Bad Romance Series

5 Jazzy

CHAPTER 5

JAZZY

Jazzy showed the flight attendant her ticket as she boarded the plane to Paris.

So, okay, she ran like a thief in the night. Big deal. Didn’t mean she was afraid of Giovanni Detta. Except, after their unfortunate encounter in the library, she’d somehow known she couldn’t be around him again. Giovanni Detta was hot. The combination of those baby blues and his rock-hard body; even the scar on his upper left eyebrow was panty-melting hot. She’d wanted to run her fingers through his jet-black hair, pictured herself pulling it while kissing him. Most of all, she wanted to banish the coldness from his voice, the chill from his eyes. However, falling for a tortured soul in the disillusioned hope of healing him could only end in disappointment. Life was not a romance novel, with the big, bad, dominant asshole turning into a decent human being in the end. He was going to marry one of her poor cousins. It would not do to lust over him during their annual Christmas dinner.

So, fleeing it was. She wasn’t as pretty as Gina or as sweet and angelic as Mary, but she was smart; enough to be able to disappear without leaving a trace. She had also been smart enough to call in a favor with her friend Tess, just in case.

The flight attendant showed her to her seat in first class. It would be the last time for a while she could indulge in the luxury of a first-class anything since; come tomorrow, she wouldn’t be using her credit cards anymore. She couldn’t take the risk—small as it may be—that Detta would actually follow through on his threat to come after her. It was far too easy to track her down if she left a paper trail. So, no more fancy hotel suites during her Euro trip. According to the arrangement between her grandfather and Detta, he had to marry a Rossi girl within a month. All she had to do was disappear from the face of the earth during that time, or until she discovered he had married one of her cousins.

Once again, her thoughts trailed back to Detta. The heat she’d felt when going toe-to-toe with him had been crazy, utter madness. This was what had been missing between her and Mike: the only man she had ever been comfortable enough with to let her guard down around. The only one she had ever told about...

Don’t go there. Not. Going. There.

Mike had been more than just her childhood friend. He had been her first crush, first kiss, and first and only lover. Their friendship had evolved in something more, until they had gradually discovered they were better off as friends than lovers.

But still, it had never been like the raw need, that magnetic pull, she had felt when she’d been pinned down by Giovanni Detta. It had both excited and terrified her at the same time. She somehow knew that Detta was the kind of man to be rough and dominate her in bed. The only place where she liked to submit.

Something Mike had never really understood because he wasn’t wired like that. It had been one of the reasons they broke up. s*x with Mike had been enjoyable, but never really satisfying because he worried about hurting her, roughing her up. Jazzy liked a strong man in bed. At least, that’s what she always fantasized about. And a fantasy it had stayed since, after breaking up with Mike, she hadn’t found another man she had felt comfortable enough to expand her s****l experience with. Nor had she felt the desire to.

Up until the second when Gio Detta’s body pressed against hers. That man had “dangerous” written all over him, and she’d do best to stay far away from him. She didn’t need that kind of a complication in her life. If she’d learned anything from Mike passing away, it was that Death did not discriminate the young or elderly. Sooner or later, it came for everyone and when it did, there was only one question to ask yourself: did I live a full life? Mike had told her he had, though he did have one regret. He didn’t get to finish his bucket list. Something she had promised him she’d do for him.

So, no matter how her body burned for Giovanni Detta, her heart and mind had other plans. She was going to fulfill her promise to Mike, if it was the last thing she did.