Reign: A Romance Anthology

by Nina Levine

Or maybe, just maybe, I’m a little brokenhearted after all the pain I’ve endured in my seventeen short years.

  Whatever the cause of my rebelliousness, it has led me to this moment, right here, right now, putting everything on the line for someone else.

  Tomorrow, our headmistress will lose her shit wanting to know where Flick Morgan is, and how the hell she got her hands on her phone.

  No one will know.

  Oh, they’ll all suspect it was me. But no one will say a thing because we’re a close-knit group of girls, and just like me, they all want to see Flick get her happy ending.

  Eventually, the commotion will die down, and things at Havenwood Girls School will go back to normal.

  Until one day, I will be gone too.

  I think of my one true love.

  I haven’t touched his lips in almost two years.

  Haven’t felt the warmth of his skin.

  But in less than a month we’ll be together again.

  He promised.

  I can barely wait.

  But for now…

  … I’m happy to be the bad guy.

  2

  Bella

  Ten years later

  I hit the floor with a thud and groan. I try to breathe but my lungs rattle, I’m winded.

  Smiling, Ari stands over me and offers me a hand.

  “You’re distracted,” he says with an amused gleam in his eyes. “You’re making this too easy for me.”

  I reach up and accept his hand. “Too easy, huh?”

  While he is distracted, I kick out and get him behind the knees, dropping him to the floor beside me.

  “What about now?” I ask smugly.

  He looks up at me from the mat and his handsome face breaks into a bright smile. Green eyes twinkle. It’s no surprise all the girls in New York are in love with him. All the girls except me, of course. He’s my best friend and my feelings for him are too brotherly to be anything else. We’d kissed once, back in the early days, but there was no spark and it had weirded us both out. It didn’t surprise me when he came out two years later.

  Besides being one of my best friends, Ari was also my Krav Maga coach. We’ve been sparring for years and are both fiercely competitive.

  Climbing to my feet, I help him to his.

  “I don’t think there is any more I can teach you,” he says.

  “I know. I just like kicking your ass.” I wink at him. “Hey, I’m meeting Imogen for a drink. Wanna join us?”

  He pulls a face. “There are only two women in the world who scare me, Bella. My grandmother and Imogen. She looks at me like I’m her next meal.”

  “So, I’ll take that as a no?”

  He kisses me. “I’ll see you next Saturday.”

  After showering, I meet my slightly crazy, but completely lovable girlfriend at a hot new bar on the Lower East Side called Inkwood.

  “How was your Krav Maga class?” she asks over the top of her margarita.

  “Good.”

  “And Ari?”

  I grin at her. “You know he’s gay, right?”

  She shrugs and takes a sip of her drink. “And The Rock is also untouchable because he is married and lives in Hollywood, and would never glance sideways at a girl like me, but that doesn’t stop a girl from fantasizing. A girl needs her dreams.”

  “What about that sexy young attorney you were seeing?”

  “He’s okay,” she says, noncommittally. “I dunno, I think I’m bored.”

  I resist rolling my eyes. This isn’t the first conversation we’ve had about this. In fact, it’s the same conversation we have with nearly every single guy she dates.

  “You go through men like candy. How about throwing some my way?”

  “I would but you’d probably throw them back.”

  “You’re right. Because I’m a dating disaster. It’s hard to find someone in this city. For me, anyway.”

  “Maybe it has something to do with your daddy? I mean, dating the only daughter of a mafia don would have to be as intimidating as fuck.”

  I give her a reproachful look. “You know he isn’t involved in that life anymore. He left that all behind him when we moved to New York. That’s why we moved.”

  When I was sixteen years old, we moved to America for a fresh start. My father shed his organized crime affiliations and started a new life as a successful restaurateur.

  Now he owns five, highly renowned restaurants all over New York and is revered as a charismatic businessman.

  Imogen looks wistful. “Are you sure? I mean, he looks so…”

  “If you say dreamy, sexy, or fuckable, I’m leaving.”

  Imogen also has a crush on my father. Which would gross me out if I wasn’t so used to it. Growing up, all my girlfriends developed crushes on him. He’s a very good-looking man, and he’s charming and stylish in his Armani suits and slicked-back hair, but he’s also my father and he’s pushing fifty.

  “I was going to say he looks so mafioso. Like he stepped right off the set of Goodfellas.”

  “He’s a businessman,” I say defensively.

  She gives me a conspiratorial look. “A very well-connected businessman.”

  This time I do roll my eyes. Imogen is prone to bouts of fantasy and likes to romanticize the whole organized-crime thing. Truth is, it is ugly and dark, and bloody. And it has taken a toll on my family. I wasn’t always an only child.

  Before moving to New York, our family had gone to war with the Lastrantonios—a huge crime family back home—because of some business deal that went wrong. I’m not sure of the details because my dad has always been so vague about it. But the outcome was devastating to my family because my brother was caught in the middle of it. When he and my father were leaving a café one day, a car drove by and a gunman unloaded his clip into them both. My father survived. My nineteen-year-old brother, Gio, didn’t.

  Rumor had it, the Castabella family—another powerful family back home—had allied themselves with the Lastrantonios, and both houses waged war against us, the Isle Cicculas.

  But my father didn’t like me knowing the details.

  Although, he was always very quick to remind me that we were enemies.

  “The Lastrantonios and the Castabellas are our enemies, mia cara,” my father would warn whenever I questioned him about the feud and what led to my brother’s death. “The Castabellas may have pulled the trigger, but it was the Lastrantonios who gave them the gun.”

  As I grew older, I stopped asking.

  Imogen drains her margarita glass. “What about that handsome guy you met at the club a few weeks back? The chef. The one with the cute man bun and super white teeth. You guys had some serious chemistry on the dance floor.”

  “I forgot to tell you. We met for dinner the following night.”

  “And?”

  “And then nothing.”

  “Nothing? No kiss? No sexy time?”

  I shake my head. “That’s the thing. He was into me at the beginning of the evening, but at the end of the night I suddenly got the I’m not really looking for anything right now talk. It was weird. It’s like something happened between our entrée and desserts.”

  Imogen’s eyes gleam with conspiracy. “You think someone paid him a visit while you were in the bathroom?”

  I snap my fingers. “Of course, you’re right. That has to be it. My daddy, Mr. Mafioso, squirreled his way in here and waited for the right moment to pounce on my poor and unsuspecting date to warn him off,” I say with sarcasm.

  “Possibly. Who knows? Or maybe Mr. Man Bun was just a dick.” She shrugs. “I need to freshen my lipstick. Be a doll and order us another round of drinks.”

  When Imogen leaves, I order another two margaritas from the waitress, and that’s the moment I see him. The man. He’s on the dance floor, but he is standing very still in a sea of people dancing around him. He looks like sin wrapped up in a custom suit and a crisp white shirt, and he is staring right at me. When our eyes meet, something runs down my sp
ine, and the hairs on the back of my neck lift. There is something intense about him. Something dark and mysterious, and a thrill of excitement ripples in the pit of my stomach.

  I can’t look away, and for a moment the club and the people in it are gone and it’s just me and Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dangerous looking at each other across the room.

  Something stirs in my heart.

  A name plays on my lips.

  A name I refuse to say.

  A name that belongs to a ghost.

  Heartache tightens in my stomach.

  “You want to pay for those now or start a tab, honey?” asks the waitress.

  Startled back to the present, I look at her. “We’ll start a tab, thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  When she leaves, I look back to the dance floor, but he is gone. I scan the room, but he’s vanished.

  “Who are you looking for?” Imogen asks when she returns and slides into the booth beside me.

  “No one,” I say, my skin prickling with goose bumps. “No one at all.”

  3

  Bella

  The following Saturday, I’m sitting in a limousine on the way to the annual Kitty Isle Ciccula masquerade ball at the Met.

  It’s a dazzling affair that was set up by my mother a few months before her death, and one kept alive by my mother’s friend, socialite Ghislaine Bonaparte. It is for a children’s charity and is considered a must-attend event in the New York social circuit.

  I’m expected to participate every year, even if rich parties and rubbing shoulders with the social elite is as much fun as rubbing salt into my eyes. But I am proud to be a part of this because it was something very dear to my mother’s heart.

  Sitting across from me, Ari looks handsome in his tuxedo and I’m grateful he’s escorting me tonight. Because I’m a complete failure at dating, he is always my plus one for this kind of event, and we always have a good time together.

  But as I sit there, my mind casts back to the other night at the club and to the man standing on the dance floor staring at me. I’ve tried not to think of it since. But the memory has been persistent for my attention.

  It wasn’t him.

  It couldn’t be him.

  Because him being here wouldn’t make any sense.

  Because him being here would be heartbreaking.

  Our limousine pulls up to the curb and the paparazzi goes crazy. As I step into their flashing lights, I try to push him out of my mind.

  It’s better not to think about him.

  He was a part of my old world.

  A world I haven’t lived in for ten years.

  I’m a different woman now, and my new world doesn’t have room in it for him.

  And the last thing I want is for those two worlds to collide.

  I’m not expecting it. Not sure that I could have even prepared for it.

  Among all the glitter and shadows of the masquerade ball, I don’t expect to see him.

  I’ve been at the gala for hours. I’ve drunk glasses of Cristal. Danced with different people. Engaged in small talk and smiled for official photographs.

  It happens when I leave the restroom.

  I turn the corner but stop abruptly when I see him, and my heart leaps to my throat.

  He is standing at the end of the hall.

  For a moment we just stare at one another. A redhead in a strapless Givenchy gown, and a tall man dressed in a custom suit that does nothing to hide those broad shoulders and his wide chest.

  It’s really him.

  I try to swallow but my throat is too dry.

  After all this time.

  Why now?

  He makes his way toward me and I think about running in the opposite direction because this man is dangerous, in more ways than one.

  It’s one of those life-changing moments.

  Stay and face a heartbreak that has haunted me for ten years.

  Or run.

  But I can’t move because my feet appear to be fused to the floor.

  The music thumps around us like a heartbeat.

  He moves slowly like a man who has all the time in the world, while electricity sparkles in the air around us like embers.

  He stops a yard away from me, but even from here I can feel the strong pull of his orbit.

  “You…” I breathe out. “You were at the club the other night.”

  “Yes.” His voice is deep. Dark and smooth.

  “You were watching me.”

  He takes a step closer and I walk backward until my shoulders hit the wall behind me.

  “Yes.”

  He comes closer and I feel my heart squeeze in my chest. Despite wearing his masquerade mask, I can see he is exquisitely beautiful. Eyes as dark as night and a strong face, classically handsome with chiseled cheekbones and just the right amount of scruff on his jaw.

  I can barely breathe.

  All of a sudden, I am a naïve, sixteen-year-old girl who has yet to feel the true pain of a broken heart, waiting to be kissed by the boy who is the reason she breathes.

  “Why are you here?” I whisper.

  He comes even closer until there is barely any space between us. My lips shamelessly part with need. His palms press the wall behind me as his strong body engulfs me in its radiant heat. When his lips brush close to mine, he hesitates and then frowns, and I see the storm in his ink-black eyes.

  He presses his cheek to mine and I feel a dormant longing awakening in me. I close my eyes, fighting it.

  “You don’t remember.” He sucks in a deep breath as if he is absorbing me into him. “But you will.”

  I bite down on my lip and he growls with need.

  Releasing me, he steps away, and within seconds he is gone.

  I stare after him.

  He is wrong. I do remember.

  I remember every agonizing second.

  Ten Years Earlier

  The music has stopped, and all the guests have left. Everyone except me. I sit at the table littered with used plates and cutlery, and fancy crystal glasses half empty with soda pop. A spectacular birthday cake sits amongst the chaos, its sides cut open and chocolate crumbs spilling out of its guts, its birthday candles melted into a congealed pool of wax on the table. Floating around the room, spangles of light from the disco ball above the table glitter slowly over the entire lonely, pathetic scene.

  I’ve stopped crying, but the tears have stained my cheeks, leaving streaks through my makeup.

  He didn’t show.

  I had waited all night.

  Kept my eye on the door.

  Early on in the evening, I had bubbled with effervescent excitement, knowing in my heart that he was coming. That all the years of waiting were finally over.

  That he would show.

  That within hours, minutes, seconds, my one true love would walk through those doors to take me in his arms and proclaim me as his queen.

  But as the hours ticked by, my smile slowly began to fade, and my heart began to sink lower in my chest.

  My friends’ smiles softened to looks of pity and empathy, while my father and godfather watched on with no expressions, just an inkling that something wasn’t right about my demeanor.

  Alessandro and I had vowed to respect our father’s wishes.

  We would not contact one another. We would not write. Would not sneak messages to each another. All out of respect for our fathers. Because your word was your honor, and when you gave it, you kept it.

  Besides, we did not need to contact each other to know that our hearts still fully belonged to the other. Our love was pure and true, and right. All we needed was Alessandro’s vow that he would be here, and my promise to welcome him with open arms.

  For two years, I believed.

  For two years, I had faith.

  But it was all a lie.

  Because tonight he never showed up like he had vowed, and I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again.

  4

  Alessandro

  My name is
Alessandro Lastrantonio.

  They call me the King of the Boroughs.

  It’s a title I hate.

  But it’s a title that lets my rivals know that I am a big fucking deal.

  I’d say it is a pleasure to meet you.

  But that wouldn’t be true.

  You don’t want to meet me.

  You might think you do… after all, everyone does.

  But the truth is, I am not a good man.

  In my homeland, I am feared. My surname alone holds the power to evoke fear.

  But in this city, I am still a shiny new star, and the darkness that follows my name has yet to cast a shadow over the landscape.

  I am still revered and lusted after. My head for business astounds the corporate players who scramble to make my association, and my dark good looks attract attention and make panties wet.

  I didn’t plan on taking New York by storm.

  Didn’t plan on my business ventures becoming more successful beyond my wildest dreams.

  Didn’t plan on becoming one of the richest men in town.

  One of the most celebrated.

  Because they aren’t the reasons I came here.

  I came here for her.

  The woman I have tried to forget.

  The woman who would rather cut out her own heart and feed it to the dogs than love me again.

  The woman I am obsessed with.

  Her face swims before me.

  Haunting me just as it has for the past ten years.

  I grip the scotch tumbler in my hand as pleasure begins to uncoil in my stomach. With a growl, I reach for the hair of the girl with my cock in her mouth. She is kneeling before me, fucking me with her ruby-red lips and tongue, as I stare out at the glittering New York skyline with another woman on my mind.

  She moans and it vibrates through me, sending another jolt of pleasure along my cock.

  For months I have resisted the touch of a woman. But tonight, I need the kind of release that fucking my own hand won’t give me. Tonight, I need the touch of a woman to soothe my aching soul, even if it’s the wrong woman bringing me this pleasure.