buy a chocolate cake for the plane, tossing the
offensive letter aside. My Dixie, my poor heartbroken girl was suffering so much and I couldn’t figure
out how to save her. If you would have sent a letter, hell, a damn text… shit, I would have come,
baby. I couldn’t force you and live with myself, and I should have just gone with my gut.

Day 289

I haven’t been able to keep a plant alive.

They hate me for what I did to you.
Maybe I hate me too.

–your plant killer, Dix

I realize I’m crying as beads of tears hit the paper in my hands. Glutton for punishment, I toss
it, and find another.
 Day 318

Nearly a year.
Without a soul for 318 days. How pathetic am I?
My eyes burn when I cry, and it gives me a headache. Yet I still can’t stop watching Will
and Louisa.
I still love you. I love you so hardcore babe.

–your soulless love, Dix

Day 365

Today has been the worst day I’ve ever lived. I thought about giving up. Actually giving
up. I’m worse than Will Traynor. I’m worse than anyone. I wish you could read my mind and
force me to tell you the truth.
I want to come home.
So. Fucking. Badly.
I love you, Jasper Aroselyn.
Always will.

–your dollface, Dix

I got borderline deadly drunk on this day, trying not to think of her. All I fucking wanted was to be
cuddled up with her, watching one of her movies, tossing popcorn at each other. She’d lick the butter
off of her fingers, sucking each digit to play with me as if she needed to seduce me. She could ask and
I’d rush to give her exactly what she needed.

Day 439

I hate myself and I hate journalism.

I'm studying the stupid subject because I need money and can’t keep a plant alive.
College is disgusting and I despise it. Loathe it, really.
I just want you.
Why did you never come for me?
Take me away. It’s not too late for us.
It’ll never be too late. Not for us, baby.

–your impatient girl, Dix

It’ll never be too late… goddamn right, baby.

Day 501

I still can’t eat chocolate cake.

 I can’t plant flowers. I can’t dance or sing.
I’ve eaten more than soup now, but still not enough.
I can’t function without thinking about you.
I'm not me, without you.

–your sad girl, Dix

I’m not me without you either, dollface.

Day 599

I’ve decided you’re never coming to save me.

I can’t breathe without you, and you aren’t coming to give me air.
Did you believe my lie? Did I do this all to myself? Could you have saved us both?
Please come find me. Please.

–your desperate girl, Dix

Day 617

I live 60 miles away from the estate and I still drive by it on purpose every week. I still
walk by your office despite not working in the same city.
I’m hoping my hair will stick out in the crowd and you’ll find me.

–your hopefully hopeless girl, Dix

Day 730

Two years.
I hate time more than anything lately. Mostly because it fucking drags without you.
Every day feels like years, every minute feels like hours, slowly punishing me with a life that
you’re not in.
Do you hate time too, Jasper?
I watched you on YouTube today. Congratulations on your takeover. I love how
successful you are. Maybe that means you’re not hurting like I am?
I hope not.
I know you're not coming to get me. I ruined it.
I dream about you.
Always about you.

–your dreamer, Dix

Yeah baby, I hated time too.

We didn’t let time win though, did we?
 Day 872

I’ve started to plot out ways to kill my mother.

Twisty, dark ways that would lead to me being arrested for murder. Would you come see
me in jail?
Surely you would, right?
Anyways, I miss you.
I finished college early. Had nothing better to do.

–your graduate, Dix

Day 902

Got a job as a reporter. Sucks.

My boss is nice. Claire. You’d like her because she’s funny like you.
Doesn’t really matter though. I just want you. Always you. Come take me away. Please.
I know I said I gave up on that notion, but I didn’t. I will never give up.

–your lonesome chick, Dix

Day 984

Tabloids say you met someone. I don’t like that, but I understand.
Will you still come save me?

–your unrightfully jealous girl, Dix

Day 990

She’s a lawyer. You have a type apparently.

Is it psychotic that I considered law school for a bit when I read that? Would that make
you come for me?
Have you stayed away because you finally figured out you’re too good for me?

–your bitter girl, Dix

Day 1090

Do you love her?

I love you, Jasper.
Please don’t give up on me.
–Dix

“I’m home,” Dixie sings. The click of her sandals falls against the floor as she finds her way into
the room. Her hair is braided down the middle, pigtails falling on each side of her head. Her dress is
sky blue with ruffled cap sleeves.
Her breath catches, her eyes stuck on the papers surrounding me.
“You wrote to me… every day?”
Tears slip out of her eyes, tinted by her mascara, leaving little trails of gray on her cheeks. “I
wanted to send them so badly. Please don’t be mad at me.”
Her lower lip wobbles. Wrapping her into my arms, my hand strokes the back of her hair, her
tears probably staining my white shirt. “I wish you didn’t have to experience hurt like that, baby. No
one should have to feel like that, ever. Especially not my Dixie girl. I’m not mad, dollface. I’m upset
for you.”
She cries into my chest softly. “But, I killed the garden. And– and all of those flower bundles you
sent me. It’s my fault–”
“Shh,” I coax. “It's not on you, Dix. You didn’t kill anything, love. Remember what I told you,
that week of guilt is done. I’ll never be mad about it. It’s just us now, love.”
“B–but I could have–”
“Dixie, you are the garden, don’t you get it? You’re the sun that the flowers bask in, the water
they drink and the air they sway in. You’re the fucking garden, you’re the Aphrodite fountain,
you’re… everything. Nothing changes that. Not to me, okay?”
She sucks in, steadying herself. “Jasper, you’re my garden. I love you so much that it hurts. My
soul aches for you and I can’t ever get enough of you.”
“Well good, because I have an endless supply of me, and only one person I’m willing to give any
product to.”
She giggles at the ridiculously cheesy line, wiping her face with the backs of her hands. “We
should get rid of them, you know? Cleanse the past, make room for the future.”
“I think that’s a great idea, dollface.”
And so before we take off on our private flight to Italy, we burn the letters, letting go of all of the
bad. “We’re making room for new memories, Dixie girl. Are you excited?”
“Giddy,” she tells me, kissing the hand holding hers. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Let’s do it, dollface.”
When the takeoff evens out and the seatbelt light turns off, Dixie turns to me with a sly smile.
“Are we going to fuck in the sky?”
“You asking me to induct you into the mile-high club, dollface?”
She hums, tapping her chin with her index finger. “I’m not sure I can afford the membership fees.
The guy I live with, he pays all my bills. I don’t think I could convince him to front the bill for
something like this.”
Dixie girl wants to play? Let’s play.
“This guy, is he your boyfriend?”
Shrugging, she says, “Sorta. Does that bother you, sir? I mean, he’s very powerful. You should
probably be scared of even talking to me.”
“Sounds like you’re the one who's scared, gorgeous. I’ve got some tricks I bet your boyfriend
doesn’t know. Let me show you, hm?”
Dixie breaks character for a minute to giggle before restoring her game face. “If you say so…”
As cute as this little game is, I can’t help myself from ending the play. I want her screaming
my name to pop her ears when the pressure builds up. We’ll role play another time.
“I bet your boyfriend doesn’t fuck your ass, does he?”
 Her eyes bug out in the cutest display of alarm. Dixie is not into backdoor activities and I’m
too in love with her pussy to care about it. Maybe one day, but I won’t push.
“Woah, party foul,” she pouts. “You are just not for me, Mr. Plane guy.” She gets up, spinning
around in a circle quickly, her white skirt revealing her lack of panties. I swear she wears them less
than any other human. “Oh my gosh, Jasper! It’s so good you’re here! I need your big fat cock. Pretty
please.”
“Not sure you deserve it, Dollface. I saw you making eyes at that man,” I scold teasingly.
“You want this cock? You fuck yourself with it. Do it well enough, and I’ll take over. I know how
much you want a pounding, so you better ride like your orgasm depends on it, Dixie girl.”
She’s on me in an instant, pulling my cock from my pants and straddling it. She’s so slick and
ready, she’s able to just sink down into my lap to take it inside of her. And then she rides. She hikes
herself up, grabbing the back of my seat and getting to her feet with her knees bent. The angle is fan-
fucking-tastic as she bounces on her knees, pulling herself up and down with her grip.
“So deep.”
“Not deep enough,” I argue, tipping my hips upward as she comes down.
She jumps, unable to take every inch comfortably. My thumb finds her clit to soothe the
stretch.
“Shhhhhhit,” she whimpers.
“You ride this one out, baby. Make us both come. It’s a long flight, I’ll fuck you at least two more
times before we land.”
The promise and the rotation of my thumb over her sensitive flesh pushes her to her end. I let go
too, spilling into her as she floods my cock.
“That was–”
“Still only the beginning, dollface.”
“I love you,” she tells me, moving to her knees and resting her head on my chest. “Love you so
much.”
“Never stopped loving you, never will,” I promise.
“Good.”
“Get some sleep, Dix. I’ll be here when you wake up. Always.”
“Always,” she repeats.
Nothing is more permanent than her and I.
 Lunch In Italy
“You may have the universe if I may have Italy.”
–Giuseppe Verdi.

Dixie

“Oh my God! Hi!” A pregnant woman gushes, running right into me, throwing her fantastically
golden arms around me. Her little bump touches my stomach lightly.
“Arianna,” Jasper mouths, amused at my shock.
Right of course. Duh, Dixie, duh.
In my defense, I wasn’t aware that Gio’s girlfriend was pregnant, or so young. I make a mental
note to kick myself for not asking more questions about her sooner. All I know is that I met her brother
Lorenzo when he helped Jasper with Gio and that she’s with two men. Another friend of her brother’s
named Luca.
She has this silky golden brown hair and big brown eyes I’m sure help her get away with a lot
when she uses them.
We must be close in age by the look of it as she pulls back to check me out. “You’re
stunning,” she declares. “Your hair is so long. I’m totally jealous!”
This girl is blind. Has to be. Our hair is nearly the same length. Sure, mine is a tiny bit longer,
but nothing to be jealous over. Her teeth are also inhumanly white, accentuating her smile like she’s
the star of a crest commercial.
“It’s really nice to meet you,” I say nervously. “You’re gorgeous too.”
“Did you ditch Gio and Luca to run in here?” Jasper scolds.
Her eyes roll. “Hello to you too, again, Jasper.”
Jasper and Arianna have met a few times briefly, but she’s only just learned about her family's
business and is playfully bitter about being kept in the dark. She pretends she’s mad that he knew
before her. That’s what he tells me anyway.
“Manners, Arianna,” Lorenzo says sarcastically. Katherine is at his side, dressed to the nines
in a red dress that hugs every curve perfectly.
Luca, I’m assuming, and Gio get to Arianna’s side at the same time, both pinning her with a
look of disapproval. “Don’t run off again or I’ll-” Gio starts, only to be interrupted by the beautiful
blonde man next to him.
“Hey Dixie, I’m Luca. Heard a lot about you,” he says, giving me a quick side hug and kissing
my cheek in greeting. His eyes are almost too blue to be natural. “We haven’t met yet, so you don’t
know this, but I’m the group's favorite. We voted.”
“We were intoxicated during that poll,” Katherine argues.
“Still counts,” he maintains, grinning.
“Let’s argue about the legitimacy of the vote after we order appetizers, I’m starving,” Arianna
pouts.
“You ate an hour ago,” Lorenzo tells her, keeping the humor in his tone obvious.
“I know you aren’t making fun of me while I’m growing your nephew.”
He holds his hands up in mock surrender.
Luca gets everyone to finally sit down, taking the seat next to me, telling me he’ll save me
from some of Arianna’s questions. Jasper takes my other side, sitting next to Lorenzo, while Gio takes
Arianna’s other side next to Katherine. The round table is quite roomy in the sophisticated restaurant.
Apparently a close friend of Gio’s family owns it and they serve excellent traditional Italian meals.
Arianna rambles off four different appetizers for the table after the waitress takes our drink orders.
This is the strongest feeling of welcome I’ve ever experienced in a group like this. Everyone is
picking on each other and laughing and we’ve barely been seated for ten minutes.
“So, Dixie,” Arianna starts, “is this your first time in Italy?”
Sipping on the crisp white wine Luca poured for me, I nod eagerly. “It’s my first time outside of
the U.S. Jasper had to get me a passport.”
Katherine snorts. “It’s not as necessary as you think.”
Lorenzo bites back a smile. “Jasper is a clean businessman, despite present company.”
“I don’t know,” I muse playfully. “He sure skates the line of bribery a lot.”
Arianna gasps. “What a scandal. And you Dixie, any devious crimes you’ve committed?”
Jasper jumps at this question. “She stole a pair of scissors once.”
I nearly cough on my wine, setting it back down to avoid repeating the act. “It was hardly stealing.
They were Pam’s. You pay her.”
He smirks. “She stole them so I’d cut her clothes off of her.”
 And now my face is redder than my hair. Gio shakes his head with a smile while Luca gives me a
playful surprised look.
Arianna just says, “You should try a knife next time. Much higher pressure situation than using
scissors.”
“I second that notion,” Katherine chirps.
“I need a stronger drink,” Lorenzo grumbles.
The waitress takes our orders, each of us getting a different dish. I went with a classic pasta in
some sort of vodka sauce that Katherine recommended. The appetizers come out steaming and
smelling like buttery herbs. Arianna practically devours the dish of Bruschetta, leaving the Caponata,
Stromboli, meatballs and bread for the rest of the table.
“You keep calling the baby a boy,” Jasper says. “Do you know yet?”
“It’s a boy,” Gio says at the same time Luca says “No.”
Katherine finds this hilarious. “Gio thinks he’s too manly to make a girl. We’re pretty sure this one
is his.”
“Not too manly,” he argues. “Genetics. Colombos have boys. It just happens. Over and over and
over again.”
“I can’t wait to buy her her first fairy princess dress,” Katherine teases again.
“This is so weird,” I mumble quietly to Jasper. “Is this what having friends is like?”
“Nah,” Luca answers, eavesdropping. “You won’t find a better friend group. And we're not even
all here.”
“Ah!” Arianna yells excitedly. “Yes! You have to meet Jules, Angelo, and Marco!”
“Marco is Arianna’s favorite brother,” Katherine says, winking at Lorenzo.
“Caterina and Vito too,” Gio adds.
“I’ve had one friend like my whole life, and she was my boss,” I admit. “I’m a little unconvinced
this is real life.”
“Ugh, I used to be the same way. Long depressing story, but it’s okay. You’re one of us now.”
I almost cry. Luckily the food arrives and I’m able to distract myself until the emotion backs off.
We eat, laugh and sip our drinks for what feels like hours. Everything is going very smoothly until
Jasper comes back from the bathroom scowling.
“Why the angry face?” Gio beats me to the question.
“Waitress can’t take a hint,” he says dismissively.
Katherine’s face turns scary. “She hit on you? Our waitress?”
Jasper nods. “She figured Dix was with Luca. I’m assuming she doesn’t see very many
throuples. She thought I was trying to brush her off, given that Dixie “looks like she could be my
daughter.”
“What?” Arianna demands.
“I’m gonna stab her,” Katherine hisses, looking around for the woman to return with the
receipt. Lorenzo discretely moves her dinner knife out of her reach.
I’m honestly too stunned to speak. I mean, who does that? He’s not wearing a ring but no
means no. And I do not look like I could be his daughter. I don’t even notice that she’s returned to the
table until Katherine starts tearing her apart.
“You think harassing a customer is okay, do you? Even if he were single, which he’s fucking not.
You’re not even close to being on his level. Fucking $30 manicure, clip-in-extension-wearing-ass-
bitch. No means no, you classless twat. I will–”
Lorenzo cuts off her threat with a cough, but she doesn’t stop. She simply continues to cuss her out
in Spanish while Arianna nods after every sentence, muttering “uh huhs” and “that’s right.”
If someone yelled at me like Katherine is doing to this woman, I would probably cry. This girl,
though, crosses her arms and grinds her molars like she’s being inconvenienced, when I’m pretty
positive her life is being threatened.
Her manager fires her in front of us. Gio doesn’t let him apologize and brushes it off with a
friendly handshake. The man seems utterly relieved as he walks us out.
Jasper and Luca are still laughing about it as we pile into an SUV. Apparently on our way to see
Arianna’s new home. She says the remodels have been the only thing keeping her sane these days.
When Katherine takes her seat next to me, I ask her what she even said to the woman because I
couldn’t pick up a single word, since she spoke far too quickly.
She shrugs. “I told her that homewreckers were scum and that if she were on fire I would push her
into a pool, dry her off, and then set her aflame again. A few times.”
“You also cursed her future orgasms to be unfulfilling,” Lorenzo says, amused.
“‘Sandpaper tongued lovers’ was in there somewhere,” Arianna giggles. “She’s used that one
before.”
“You’re kinda awesome, you know that?”
She smirks. “Duh.”
The ride doesn’t take long, but it’s full of more out-of-pocket conversations and half-hearted
arguments. The small city disappears, morphing into a countryside area. A few mansions sit on large
plots of land every few miles. It’s like those gated home communities celebrities live in, only better.
There’s space, little mountains and trees scattered about. It’s a heavenly sight to a girl like me.
When we pull into the driveway of our destination, I’m baffled. No one talks as we get out,
each stepping onto the cobblestones. Looking around with wide eyes, I stagger backward, running into
the hard chest of my lover.
“Jasper, it looks just like–”
“I know.”
“But, it’s like identical, how–”
“Surprise,” he says, kissing my cheek from my side.
“This is…”
“Oh my god I’m too pregnant for this!” Arianna groans. “Do you love it!?”
“I’m so confused right now.”
It’s the estate. Our estate. Every brick, color and shape of our mansion. Here. In Italy. Jasper,
blocks my view, grabbing my hands.
“All you’ve ever wanted was a family. And the only family I’ve got is here. I figure you might
want to live a few miles away from them. You know, for the rest of our lives. So I had the estate
remodeled here. It’s not exactly the same, but close, and the garden out back has the fountain–”
Thick tears tumble down my cheeks. “You want to move here? Really? For me?”
Arianna sniffles, whispering to Luca how romantic this is.
Jasper wipes my tears away with his thumbs. “There’s one condition though. Well, two actually.”
I gulp.
“One. You still need that flower shop, hm? So this weekend you’re going store-front hunting with
Arianna. And two, you have to say yes,” he pauses, pulling a small black box from his jacket pocket.
“To being my wife.”
The little box opens, presenting an oval cut ring, with a middletoned pink stone and little white
diamonds surrounding it. More tears, more hot and too-big-for-my-eyes-to-handle tears fall.
Wordlessly I walk into him, setting my head on his chest trying to calm down. Squeezing him so hard I
think I might be hurting my arms in the process.
“I can’t get down on a knee if you don’t let me go, dollface,” he whispers.
“Don’t let me go,” I demand. “Yes. No kneeling, I’ll faint. But yes. God yes.”
Cheers erupt around us. Everyone exchanges hugs and Arianna babbles about how much fun we're
going to have.
I’ve lusted after two things for my entire life. Love, and family. Jasper Aroselyn has given them
both to me and I’m going to marry the absolute shit out of him.
No one has made me burn like he does every day.
I’m hopelessly burnt for my baby, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

THE END

Well, that shit hurt. At least it did for me. Second chance romance is not something I can handle
writing or reading often because I’m a big ole baby when it comes to regret and guilt. I think we can
all take a page from Jasper’s playbook and say fuck you to the things that plague us. Let that bullshit
go, and LIVE.
 It’s a great big world filled with great big books to read besties.

I also need to give a fat shout out to booktok and bookstagram. All you content-making baddies
seriously rock my world. The community of romance readers is all powerful. Really, we could run
the world in 3-5 business days with only a solid night’s sleep and some margaritas to fuel us.
Continue to be epic, please.

Thanks for taking the journey, and as always, let me know what you think!
I’m a sucker for your messages!

- K.L Mann

Want to know more about Arianna? Keep reading to see the first
chapter of my most popular story, I’ll Burn Anyone.

I’ll Burn Anyone Sneak Peak

Preface

I have a problem. I’m utterly obsessed with my brother’s best friend and I have been for
years. He won’t give into my advances and he treats me like I’m still a kid although I’m nearly 21.
While my brother and his wife are off on their honeymoon, I’m hiding out at their house to get a break
from campus. But the thing is, he lives there too. Both of my brother’s best friends do. So, I’m stuck
living in the same house as them for the next three weeks. My confidence dwindles every time he
rejects me, but I’m going to break him down. Gio Colombo will be mine, fuck forbidden.
 Chapter 1: Escape Plan

“The greatest weapon against stress

is our ability to choose one thought over another.”
–William James

Arianna

Waiting outside for someone to pick you up is something that shouldn’t feel embarrassing, but
it does. Like getting up to use the bathroom during a lecture or eating in a crowded restaurant. I’m
sure somewhere out there, there are people who do normal activities without feeling strange, but I’m
not one of them. I’ve always been more socially uncomfortable than I let on. No matter how
convincing I may be, I’m a fraud.
I put on brave and peppy faces to convince myself I feel safe when I’m not sure that I do.
Despite my inner fears, I certainly come across as confident. I’m loud, overbearing and worst of all, a
hugger. Of all my problems, physical touch has never been one. I like affection and it’s one of the few
things that doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable. I enjoy being held, hugged and kissed, but doesn’t
everyone?
Even though my confidence is fabricated, it comes across as quite genuine after years and
years of practice. Since I have always clung to the sunshine persona that I crafted at a young age, I’m
quite the actress. Though, I think in some ways, false happiness makes me happy. It’s comfortable to
hide. Even if it’s wrong, it feels right.
Mamma raised a poised and sophisticated lady quite well, but even she couldn’t decipher my
lazy forced smiles from the real ones. Mamma, like the rest of our family members, simply notice
what I allow them to notice. They see my eyes full of mischief, my teeth when I smile and my flushed
cheeks when I laugh. I’m a proper heiress, well-behaved, well-mannered, classically beautiful,
humble, and modest to the untrained eye.
The thing is, even princesses crack underneath copious amounts of heated pressure.
Expectations are a steaming hot bitch, but luckily, I almost always end up meeting them. Arianna
Vitale has always outperformed. I’ve taken on my peers academically with brilliant success. I was a
varsity cheerleader before anyone else my age. Prom Queen, Homecoming Princess and Valedictorian
of my class came easily to me.
Part of me always wished I didn’t attract so much attention, but with success comes notoriety.
Lorenzo, my eldest brother, loves notoriety. He enjoys being honored for his achievements, and I find
it sincerely unnerving. Yet I suffered through the attention to avoid my father's biggest fear, failure.
Vitales are not failures. We’re successful and honorable Italians with great pride in our
family. We have history and we maintain our good name through glorious achievements. I suffer
because if anything is worth being in pain, it’s family.
I love my family more than the night sky loves the stars. Vitales are fierce lovers, and that is
what I’m most proud of. Personally, I pride myself on a few things. However, I’m much better at
pulling apart my downfalls.
I’m a kind friend and a dutiful daughter. I’m great at cheering people up, and I am an amazing
shopper. But I’m a shit sister, if I’m being honest.
I envy Lorenzo so much that it makes me hate him sometimes. Hate his success, how our
parents favor him, his power and how lucky he is to have a woman like Katherine. She’s got her
issues, believe me. But she loves him with the fiercest passion I’ve ever seen. A good sister would be
happy for him, but I allow my jealousy to eat at me.
I’m a better sister to Marco, my junior by three years. Still, I seem to fail him just as often as I
do him good, but in different ways than I fail Lorenzo. I should stick up for Marco more often, and it
makes me disappointed with myself whenever I don’t. I know I don’t have the power to fend off my
father’s rude comments or the isolation he subjects Marco to. As his sister, I shouldn’t care about the
consequences of being his Saviour. I should just do it.
Marco and I grew up thick as thieves. We might as well have had our own language. We
understood each other, and we spent more time together than with anyone else. Lorenzo, being much
other than us, meant he didn’t really grow up alongside us. He was already eight when I was born and
eleven when Marco came along. He was more like a second father than a brother. But Marco and I
were best friends, even as siblings.
Marco is an outcast, set on never joining the family business. He won’t talk about it with me,
probably because I’m not privy to business discussions. The Vitale are old school and the men run the
family businesses. Not that I mind, I’m not expected to be a housewife. Women can do whatever they
want, but the men run Vitale Industries. Lorenzo started working for our father young, and Marco
should have started already, but he won’t. Hence the bridge of rage being built around him.
I wish he’d tell me more, but I won’t push him, even if he’s spiraling. Marco rebels against
Italy, favoring American music and culture to spite what he believes our father stands for. He drinks
too much and parties too often, but he’s always been my closest ally, so I’ll never judge him. He’s
always been my best friend, yet even he doesn’t know how I feel in my own skin.
So you see, I’m sort of a phony.
If you asked anyone in my family what my biggest problem in life is, they might make some
silly comment about a shopping dilemma. Maybe Katherine might dig deeper and mention my
loneliness. But none of them would consider me an anxious person.
 So, like a phony does, I suffer in silence, waiting for my ride. All I can do is pretend to be
interested in something on my phone, so I don’t have to see anyone looking at me. There’s only so
much scrolling I can do with disinterested, wary eyes. Luckily, Katherine finally texts me back as I’m
getting restless.

Katherine: We landed safely. We’re in the Maldives!

I already knew where they were going. I made Lorenzo tell me because I loath surprises.

Arianna: Thank you again for letting me stay here, and keeping my secret. Have fun!
Katherine: You too. *Winky face*

She’s completely on team Arianna and Gio. She calls us Ario, her version of a celebrity ‘ship’
name, I guess. I’m glad I have her support because fuck knows I’m going to need it.
A car horn honks, making me jump and look up from my phone with a glare.
It’s Luca. I can see his blindingly blonde hair even through the tinted windshield. He’s picking
me up from my dorm and taking me back to Lorenzo’s house as a favor to my brother. I can tell he’s
driving one of Lorenzo’s Maseratis, which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. He has his own cars
but never drives them. I think he prefers staring at them or something.
All the men in my life have a weird obsession with cars that I don’t understand. Even
Katherine likes them. She’s bought herself a few ‘muscle cars’ since the wedding. I’m smart enough to
look past the nice sounds they make and understand that they’re terrible investments. All of them have
expensive taste and not nearly enough time to appreciate the hunks of metal. I suppose since they have
money to burn, they like burning it.
Luca Caruso is a pain in my ass. He drives me insane, but he’s picking me up right now, so I’ll
play nice for today.
Both Gio and Luca know my parents aren’t aware that I’m doing this. Katherine threatened to
cut their balls off and fry them up for dinner if they let my secret slip. One of her issues is being a bit
dramatically psychotic, but I love her for it anyway.
Coming to stay at their house was her idea. She knows a bit about my feeling isolated in
Milan, and she’s on this whole self care kick, so she’s demanding I take care of myself for once. She’s
right, and that’s why I didn’t put up a fight. I jumped at the chance with a big fat smile on my face.
I just can’t stay on campus right now. It’s too much. Everyone looks at me strangely, and no
one invites me to anything. I’m practically royalty back home and yet on campus I’m a social pariah.
My professors were way too easily convinced to move my courses online for the rest of the semester,
which only added insult to injury. There’s a month left, and it’s like even they didn’t want me here.
Luca doesn’t get out of the driver's seat and I don’t expect him to. I easily throw my suitcase
into the back seat and climb in, sitting next to it.
“Thank you for coming to get me.” I rarely say nice things to him, but I have manners,
especially when someone is doing me a favor. Our town is like three hours from my school, so flying
seemed unnecessary; meaning I needed him. It would also be easier for my father to figure out I’m
home if I get on a plane. Luca looks back at me like I’m crazy, probably because I haven’t made a
snarky comment yet. “What, I can’t say thank you?” My voice rolls off my tongue like an insult as I
glare at him slightly.
He returns my snarky look. “You can, you just normally don’t.”
 “Don’t read too much into it. I’ll be rude when you’re done doing me a favor.”
“Good.” He turns back around, shaking his head with a weak laugh. He revs the engine before
he speeds off like a race car driver. Completely unnecessary, but completely Luca.
Car rides are mind-numbing to me. I usually do whatever it takes to make time move by more
quickly. It’s only natural to take out my laptop and flip on my hotspot. I have a few papers due at the
end of the month that I’ve already started. I want to get them done sooner than later, so I throw in a
pair of headphones and start typing; hoping the ride will be over quickly.
Luca and Gio aren’t the only ones keeping my secret. Marco knows I’m coming home, too. As
much as he’s an ass nowadays, we actually get along most of the time. Even though we were really
close as kids, things have become more complicated.
It’s difficult to be around him with how our parents treat him. I’m expected to keep him in the
same tone as they do, but I don’t like it. Since they don’t know that I’m coming home, we might go out.
His friends don’t seem to mind me being around, and it would be nice to not feel completely shunned
again. I’ll have to sneak out, and that will either be extremely difficult or easy if Gio ignores me like
he normally does. Caterina, Lorenzo’s chef and personal assistant, won’t be there to catch me since
Katherine gave her paid vacation while they're gone. Though, I’m genuinely expecting her to come
cook for the boys, despite her time off. She’s a mama bear like that, even though she’s young.
I don’t think my parents will find out I’ve left the campus. Mamma is completely occupied
helping Sofia, Katherine’s mom, move into her new house. She decided to stay in Italy and bought a
small mansion a few miles from our estate. Mamma and Sofia were fast friends. They are together all
the time now. Papa is occupied with work often, so I think my chances of staying off their radar are
good.
Chances are, they wouldn’t mind me being home, but they wouldn’t want me at Lorenzo’s, and
that’s where I want to be. Papa would also give me an earful if I said that I left Uni because I felt
lonely. He’s a big tough guy and even though I’m not, he expects me to be strong as an ox.
Vitales are warriors, Arianna, you are fierce. His words ring in my ears, itching to make me
feel bad for making this decision. Surely he won’t act upset with me, but the possibility of insulting
papa makes me sad. He’s my father and I want him to be proud of me.
Luca is driving like he’s in a race to win a priceless artifact or something, yet somehow he
doesn’t get pulled over by the three cops we pass. My brother and his friends practically run our city
with business interests and apparently have some of the best luck ever. Everyone acts like they are a
big deal, but I just ignore them. It’s stupid to care how much money or power they have. Even girls on
campus will whisper about them sometimes, like they are superstars.
It pisses me off, especially when they talk about Gio.
Gio isn’t for them.
He’s mine.
I finished a lot of research and I’m nearly finished with a 2,500 word paper just as we pull
into Lorenzo’s property. The car comes to a stop outside of the front steps. Closing my laptop and
throwing it into my purse, I take a quiet breath to prepare myself.
“Thanks again, loser,” I say, opening my door and jumping out with my suitcase and purse in
hand.
“You’re welcome, brat,” he pokes back.
The car shuts off and Luca jumps out.
We’ve never gotten along, Luca and I. Some of it is jokes, some of it isn’t. He’s called me brat, short
for spoiled brat, since I remember meeting him. He was sixteen, and I was ten, so in hindsight, I
probably was a spoiled brat to him. Still, I don’t remember ever doing anything to genuinely upset
him, other than being born into money. But Lorenzo is his best friend and my brother, so it seems like
a poor reason to hate me. I, on the other hand, hate him because he started it.
Luca goes inside and I follow behind him slowly with no need or desire to rush, then make my
path upstairs. I’m staying in Katherine’s room. She assured me someone thoroughly disinfected it,
which is nice, but I wish she wouldn’t have said it out loud. I didn’t need a mental picture of what
goes down in her bed, especially since I’ve already heard her screaming my brother's name in the
next room before.
Gross.
I envy that she’s so comfortable talking about sex. I just wish it didn’t involve my brother.
She’s given me advice before about good sex, and I had to admit that I had nothing to compare it to.
Being a virgin as a sophomore in college is probably the most embarrassing thing to admit to
someone. She didn’t shame me about it or anything, but I still felt sad talking about it. No guy has ever
been willing to do more than kiss me or touch my boobs through my shirt. It’s like there’s a sign on my
head that says ‘don’t touch me’. I’ve wanted to burn that damn sign more times than I can count. It’s
frustrating and I despise it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve felt touch, just exclusively my own touch. It’s pathetic, but I know
how to please myself, so it’s not all bad. I just don’t understand why it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve
wanted it before, many times. There was a brief period where I wanted it to happen just to make Gio
jealous, but I haven’t even tried with anyone else since I turned eighteen.
The legal age of consent in Italy is fourteen, but Gio wouldn’t even flirt back at me when I
was sixteen. Understandably, I think he didn’t want to feel like he was grooming me. So I backed off
until I turned eighteen, that is. Still, he didn’t budge, and it got increasingly upsetting when he would
reject me.
I drunkenly kissed Gio a few months ago, and I wanted it to go further so badly. I could have
sworn he was going to kiss me back. Instead, he pushed me off. Then the next day, Lorenzo scolded
me about it for an hour as if I were a child. Like I wasn’t already embarrassed enough to be rejected,
Gio told on me too.
My stubborn man.
Katherine’s room is on the second floor, and it’s huge. It might even be bigger than my room at
the family estate. As I open the door, chills run down my back; It’s cold in here.
There’s a little note propped up on the bed.

“Help yourself to anything, closet included, though I’m not sure if any of it will fit. Have
fun and relax, this is to take stress away, not add it!
-your favorite sister–in–law”

Katherine has this weird idea that I’m a million times skinnier than her. We’re practically the
same size. She just has bigger hips and definitely bigger boobs. I looked it up on the internet and I
think she has some sort of body dysmorphia which makes me sad for her. She’s fucking hot, but
sometimes it’s like she doesn’t think she is. Granted, her size has very little to do with how stunning
she is. All bodies can be gorgeous.
She has these weird mood swings, like she represses herself sometimes and other times is the
life of the party. I know she has a lot of sadness in her past, but we don’t talk about it.
I put the note on the bedside table near the alarm clock and set my suitcase on the bed.
Walking into the ensuite bathroom, my mind relaxes at the sight of her show. Mostly because I need it.
I need to be under the hot stream of water and experience it again. A good shower. I couldn’t stand
having to shower at school in the dorms. The water pressure is awful and the hot water doesn’t last
long enough.
There’s a folded stack of fluffy white towels on the sink that looks like soft clouds of cotton.
Her shower covers the entire back wall of the bathroom. It’s beautiful and the deep spa sized tub is
calling my name too. But a shower will be quicker, and I’m hungry, so that’s my choice.
The water is practically boiling hot, filling the air with wet steam, just the way I like it.
Katherine and I use the same products aside from our conditioners. Her hair is significantly curlier
than mine, meaning she needs special stuff for it. My hair has always been sort of wavy from time to
time, but it’s usually straight until I style it. So I use my personal conditioner, lathering it all over my
head, pulling out any tangles in the process. The waterfall shower head fills the room with echos that
make it sound like a rainstorm. It’s peaceful, but when my stomach growls at me, I finish up and get
out.
I towel dry my body and blow out my hair, keeping it straight with a little volume. I’m cold
doing this naked, but I hate getting dressed with wet hair, so I tough it out. Once I finish, I throw on a
simple baby blue bra and panties set and try to decide what to wear. I don’t know if I’ll see Gio or
not, but I’m starting my mission slowly.
I pick out a pair of skintight black jeans with tattered rips in the knees and put on a pink long–
sleeved crop top. My sparkly belly button ring is visible just the right amount. I don’t know that Gio
or Luca has ever seen it, but they will now. Converse and a pair of silver hoops top off the look. For
makeup I just put on my base, lashes, chapstick and some bronzer. I’m not going out, so I don’t care
too much about having a fancy eye–look on.
The alarm clock says 7pm when I grab my phone and make my way out of the room. I shove it
in my back pocket and take the stairs down to the foyer.
It’s empty.
I make my way to the kitchen and I find Luca sitting at the countertop. He’s eating pizza from
Bella’s, our family's favorite shop. There’s three boxes on the counter and a bottle of white wine
opened next to them. I don’t acknowledge him. I just walk past him and grab a plate.
He doesn’t acknowledge me either. I think I see him glance at me, but I don’t pay attention.
Taking a slice with vegetables on it and grabbing a wine glass before I sit down, I do a medium pour
into the glass and sit at the counter, leaving a chair of space in between us.
The pizza is cold when I bite into it, but still fantastic. The wine is from one of my mom’s
selections. She has good taste, of course. I’ve been drinking wine casually since I was like twelve, so
I like to think I know a bit about it. Katherine, though, likes cheap white wine that could pass for
sparkling grape juice. I love her, but sometimes she makes me cringe.
I want to know where Gio is, but I don’t want to ask. Luca will just give me grief about it if I
do. Since Katherine moved in, she’s been making not-so-subtle hints about Gio and I. Luca has made
his place on the matter clear. He doesn’t think it’ll happen, and that irritates me.
A little faith would be nice, dammit.
“Has Lorenzo been in touch? I only got a few texts from Katherine today.” I try to make small
talk and act cool, but I'm not very good at it. It pains me. I don’t like not having a set plan for
conversations. Being rehearsed is a habit that I find comforting.
Luca grunts, swallowing his last bite. “Yeah, they’re good,” he confirms.
“Oh.”
 I’ve finished my pizza too, but I stay in my seat, sipping the last of my wine.
“You gonna ask what you really want to know?”
My heart thumps in my chest, but I keep my face relaxed. “I don’t know what you’re talking
about,” I nearly stutter, trying to fake confusion.
“You’re like the worst liar, you know that?” He laughs, giving me a cheeky grin. “Gio’s out,
he’ll be back though.”
Possessive questions swirl around in my mind, itching to come out.
Out where?
With who?
How long has he been gone?
“That’s pretty vague.”
He raises an eyebrow at me and it makes my stomach flutter with even more nerves. “I thought
you didn’t want to know?”
“I don’t,” I huff unconvincingly.
“Right.” His reply is all sarcasm.
“Maybe I just wanted to talk to you Luca,” I retort with a forked tongue. My lashes bat at him
without permission in a teasing sort of manner, punctuating my claim.
He eyes me cautiously, his lips curling into a smile. “Need a little banter to keep you on your
toes, princess, is that it?”
“Maybe I’m trying to trip you up, jerk. Make you lose your focus and then use your inevitable
mistake to blackmail you. It’s always good to be armed against unruly enemies.”
“We’re hardly enemies, and you could never trip me up princess. I know you,” he retorts with
confidence. Cockiness is more like it. He bleeds it.
Luca stands up, striding around the counter, keeping his eyes on mine. He puts his plate in the
sink with easy, delicate hands. I do too, holding his gaze, keeping my chin up. We’re close together
now and it feels strange, breathing the same air. His eyes land on my stomach, seating themselves at
the location. Once they’re set, they don’t move.
Chills run over me unexpectedly.
“What?” I look back down at it, thinking I may have split food on myself.
He flicks his finger against my bellybutton jewelry and it sways as he does. His skin only
briefly hits mine, but I feel it deeper than I should. “Your dad know about that?”
“I’m twenty years old. I don’t need permission from my dad anymore Luca, for anything.”
Hitting his hand away from my skin, I take a small step back. The audacity of him to treat me like a
child is infuriating. “Lorenzo is covered in tattoos and does whatever he wants. I get a piercing and
suddenly we’re a conservative family?”
“If you don’t need permission from dear old dad, then why are you here secretly?” Luca
smirks like he’s beaten me with his cunning wit, but I’m not a loser. I will never be a loser. Vitales
are winners. It’s my birthright, not his.
“You know why,” I sigh as my eyes roll smoothly. Now I feel exposed and defensive. “If I
complain that I don’t want to be on campus because no one wants to be my friend, I’m not exactly
going to get a sympathetic reaction from him. He doesn't do ‘running away’ from your problems.” I
sound so stupid, but I don’t care. I don’t need Luca’s judgment.
“Poor princess Vitale,” he fake pouts, spouting my other famous nickname. “I’m sure it’s so
hard being an heiress when no one is there to fall at your feet and praise you.”
“Exactly. Thanks for proving my point, asshole. You’re just like him,” I grumble, throwing my
hands up like I’m exhausted. “Screw you Luca.” I genuinely hate confrontation and it’s making my
stomach hurt. I could do without the utter lack of understanding that seems to encompass this house.
“You have friends and people like you. No, scratch that, everyone loves you. My parents, my brother,
Katherine, and every stranger you’ve ever met. People used to tolerate me, but no one talks to me
anymore. The only time I hear my name is when people whisper about Arianna Vitale, the rich girl to
stay away from. I didn’t fucking do anything, but somehow I’m bad news to everyone on campus. I
thought it was just because I was a freshman last year, but nothing has changed. Since I’ve enrolled,
I’ve gone to one college party, because it was an open invitation.”
Luca’s face changes a little, a hint of sympathy flashes in his eyes.
“Boo hoo, you don’t need friends.”
Okay, maybe it’s not sympathy.
“You’re impossible.” I feel my eyes getting wet as I turn away from him. I start to leave the
kitchen and yell back, “I hate you guys. At least Katherine was nice to me!” My voice cracks on the
last note of my tantrum.
I rarely lash out. Vitales are level–headed, controlled under all circumstances. But I’m sick of
no one understanding that pain doesn’t have to be physical in order to be real.
These tears are more embarrassing tears than sad ones, though I suppose I’ve always been
sensitive. I’ve gotten significantly better at not crying, but this is a fresh wound. I immediately whip
my tears away when they hit my skin. Rushing back up the stairs to Katherine’s room, I whip out my
phone and dial Marco, slamming the door behind me as he picks up the phone.
“What’s up?” is all he greets me with.
“I want to go out.” My voice shakes slightly as I speak.
“Tonight?”
“Yeah tonight, it’s Friday, let’s go to Club Lucifer.”
“Why? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Bring friends, tabs on me.” I pause, collecting myself for a moment. “You'll have to
sneak me out though.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so? You’re paying and you’re sneaking out? Devious, I’m in.
Figure out how to sneak out of fortress Vitale and I’ll get you at eleven.”
Relief shoots through me beautifully.
I need a night out with people who don’t retract away in my presence. “Thank you!”
I hang up and check the time on my phone. It’s almost 8pm, so I still have awhile before I need
to get ready. I kind of want to go downstairs to watch TV, but I don’t want to see Luca or Gio, for that
matter. I decide to work on my other assignments instead.
 Author’s Social Media
Instagram: Kindakassiee
Tiktok: Kassandramann
Wattpad: Kassandramannauthor
GoodReads: K.L. Mann

Other Works
 Challenge Night Series
I’ll Do Anything
I’ll Burn Anyone
I’ll Conquer Anyplace (03/28/2022)
Tombstone Uni Minis
Dare or Death
Merry or Mortem
Bask or Burn
“Tombstone University Collection”
(The Complete Collection Edition W/ Bonus Chapters)