Page 3 of Xavier

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Ronny

I’m shakinga bit after I turn the corner and lose sight of V. I didn’t know he would be here. I wasn’t prepared for it. I wish I wasn’t wearing these stupid heels so I could run back to my room, but I was trying out a new look today.

No one was supposed to see. Especially not V.

I’m more of a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl. Woman. Whatever. I’ll wear the occasional skirt or sundress, but high heels and clingy fabric are not my style. My dad would probably kill me if he saw me in this thing.

And maybe that was why I was wearing it. A tiny act of rebellion, wearing clothing he wouldn’t approve of while he was away doing business. Whatever his business was. He didn’t tell me and I was smart enough not to ask.

V was one of his nice employees, and he looked likely to break someone’s arm for looking at him wrong. But he was one of the only ones that didn’t actually scare me. I knew he wouldn’t cross any lines.

Not even if I wanted him to. He didn’t last time, so why should things change now?

* * *

Three and a Half Years Ago

High school is over. College, here I come. I’m eighteen years old and ready to get out from under my dad’s thumb.

He scares me.

He shouldn’t. He’s my dad, and he’s all smiles and hugs when I’m around. He’s paying for a great college for me and even setting me up with my own apartment. But sometimes I catch glimpses of a darker side of him, like when I hear him yelling through his office door or one time when I’m almost sure I saw one of his men cleaning up blood from the patio in our backyard.

Most of Dad’s men are just as bad as he is.

And then there’s V. He showed up a couple of years back and I couldn’t say what he does for my dad, but he’s always around. I’m not scared of him.

But he makes me feel things.

It’s been coming on slowly for months now, every time he’s around I can’t stop watching him.

Wanting him.

He works for my dad, so I know he can’t be a good man, but whenever I’m near him I feel… safe. Is it so bad that I want him to be my first kiss?

I have no illusions about the future. If I try and get close, V will break my heart.

I’m supposed to be celebrating out by the pool with the friends Dad allowed me to invite for the small graduation celebration. The party has been going for a couple hours now and I’m tired. I want to tell my friends to go home, but I don’t know when I’ll see them again. Sara and Aubrey are headed to Europe for the summer and Ethan and Daniel are going across the country to stay with their step-dad.

I’ll just be here, alone, until college in the summer.

Well, as alone as a girl can ever be when her dad is surrounded by bodyguards.

“Shouldn’t you be with the others?” V asks, practically materializing out of nowhere.

I spin around just in time to see the door behind him slip closed. He wasn’t coming from nowhere, he was coming from the house. Of course. He’s not a superhero or something. “I just needed a couple of minutes.” I’m proud of how steady I sound. V is right there. My heart is pounding and I’m sure my swimsuit does nothing to hide my body’s reaction to him.

“The kids are bound to be looking for you,” he taunts.

“I’m not a kid.” It shouldn’t make me angry. I’m eighteen. A lot of people think that’s still a child. But most kids my age haven’t gone through all the stuff I’ve gone through. They don’t have a dad who walks around with an army or a mom who disappeared. V’s older than me. He might even be thirty, I’m not sure. But that doesn’t give him the right to judge me.

He puts his hands up in surrender. “Okay.” His voice has a dark edge to it and I wish he was really using it, not just playing nice to appease me.

And that’s what he’s doing, I’m sure of it. “I’m really not.”

“Sure, Veronica.”