ALONSO POV - FOUR YEARS LATER I'm drunk. Yet, I don't stop drinking. I take another shot from a fake pair of tits that are displayed for me on a silver platter. I feel unhinged tonight, the memories I'm trying so hard to suppress banging at the back of my head. So the alcohol, the tits, the blonde hair that is fake as fuck, and the long legs are all a diversion. A diversion, so I don't have to think about her. It's been over four fucking years since she disappeared from my life, and I'm still thinking of her. She's a living parasite in my brain. I have everything I've ever wanted. Well, not everything everything, but I'm well on my way. Fingers that look like talons rove over my stomach, up my chest, around my neck, and into the back of my hair. Her body follows suit, and she glues herself to my front, the fake tits not even squished with how hard they are. Her breath warms my ear, and I have to admit that she doesn't smell half-bad. "Do you want to get
ALESSI POV I'm dead tired. The kind of tired that you feel to the bone and my feet drag as I head to my apartment close to the hospital where I'm working as an intern. I'm a smart guy, or at least that's what I've been told my entire life, but medical school is kicking my ass. I'm honestly questioning why I didn't just go into business, I could've been working for my family right now, trying to figure out how to infiltrate another market. Instead, I chose to be a slave, and I haven't seen my brothers in person in over a month. Maybe that's why I'm feeling so drained because when they're around, I feel invincible, like I can finally figure out cancer. I sense something is different as soon as I unlock my door. The smell of a delicious steak wafts through the air, and my stomach growls. All I had time to eat today was a bowl of oatmeal that tasted like cardboard. Slow jazz music is playing on the surround sound speakers, and I try to tame my irritation down.
ARCANGELO POV I hold Shane's head down a little longer than necessary, and she gasps for breath when I release my dick from her mouth. Mascara runs in trains down her cheeks, and all I can think of is that she's going to need to fix that before our slot. She's not even supposed to be here, but she jumped at the chance when I said she could join me on my trip to London. Now she's getting railed from behind by the band's lead singer that I just signed last week. I've known Shane since we were students, and her antics to get my attention is becoming too desperate. I'm not a traditional guy, and girls can do what they want, but I don't want my girlfriend to have a reputation of being fucked by every popular band in the world. She's hot, I can't deny that, and she knows how to suck cock, but she's going to need to take it easy. Once upon a time, I thought I could maybe date her. We're both musicians, and we understand how the other one works. But now that's just not a poss
AMELIA POV C.J. shakes me in excitement. "You didn't tell me Arcangelo will be performing too! This concert is lit!" I'm numb. This can't be happening. I've been running away from the Morettis for four years, and then out of the blue one shows up on my doorstep. And he's singing my song. The song he wrote for me, that he gave to me in his effort to say goodbye. From time to time, I give myself the guilty pleasure to look them up. I've heard Arcangelo on the radio, and of course, he blew up as soon as he released a song. He's that good, so his fame was inevitable. When C.J. came to visit me, I bought us concert tickets on a whim because he liked the band playing. Never in a million years would I have thought Arcangelo would be here, too. And he's looking right at me with those hazel eyes, too far for me to extinguish if they're more green or brown right now. C.J. stills and looks down at me in concern. "Oh shit." Yeah, it probably hit him right now.
ARCANGELO POV Holding Juliet in my arms feels like coming home. It feels even better than being on stage or in the studio. A cleared throat makes me lift my head, and I look into the angry face of the guy that I saw had his arm around her. I'm equally pissed off when she steps away from me, right back into his waiting arm. Is this her boyfriend? Her husband, perhaps? Is this who she ran away with when she disappeared after we heard the bomb that she used us to get revenge on our father? Did she bamboozle us so bad? Those blue eyes I just sang about lowers, hiding their depth from me. The guy holds his hand out for me, and I look at it skeptically. Am I supposed to shake the hand of the man who gets to have his hands on her, and I can't? His blue eyes are hardened steel as he keeps holding his hand out until I eventually shake it. "I'm Charles Astor the second." His voice is a deep baritone that makes you want to stand straight and acknowledge his presence. Char
ALONSO POV I'm hungry and irritated when I make my way to Arc's place. I still can't believe we're actually not staying together, but everyone is staying close to their respective jobs, so I have to take it, but it doesn't mean that I have to like it. I feel like a part of myself is missing every single day when I'm not with them. I let myself in, and I'm surprised to see T.J. there. T.J. has become the head of our family's security, and his father has retired to Thailand, living his best island life. He deserves it, too. "What's up?" I walk over to him and hug him briefly. "Is there some security issue we should know about?" Arc said it was urgent. "Let's wait for what Arc has to say." He taps me on the back. "He's in the shower. He said there's some food in the oven." And that is why we should be together. We know each other like the back of our hands, we are interwoven together. A nice steak and grilled vegetables await me, and I get a bottle of water from t
ALESSI POV Summer is standing at the nurse's station, laughing with her colleagues. I'm sure they're talking about me, because ever so often they look my way and continue with the giggling. The resident doctor looks at the nurse's station, then at me. "Anything we need to know, Moretti? Seems like you have the nurses' panties in a twist." The other interns around me start snickering, and I have to refrain from rolling my eyes. "No, doctor." I was an idiot for waiting to start medical school, but I could afford to do my honors and my masters, and I thought, why not? I don't regret my decision, and the only reason the resident is being an ass is because he feels threatened by me. He also puts me on the crappiest cases, but that doesn't stop me from doing my ultimate best. Even if I have to work harder than the rest. I'm going to need to get that key back from Summer. If Juliet, or whatever her name is, is coming back in the picture, I can't be entangled in any situatio
ALONSO POV I can't sleep. I'm struggling to eat, too. My mind is filled with thoughts of Juliet. My body, however, can't take it. I can feel my energy dwindling when I'm working out with my conditioning coach, who is shouting at me to get my head on straight. It's pre-season, and I'm starting on a new team that has just transitioned into new ownership and new management. Nepotism is raining in the media headlines because my family corporation bought the team, and I'm now the franchise quarterback. I guess what ever I fucking do on the field doesn't matter to them. Some even state that I bought the damn Heisman trophy like I didn't win the whole fucking state championship that year. People think having money is the greatest thing on earth, but they don't consider the burden. We've been raised to be hard working our whole lives, but now we have to work even harder to prove that we deserve everything we worked for. "You're really shit today." Dan, my conditioning coach s
ALESSI POV In my life, I have never seen something more perfect than my twin daughters. Love like I've never experienced before took a hold of me when these two tiny little girls were born. I've always been my brothers' keeper, the one with the solid head on his shoulders. I think those titles were just preparing me for this role. A father. "Are they supposed to be that small?" Alonso peers through the glass of the incubator. "Are they sick? Why are they in the baby growing thing?" Arc joins Alonso to peer through the glass to the perfection that is my daughters. "It's just procedure." I enlighten them. "They were born on thirty-seven weeks, but they're healthy and perfect." Utterly perfect. They look like their mom, but babies' faces change every single day. "Dude, you have to tell me how do I get Summer to marry me."I tell Alonso. He managed to bag Amelia, even with all the shit that was going on at the time. "You just ask her." He tells me without
AMELIA POV What was supposed to be the happiest time in my life has become one of the worst. Alonso is lying with his head in my lap, my fingers running through his hair as we're waiting for news from the doctors who are operating on Arcangelo. Bailey striked again. This time, she got caught, and her fucking parents can't get her out of this one this time. The shooting is on every social media site, it's trending on the internet. Videos are circulating around from fans. I feel so sorry for Lola. She's still wearing the dress she performed in, clutching Cassie to her chest as if she might lose her, too. They gave her something to wipe the blood from her arms, but there's a faint streak of it left on her cheek. The world would be a worse place if Arcangelo died. I kiss Alonso's cheek, and his eyes flutter open, sorrow in the swirl of green and brown. Alonso would not be the same person if he had to lose one of his brothers. They're all an extension of each other, and I pra
ALONSO POV I'm in seventh heaven. I know the bomb will explode very soon, but right now, I'm blissfully holding my wife in my arms as she's coming down from another orgasm. My wife. I fucking love the sound of that. It's not the way I wanted to do it. She deserves a big wedding with a designer dress and a big, fat diamond ring, and I promised her that I would give her all of that, but she said our wedding was the best. I thread my fingers through hers and kiss the diamond wedding band on her finger. I've already arranged appointments with jewelry designers for her engagement ring, and then I will do it the right way. "I fly out tomorrow afternoon with the team." I reluctantly tell her. "I want you there, but I also don't want you in the open where Bailey can easily get to you." She sighs and nuzzles her face in my neck. "I know. Maybe I'll arrange to see my parents while you're not here." "No!" I say definitely. "We face them together, I'm not sending you into the lion
ARCANGELO POV I must have died and gone to heaven. I have the girl I've been pining over up against a wall with her full, succulent lips eagerly moving under mine. She was a vision tonight in the elegant black dress with her dark curls spilling everywhere. Her lips were painted a fiery red that enticed me the entire time, and I just couldn't stop myself anymore. I tried being respectful because she has a child. My plan was to make her fall so irrevocably in love with me that by the time I did kiss her, she wouldn't be able to resist me. I wanted her to trust me implicitly, to make her feel that I would never let her down, that I'm solid. I hope I did enough because just this one taste of her is making me addicted, and I don't think I would be able to stop touching her now. She groans underneath my mouth, opening those lips like a flower, and I take that opportunity to plunge my tongue inside. She tastes like mint and desire, and a groan rumbles from my chest. I think I might
LOLA POV I don't exactly know what is going on with my life right now. It's like I'm in a twilight zone, part of a family in an instant. Arcangelo refuses to let me and Cassie go back to the label's apartment, and at first, I felt slightly awkward being at his parents' house, but everyone else handled it like it was completely normal. I understand that Alessi's ex-girlfriend apparently almost killed Alonso's girlfriend a few years back, so everyone who might be in danger right now has to stay here. But I'm not even his girlfriend. I'm just one of the artists he signed. Right? Wrong. I've never experienced anything that I feel for Arcangelo. The sexual tension is brewing underneath the surface whenever we touch. It's in the songs that we write together, in the way we gaze into each other's eyes when we think nobody is watching. Every night, after a big dinner, and I've given Cassie her bath and taken a shower, we climb into his bed. About an hour after when Cassie is f
ALONSO POV I can't believe one girl has the power to have all of us on our toes. I, for sure, never thought the sweet girl that we grew up with would turn out to be some obsessed psychopath. Apparently, Evan and Sammy Micheals have Bailey's son. They took her son from her when she was starting to talk about us again over the phone. My parents are pissed because they weren't even warned. Let's just say that the friendship between the Morettis and the Micheals would never be salvaged again. "What's with the security?" One of my teammates asks as we finish up at the stadium. "You good man?" Fuck, I love this team. We're new, and certainly the underdogs, but we're becoming a family. They've been concerned about me ever since the allegations of sexual assault. It's dfficult being in the public eye, and they all know how it feels to be under such scrutiny. "I'm good, but there's someone who's a bit too obsessed, just being cautious." "Be careful out there." He claps me on the s
AMELIA POV "Bailey Micheals has been sighted by Alessi Moretti yesterday." I hear the words coming out of my father's mouth, but it's like it doesn't register at first. I blink rapidly, trying to make sense of what he just said. "You said she would never set foot in this country again!" My mother jumps from her chair in front of my father's desk. "You promised!" "She didn't come in with her real passport. We're scouring security footage to try and see which airport she came through." My heart starts beating rapidly after it missed a few beats. Fear rushes through me in an instant. Bailey is going to kill me. "You don't have to worry about anything." Dad looks at me. "There's no way she'll be able to get to you here." Just another reason to keep me locked up in my gilded cage. I can't do this anymore. It feels like I'm going fucking insane. Even when I'm strolling in the garden, I can feel eyes on me like a hawk. I know I said that this is what I have to
ARCANGELO POV I'm in bed, and Bach is playing softly through the surround sound, but I can't fall asleep, my mind on the dark-haired petite beauty that is in my building. Lola is on my mind twenty-four-seven. She's the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning and the last person in my thoughts before I close my eyes. Working with her has been nothing but astonishing. We've been writing music about love, loss, happiness, hurt, and so entwined in our own little bubble that the assistants have to remind us to eat. I have never met someone who understands how I make music like she does. It's like she was always tethered to my soul, and I just had to find her in the cosmos. Even Cassie crept under my skin. She calls me her prince charming, and I'm not mad about it. I wonder what they're doing right now. Cassie is probably asleep already, maybe Lola, too. What would it feel like if they were here? Would Lola listen to classical music with me while I run my finge
ALESSI POV I feel slightly guilty for being this happy, but fuck, I can't help it. My internship is coming to an end. I still have the two-day assessment coming up before I'm officially a resident, but I've been working for this all my life. I'm prepared and ready. Then I have this gorgeous woman roaming my apartment with my babies in her belly. Granted, she's currently shooting lasers at me while I'm calmly sipping my coffee before I have to leave for my shift. "You don't get to decide if I work or not, Alessi!" Summer shouts at me, pink blotches appearing on her cheeks. "You're completely taking over my life! First my apartment, and now this!" I might have told her supervising nurse that she will probably have to hire another nurse soon, seeing that Summer might quit her job. "I was just thinking about the future." I shrug. "You're mine, and I have to take care of you. Carrying twins is not going to be easy on your body, you think you can work the shifts you do being se