ARCANGELO POV Two identical faces turn to mine in unison, but I keep my focus on the screen and on my parents' shocked faces. But I'm doing exactly what my mother said. No matter where, no matter what. If I stay here, I will break that promise because for some reason I can't explain, I can't stay away from Juliet. I have never been as enamored by a girl as I am with her. And it's going to cause a rift between my brothers and I that may never get fixed. It's already caused a thin crack in the solid foundation of our brotherhood. I can't even look my brother in the eye. I am a liar. I betrayed him in the worst way possible. "Why?" My mother asks tentatively. She knows that something is up with us. She always does. Usually, she lets us sort things out between us ourselves. I shrug. "Record companies keep on calling, I don't see why I should stay here if I get all these offers." "Well, the NFL is calling me, but I made a promise." Alonso's eyes are more green
JULIET POV University is no joke. The workload is ten times more than school, and nobody cares about you. They don't care that you're on the damn A-squad of the cheerleading team, so by Friday after my classes, I'm exhausted. "Hey Juliet!" The girl at the front desk smiles brightly at me when I enter the dorms. "A package arrived for you today." I sign for the box, wondering who would be sending me something. If I had given them the chance, Alyssa and her family would surely have sent me care packages by now. I ignore the lump that thought brings out and carry the box to my room. I cut the tape from the box and stand still before opening it. What if my father contacted the university and they told him where to reach me? I'm eighteen and legally an adult, but I'm sure a parent will have access to that information. My hands are slightly shaking when I retrieve a smaller box, and I halt at the familiar pink and black striped package. I slowly undo the black ribbon an
ALONSO POV I'm mad as fuck at Arc. The asshole really upped and left Friday night without telling me or Alessi. He's never done this before. We always know what the others' plans are. Always. And he's being a pussy about it too. I want him to man up and just tell us why he's even considering dropping out of school when that was never an option for any of us. The deal was we go to the school that I chose for football. We stay in school because it's important to our mother and to Alessi. Then I try to get drafted in the city or as close to the city as possible, so Arc can pursue his music career. Does he like Juliet that much that he's willing to just let everything we've planned for years go down the drain? Or is it even about Juliet? I wouldn't fucking know, because he's shutting us out and that's just not how we roll. I'm going over the menu for my date with Yoon when Alessi comes downstairs with his duffel in his hand. He was the one who offered to leave the hous
JULIET POV My heart thunders in my chest as Alonso kisses me like I'm his last meal. His hand in my hair holds my head steady as his mouth absolutely devours mine. He lifts me up as if I'm as light as a feather, and in the back of my mind, I feel my bag falling off my shoulder somewhere, but I don't care and wrap my legs and arms around his strong body. He carries me through the house, and I clutch him only tighter as he carries me up the stairs with a speed that should scare me. But it doesn't. The man has muscles in places most people could only dream of. We enter a bedroom, and he slides me off his body at the foot off a large king-sized bed. "You better take this off before I tear it off you." His hand goes underneath the leg of my romper to caress the underside of my ass cheek before he takes a step back. I take a deep breath and slowly peel the romper from my body, not missing his sharp intake as I reveal the white set of lingerie he sent me on Friday. Like
ALONSO POV Precum leaks from the tip of my throbbing cock. I've never in my life been this hard before, it's physically painful. I get up and lift Juliet's fucking beautiful legs against my torso. These legs should be illegal in all fifty states. I honestly can't blame Arc for looking at her the way he does. I untie the golden straps of her heels and throw them on the floor. Her hair is spread around her like a golden halo, my own angel on earth. She gasps when I flip her on her stomach. "On your knees, Fly-girl." Fuck, I love the way she so easily obeys my orders. She has no idea how much that turns me on even more. I can just see her tied and gagged with nowhere to run to. That golden ass will be red from my handprints, and those blue eyes will beg me to fuck her. My hands trail the smoothness of her back and squeeze the tight globes of her ass. I love her tight, packed body. I love the feminine athleticism that makes up her. Her muscles aren't too big. She's not o
ALESSI POV The sun is barely peeking over the horizon, and I rub my eyes in exhaustion after I park my car. I should win an Oscar for the stellar performance I put on when I surprised my "girlfriend" at her apartment yesterday. Needless to stay, she was very happy to see me. She appreciated it even more that I chartered my father's private jet just to have one night with her. That's the shit boyfriends in love do. It's also one of the last things I wanted to do, but I had to get out of the house before Alonso brought Juliet over for their date. I know he planned to fuck her. The dude has been abstaining for weeks now, I don't think he ever stayed without sex for this long ever since he started having it. And that's how I knew the girl is more than just a fuck to him. She's becoming a big pain in my ass, a fuckin disturbance in our household and our brotherhood, but Alonso seems to care about her. So what should I do next? I tried to warn her. Everything would h
JULIET POV There's a persistent knock on the door and the faint, familiar sound of my alarm coming from somewhere. "Juliet!" I groggily open my eyes and look around the unfamiliar bedroom. Last night comes flooding back, and I try to move my legs, but the ache coming from in between them are almost too much. "Juliet!" I groan at the knocking. Where the hell is Alonso? Shit, I don't even have my phone with me. I left it on my bag where it fell from my shoulder last night. "Yes!" I call back, sitting up with a groan. I need a shower asap. Last night, I literally passed out in Alonso's arms after he came inside and all over me. Afterward, he sweetly pulled me into his arms and kissed my face until I literally fell asleep. So where the hell is he now? There's silence coming from the other side of the door now, and then I hear a distinct clearing of a throat. "I have your bag here, it was downstairs." I recognize Alessi's voice. "Alonso had to go to practice ve
ARCANGELO POV I look down at my body as the blonde snorts three lines of cocaine from my stomach, and I take a deep drag of the joint I'm smoking. She lifts her head and smiles at me, but her eyes are the wrong shade of blue. Everything about this girl is just fucking wrong. She straddles my waist and starts gyrating to the music blaring from the speakers, her hands going through her blonde hair. She's beautiful, I can't deny that, and she was supposed to heal my bruised ego over the weekend, but instead, I'm just feeling depressed. Marco, a friend from high school and a fellow musician, is fucking a red head on the couch in the ass, the girl is screaming like crazy, but that's not even helping to get me a hardon for the blonde. I think my dick is broken. I'm high as fuck, so when I hear a commotion coming from somewhere inside the house, my brain barely registers. "What the fuck is going on here!" My father screams from the entrance of the patio and the blonde
ALONSO POV "The NFL has decided to suspend you until after a thorough investigation has been done regarding the pictures." I faintly hear Uncle Kevin's voice over the white noise ringing in my ears, and I take another swig of my father's expensive cognac that I swiped from his alcohol display. I gather he has enough money to replace it. The bottle is abruptly grabbed from my hand. "I'm not going to stand by and watch you kill yourself." My mother takes her own swig from the bottle and then slams it down on the table. "For fuck's sake, Alonso, this is not the end of the world." I shrug nonchalantly. "Might as well be." There's a hole where my heart used to be. My career is literally being flushed down the drain. All the hours I spent in the gym, all the plays I studied, the millions of game tapes I've watched. I've always loved to party, but I always only had two light beers. I could've been fucking it up, but I was so focused on that one dream. Then Juliet came al
AMELIA My stomach clenches in agony, and I screw my eyes shut, not wanting the light streaming from the open curtains to penetrate my soul. If it wasn't for Miss Daisy, those damn curtains would've never been open in the first place. I don't need light. The darkness was just perfect for me. I'm officially a prisoner in my own house. I'm even wondering if it is my house. Did I ever belong here in the first place? I might be an Astor by DNA, but I didn't grow up with them. As much as I love them, and as much as it was none of our fault what happened, the truth remains that when I was molded into a person, it wasn't under their hands. Yet I felt like I belonged when I met them, but I feel even more at home when Alonso holds me down and fucks me ruthlessly. Or when he transforms into a huge teddy bear afterward and snuggles me. Do I believe that Alonso did that to that girl? Yes. I also know that she was probably begging for it, too. I was jealous at first when I
ALESSI POV I failed. I failed to protect my brother. Now, my family is trying to do damage control that may not succeed. Alonso is a fucking mess. Yesterday morning, images were shared on every social media network of some idiot influencer who had bruises and bite marks all over her body after spending the night with Alonso. The bigger problem is that the influencer is now nowhere to be found to tell the damn media that whatever happened between them was consensual, even though the images may look alarming. Apparently, she sent the photos to a friend to brag about her night with the infamous Alonso Moretti, and now it has blown up in his face. If you look at the photos alone, it does look like the girl was attacked. It's classic Alonso behavior, though, and the same reason I diligently checked out everyone he slept with in college. I clearly can't be everywhere at once anymore, and now we have a catastrophic problem. Brands are threatening to end their contracts w
ALONSO POV I felt on top of the world right after the win. I showed the assholes who said I was just a rich kid who was overhyped. I had the girl I always wanted waiting for me, and they showed how she and my mom hugged on the jumbotron. For a second life was everything I ever wanted. Then, like an ice-cold bath, reality came knocking on my door when Uncle Kev reminded me that we still had the press conference afterward and that things might get sticky there. Now I'm sitting next to Uncle Kevin waiting for the vultures to spew me with their questions, my leg bouncing nervously. Uncle Kevin's hand reaches underneath the table to squeeze my shaking leg, and I still. The first question is aimed at him. It's entirely professional. How he feels about the future of the team. How he developed the team so that we played so well. My eyes rove over the sea of reporters. Which one of them will bring up the alleged sexual assault? It could be any of them. Was my father able to s
AMEILIA POV I'm nervous when Alonso takes me up to his family's box. This will be the first time I will face them after everything went down, and they undoubtedly know what I tried to do. Even though the triplets don't hold it against me, I still don't understand how they don't, I don't know how their parents will treat me. They have every right to treat me as the piece of shit I am. Maybe everything I'm experiencing right now with my real parents is my punishment for trying to break a family apart. I'm so worlds away from that girl, I still can't believe I carried that vengeance in my heart. I was lying awake most of the night, my head tucked in the crook of Alonso's neck with his breathing softly rustling my hair, and all I could think of was how I did him wrong. I had sex with his brothers, the same brothers whom he shared a womb with, and who means the world to him. And even years later, when I saw them again, I still had this pull towards them. I don't know why it feel
SUMMER POV My heart hammers in my chest as I look up into the gorgeous eyes of Alessi Moretti. Is that disappointment that flashes in its depths at my words? Alessi Moretti was everything I never knew I wanted. He was like a knight in shining armor when he first showed interest in me. I've received plenty of interest from men at the hospital ever since I started working there over two years ago, but I never took the bait. You see, I've always been looked at as the pretty girl. The one every boy in school wants to have sex with, but not commit to. Once, I let myself be that girl, and I got discarded and forgotten about. I vowed that no man would ever make me feel like I'm disposable again. Yet, I fell for Alessi's beautiful exterior and gallant gestures. I should have known he was just like all the other assholes who were just out to use me and discard me. I've never felt so dirty after he told me that he wanted his keys to his apartment back. Keys I never even asked
ALESSI POV I'm feeling jittery, and nervous as fuck. Usually, I would tell my brothers as soon as something as big as an ex-situationship being pregnant happens, but now is not the time. I'll tell them after the game. My mother narrows her eyes at me like a hawk. "Is everything okay?" You can't hide shit from her. "Everything is good." I lie. Everything is shit. I can't believe I'm going through the same shit again! And unless Summer was really sneaky and fucking someone behind my back in the hospital, there is a big chance that child might be mine. I ran away like a fucking coward after I looked into her chart. Memories of my mother placing Bailey's child into my arms and the panic attack that I almost had when I looked into his face came running back to me, and I couldn't breathe. I had to get out of there. I've been avoiding her at work, and I think she's been avoiding me too, but I know that I'm going to have to address the issue as soon as possibl
LOLA POV My eyes go to Arcangelo for probably the hundredth time as I go over the contract with not one but three lawyers present. This can't be happening. Not to me, at least. Good things like this don't happen to people from my part of the woods. People always ask me why I don't just sign with a label and get Cassy out of the dump we stay in, but I wasn't about to sell my damn soul for a record contract. This contract is different, though. It allows me to have control over the kind of music I want to make and the image I want to portray to the world. It's unheard of, is what it is. My father was a musician, one of the best. The music he wrote got stolen, and he never saw a dime of the money it made. So you can call me shaded. Because of this industry, my father became a drug addicted alcoholic who ruined everything in his path. Including me. I had to learn from a very young age that I had to take care of myself because the adults in my life wer
ARCANGELO POV I look in the rearview mirror as I drive from the studio to the hotel I booked for Lola and her "kid," who didn't end up really being her own child, but her little sister. Cassy is a five-year-old hellion who has been entertaining me for the last two days ever since I put them on the company's private jet and brought them to New York. The last two days have been a whirlwind, and I don't know if I've ever laughed so much as I did in these two days. We've been in the studio ever since we arrived on Friday, and after she sang Mai's Song in that bar, I did the unimaginable and let her record it and made it into a duet. My music has always been personal. Every word of my lyrics, every note that I pen down comes from my soul, and sure, I've written songs for other artists before, but never one as deeply personal as Mai's Song. The way Lola sang that song like I had written it for her made me feel compelled to let her sing on it. I haven't asked her what happe