Kiss Me in the Dark Anthology - Monica James Page 0,92

placate him. Yet, she’s got one flaw: she’s not her sister.

Unable to forget what he’s lost, Danilo might lose what he’s been given.

Sofia

Thou shalt not covet.

I’d pined for Danilo even when he was still my sister’s fiancé. It had been an innocent infatuation of a young girl. I’d fantasized how things would be if he were mine. My knight in shining armor, my Disney prince.

It had been my favorite daydream—until a mere phantasm turned to reality when my sister couldn’t marry him.

A dream turned to nightmare. A silly girl’s fantasy burst.

A man who didn’t want me.

They say there aren’t two snowflakes identical in shape, every single one of them unique.

Magnificent icy perfection.

Like my sister.

I tried to replicate her, but a replica would never be the original. I was the echo of the perfect melody. A shadow of an immaculate image. Always less. Never enough.

Serafina had been close to perfect in people’s eyes when she was still around, and now that she was gone, nothing but a fading memory, her absence amplified all that she was. She’d become bigger than life.

She lingered in every corner of the house, and worse, in the minds’ of the people she’d left behind.

How can you beat a memory?

You can’t.

My fingers shook as I smoothed down my wedding dress. It wasn’t my name they would whisper in the pews today.

Because I was the consolation prize.

The surrogate bride.

And worse—not my sister.

I peered at my reflection, my face hazy through the fine gossamer of the veil. Dressed like this, I almost looked like Serafina, minus the blonde hair. Still less. Always less. But maybe Danilo would see the similarities between my sister and me, and only for a second look at me with the same longing he used to direct at Serafina.

Then he’d realize I wasn’t her and the look of disappointment would take over his face again.

Less than he wanted.

Tearing the veil from my hair, I tossed it away. I was done trying to be someone else. Danilo would have to see me for who I was, and if that meant he’d never look at me twice, then so be it.

Danilo

“I can’t marry you.”

The words of my fiancée echoed in my head. Peering down at the engagement ring she’d given back to me, I tried to pinpoint my emotions—a potent mixture of fury and shock. The ring mocked me from its spot on my palm. Serafina had hardly been able to stand my closeness.

I’d known Serafina for as long as I could remember. Not because I’d met her but because her name was whispered reverently among the boys and even men in our circles.

A regal ice princess whose beauty featured in many fantasies.

Many wanted to possess her, like magpies drawn in by a shiny object. When she’d been promised to me at the age of fifteen, I’d reveled in the admiration and jealousy of my fellow Made Men. I’d won the sought-after prize, could call her mine.

For years I’d counted the days to our wedding.

Everything seemed to be going in my favor. I was about to become the youngest Underboss of the Outfit at only twenty with the Capo’s niece and ice princess as my wife. I felt invincible.

Arrogance and pride are considered sin by many. I was punished harshly for them.

Days before I was supposed to take over from my father as Underboss, my little sister Emma had a car accident. Now she was trapped in a wheelchair with no future ahead of her. The mafia world wasn’t kind. Girls and women who had obvious flaws were cast aside as unworthy, doomed to a life in the shadows as either spinsters or with the first scum who accepted them as husband.

On the day of my planned wedding to Serafina she was stolen from me, kidnapped by our cruelest enemy: the Camorra from Las Vegas.

When their Capo sent her back to us, she wasn’t the same girl I’d known. She was lost to me, broken beyond something I could fix.

Now I was left with the shambles of my meticulously planned future.

With a disabled, heartbroken sister. A dying father. Left without a wife.

I closed my eyes after my call with my father. He insisted that we needed to demand a bond with Cavallaro’s family. He wanted the connection to the Capo, and I agreed, but moving on from Serafina when her loss still cut me like an acid blade seemed impossible.

Life had to go on and I had to appear strong. I was young. Many expected me to