Chapter One
Dominic
Present day …
There’s a good reason why people tell the good girls to stay away from the bad boys.The guys who are trouble. It’s the same reason why the angel isn’t meant to be with the devil.The angel is always too good for him, even when she tries to see the good in him.The devil is filled with too much darkness to see the light.
That’s me and her.
Me: Dominic D’Agostino. Devil, darkness.
Her: Candace Ricci. The angel… my light.
She was nearly mine.
Almost then never...
I watch her walking around in her kitchen, completely oblivious to me.Her long honey blonde hair in that fishtail braid bounces as she moves from the cupboard to the counter with a plate.She’s beautiful with the kind of beauty that gets stuck in your head.Her willowy body with curves in all the right places is the kind that would have a man on his knees begging to touch her.She wouldn’t know though.
She’s the girl next door type who’s beautiful and doesn’t know it.
Contrary to what she’s always thought, she’s never far from my thoughts.Not even when I have a million things on my mind.
In the two years I’ve been away, she’s never been far from my heart either.
My plane touched down at LAX less than an hour ago and I came straight here.
Like a stalker, I’ve been standing on the roof of the apartment building opposite hers, watching her with a pair of binoculars.Thankfully, I'm enveloped by the thick darkness of night so no one can see me.
I'm far away from her, so far away.Yet that rose-infused scent that's always lingering in her hair is right here with me.Her silky, smooth skin still sparks the nerve endings on my fingertips, and the taste of her still burns my lips enticing my hunger for things I shouldn't want, but still crave.
As I look at her now, I remember finally having my taste of her perfect body that night we spent together.
That night is etched in my mind on replay, the same as the night I ruined everything and lost her.
Candace Ricci...
I don’t have a single childhood memory that doesn’t include her face.
Those chase memories of innocence were, however, exactly that.Chaste.My problems began as we grew older and I started to want her.
But she was the good girl who was forbidden to me.The one woman, who unknown to many, I promised not to touch.
Two years ago,I broke the promise, and selfishly took my chance to be with her.Then I fucked up andshowed her exactly what kind of monster I was when my fucking mistakes left her fighting for her life.
Guilt sweeps through me as I remember how I left her attached to tubes and machines in a hospital bed, barely alive because of me.
Barely alive because of the bullet I put in her chest.
Me… that’s what I did to her.It was an accident. I know it was.But it doesn’t change the guilt I feel or the fact that I will always, always blame myself.
Accident or not, Candace nearly died.That’s the fact.
The bullet missed her heart by a mere three millimeters.
Millimeters made the difference between life and death of a woman who deserves everything good in this world.
Shame and guilt over what I did to her were what gave me the push to leave.Along with the reason it happened.