The Kiss Thief by L.J. Shen

MY PARENTS WERE NOT GOING to fight for my freedom.

The realization should have struck me sooner, but I clung to that hope like the edge of a cliff. Helplessly, foolishly, humiliatingly.

I called my mother the morning after Wolfe threw me out of his room, telling her about the text messages I’d received from Angelo and about last night’s events. Blush hit my face and neck in uneven patches. Terrible shame gnawed at my gut for acting so carelessly last night. True, we were engaged to be married, but we weren’t a couple. Not really. Technically, it was just a kiss. But I was there, and there was much more to it. More touching. More grinding. More devouring. More feelings I couldn’t pinpoint—far away from love, yet shockingly close to affection.

When my mother heard about Angelo’s texts, she berated me for contemplating answering them. “You’re an engaged woman, Francesca. Please start acting like one.” When my face was so hot with shame I was about to explode, she connected my father to the other line. Together, they informed me, rather tactfully, that Angelo was to attend an upcoming wedding with Emily as his plus one, with my father adding that they’d made a beautiful couple at the Bishop’s wedding. It was in that moment of clarity when I realized that not only was my father not going to claim me, but that perhaps I didn’t want to be claimed by him. The only difference between the monster who currently housed me and the one I’d been born to was that the former made no empty promises or brought me to believe he cared.

They say the devil you know is better than the one that you don’t, but I didn’t feel as though I truly knew my father anymore. His affection apparently depended on the circumstances, and I was to meet each one of his expectations.

Last night’s humiliation, paired with the fact that my mother changed her tune overnight and my father was eager for me to please Wolfe, made me want to rebel.

“I’m sure they look lovely together, Papa. I’m also glad I’ll see Angelo around and hear all about his relationship with Emily directly from him.” I inspected my muddy nails casually as if my parents could see me. I paced around the garden, taking a break from potting and fertilizing my radishes. Ms. Sterling was pretending to read in the pavilion next to me, her nose stuck in a historical book as thick as her glasses, but I knew she was eavesdropping. In fact, I figured she’d been snooping every time anyone opened their mouths in the house—cleaners, gardeners, and UPS deliverymen included. I’d be shocked to discover she hadn’t heard our kiss, then our fight when Wolfe shooed me away.

My cheeks heated just thinking about last night. Senator Keaton had yet to leave his room this morning since returning from escorting his guests to his private jet while I was asleep. I’d be content not to see him the remainder of the weekend, month, and the span of my lifetime.

“How do you mean?” my father demanded.

“Why, Papa, I have the best news. My new groom has decided to send me off to college. Northwestern, no less. I’ve already taken a tour, and I’m filling out an application today. He was so supportive of that decision,” I uttered, noticing with satisfaction the thin smile tugging at Ms. Sterling’s lips as her eyes remained on the same page for long minutes. I was sure my father was well aware of the fact that Angelo, too, applied for a masters at Northwestern. He was good at connecting the dots.

A few days ago, I’d sighed and complained to the garden around me that I needed more pots and a new watering can. The day after, new ones were waiting for me in the shed. She could be nosy, but she was definitely not as bad as my husband-to-be. “He even expressed his support to my pursuing a career. Now I just need to figure out what I want to do. I’m thinking a lawyer or maybe a cop.” That last touch was laying it on thick. My father hated lawyers and cops more than he hated child molesters and atheists. With illogic rage that burned in his blood.

I’d been my parents’ puppet for so long, clipping the strings felt scary and forbidden. I wore long skirts and dresses I absolutely detested because they liked them. Attended Sunday mass regularly even though other church girls usually disliked me for having better clothes and nicer shoes. I even refrained from kissing boys to appease my strict folks. And what good did it do to me? My father sold me off to a senator. And my mother, despite her deep pain and disappointment, was helpless against him. But that did not stop her from discouraging me to pursue the same route as her.

She didn’t want me to study and get a job.

She wanted me to be as stranded as she was.

“Is this a joke?” My father choked on his drink on the other line. “No daughter of mine will work,” he spat.

“Your future son-in-law doesn’t seem to share the sentiment,” I singsonged, momentarily putting my hatred toward Wolfe aside.

“Francesca, you have the breeding, the beauty, and the wealth. You were not born to work, Vita Mia. You’re rich in your own right and more so since you’re marrying a Keaton,” Mama cried out. I didn’t even know the Keatons were a thing before all this. I’d never bothered to ask anyone, least of all my future husband, since money was the last thing on my mind.

“I’m going to college. Unless…” It was a crazy idea, but it made sense. A cunning smile touched my lips, and my eyes met Ms. Sterling’s from across the garden. She gave me a barely noticeable nod.

“What?” my father snarled.

“Unless you tell me why you gave Wolfe my hand. Then I’d consider not going.” Mainly because then I’d have the full picture. I very much doubted I could change my fate at this point, but I wanted to know what he’d gotten me into to see if I could dig my way out.

My father snorted, his glacial tenor stabbing at my nerves. “I do not discuss my business with women, much less my own daughter.”

“What’s wrong with being a woman, Papa?”

You sure acted like a pussy the day you gave me to Wolfe Keaton.

“We play different roles,” he clipped.

“And mine is to make babies and look pretty?”

“Yours is to continue the legacy of your family and leave the hardworking jobs to people who need them.”

“This sounds a lot like you don’t respect me as an equal,” I hissed, holding the phone between my ear and shoulder and stabbing the trowel in the mud and wiping my forehead simultaneously.

“That’s because you’re not my equal, my dear Frankie.”

The line went dead on the other side.

I planted twenty pots of flowers that day. Then went to my room, took a shower, and started filling out my application to Northwestern. Political Science and Legal Studies, I decided, would be my major. In all fairness, I always thought gardening was my calling, but since my father infuriated me to no end, sticking my major in his face was worth going through years and years of studying something I doubted would interest me much. I was Petty McPetson, but I was gaining an education, and it felt good.

I hunched over my oak desk when something in the air changed. I didn’t have to lift my head to know what it was.

My fiancé was here to check on his prisoner bride.

“You have your first dress fitting tomorrow. Go to bed.”

From my peripheral, I could see he was not wearing a suit. A white V-neck shirt that highlighted his tan, lean but muscled body and dark denim that clung low on his narrow hips. He looked nothing like a senator, acted nothing like a politician, and the fact I couldn’t box him this way or the other unsettled me.

“I’m filling out my application to Northwestern,” I replied, feeling heat coating my face and neck again. Why did it feel like he dipped me in liquid fire every time his eyes were on me? And how could I make it stop?

“You’re wasting your time.”

My head snapped up, and I granted him the eye contact he’d been looking for.

“You promised,” I growled.

“And I shall deliver.” He pushed off my doorframe and stepped into my room, sauntering toward me. “You don’t need to fill out an application. My people have already taken care of that. You’re about to become a Keaton.”

“Are Keatons too precious to fill out their own college applications?” I could barely keep myself from snapping at him.

He plucked the documents from my desk, balled and slam-dunked them in the trash can by my desk. “It means you could’ve drawn dicks in all shapes and sizes on the document, and you’d still get in.”

I shot up from my chair, putting some much-needed distance between us. I couldn’t risk another kiss. My lips still stung every time I thought of his rejection.

“How dare you!” I thundered.

“You seem to be asking this question a lot. Care to change your tune a little?” He shoved one hand into the front pocket of his jeans and picked up my cell phone on my desk, scrolling through it with his thumb with easy monotony. My parents forbade me from having a passcode. When my mom gave me back my phone, protecting my privacy was low on my to-do list, seeing as the majority of it had already been taken anyway.

“What are you doing?” My voice turned eerily calm and shocked at the same time.

His eyes were still on my phone. “Go ahead. Ask again. How dare I, right?”

I was too stunned to form words. The man was a savage in a suit. He taunted and aggravated me at every turn. My father was a stubborn jerk, but this guy…this guy was the devil who returned to my nightmares every night. He was hell wrapped in a heavenly rugged mask. He was fire. Gorgeous to the eye, lethal to the touch.

“Give me my phone right now.” I threw my open palm in his direction. He waved a dismissive hand my way, still reading my text messages. Angelo’s text messages.

“You can’t do that.” I launched at him, raising my arms to reach the phone. He raised his arm, grabbed me by the waist with his other hand, capturing both my wrists and plastering my hands to his lower stomach over his shirt.

“Move, and you’ll see what your anger does to me. A friendly hint: it thrills me and in more ways than you’d like to know.”

A part of me wanted to defy him so he would push my hands down. I’d never touched a man down there before, and the idea of it excited me. My life was already in shambles. My morals were the last things I’d clung to, and frankly, my fingers were tired from holding them.

I moved on principal, and he smirked, scrolling down my texts and tightening his hold on my wrists. He didn’t make good on his promise to put my hands on his manhood.

“Are you going to answer lover-boy?” he asked conversationally.

“None of your business.”

“You’re about to become my wife. Everything about you is my business. Especially boys with blue eyes and smiles I don’t trust.”

He dropped my hands, pocketed my phone, and cocked his head, scanning me through his scorn. I wanted to cry. After yesterday’s humiliation, not only did he not apologize, but he also taunted me twice today—both by throwing my application in the trash and by reading through my messages.

He confiscated my phone as though I was his daughter.

“My phone, Wolfe. Give it.” I took a step back. I wanted to hurt him so bad, it hurt to breathe. He stared me down, calm and quiet.

“Only if you delete Bandini from your contacts.”

“He’s a childhood friend.”

“Out of curiosity, do you fuck all your childhood friends?”

I flashed him a sugary smile, “Afraid I’ll run off and have sex with Angelo again?”

The tip of his tongue darted out to lick his lower lip sinisterly, “Me? No. But he should be. Unless, of course, he wants his dick cut off.”

“You sound like a mobster, not a future president.” I jutted my chin out.

“Both are positions of extreme power executed differently. You’d be surprised how many things they have in common.”

“Stop justifying your actions,” I said.

“Stop fighting your fate. You’re not doing your father any favors. Even he wants you to submit.”

“How do you know that?”

“One of his Magnificent Mile properties caught fire this morning. Fifty kilograms of cocaine straight from Europe—poof! Gone. He can’t contact the insurance until he cleans up the evidence, and by then, they’ll figure out he tampered with the scene. He just lost millions.”

“You did that,” I accused, narrowing my eyes at him. He shrugged.

“Drugs kill.”

“You did that so they’d tell me off,” I said.

He laughed. “Sweetheart, you’re a nuisance at best and entirely not worth the risk.”

Before I slapped him—or worse—I stormed outside, my anger following me like a shadow. I couldn’t leave the house since I didn’t have a car or anywhere to go, but I wanted to disappear. I ran out to the pavilion, where I broke down, falling to my knees and bawling my eyes out.

I couldn’t take it anymore. The combination of my father being a tyrant and Wolfe trying to ruin my family’s and my life was too much. I rested my head against the cool white wood of the bench, wailing softly as I felt the fight leaving my body.

A calming hand caressing my back. I was afraid to turn around even though I knew in my gut that Wolfe would never seek me out and try to make things better.

“Do you need your gloves?” It was Ms. Sterling, her voice soft like cotton. I shook my head between my arms.

“You know, he is just as confused and disoriented by your situation. Only difference is he’s had years of perfecting how to hide his emotions.”

I appreciated her trying to humanize my fiancé in my eyes, but it hardly worked.

“I had the pleasure of raising Wolfe. He was always a clever boy. He always wore his anger on his sleeve.” Her voice rang like bells as she drew lazy circles on my back, like my mom used to do when I was young. I kept quiet. I didn’t care that Wolfe had his own baggage. I’d done nothing to deserve his treatment.

“You need to weather the storm, my dear. I think you’ll find, after your adjustment period, that you two are so explosive together because you finally met your challenges in one another.” She sat on the bench above me, removing traces of my hair from my face. I looked up and blinked at her.

“I don’t think anything can scare Senator Keaton.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised. I think you give him a healthy dose of things to worry about. He did not expect you to be so…you.”

“What does that mean?”

Her face wrinkled as she considered her next words. Seeing as Wolfe had obviously hired her because he felt attached to her after raising him, I at least had the hope in believing that one day, he’d warm up to me, too.

She offered me her hands, and when I took them, she surprised me by pulling me up and standing up at the same time, drawing me in for a hug. We were both the same height—tiny—and she was even scrawnier than me. She spoke against my hair.

“I think your love story started off on the wrong foot, but it will be magnificent precisely because of that. Wolfe Keaton has walls, but you’re already starting to break them. He is fighting it, and you. Would you like the secret to disarming Wolfe Keaton, my dear girl?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that. Because a part of me sincerely feared that I would tear him to shreds given the opportunity. And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing I’d hurt someone so profoundly.

“Yes,” I heard myself say.

“Love him. He will be defenseless against your love.”

With that, I felt her body disconnecting from mine, and she retreated to the glass doors, the vast mansion swallowing her figure. I took a deep breath.

The man had just destroyed a building in which my father processed drugs. And half-admitted it to me. That was more information than my father ever offered or admitted to. He also let me go to school. He also allowed me to leave whenever I pleased.

I glanced at my wrist watch. It was two in the morning. Somehow, I’d spent two hours in the garden. Two hours Wolfe must’ve spent reading through every message I’d ever received.

The late-night chill was seeping into my bones. Dejected, I turned to head back into the house. When I’d made my way back inside, I spotted Wolfe standing on the threshold of the open door. He had one arm propped against its frame, blocking me from getting in. I took measured steps toward him.

I stopped when I was a foot away.

“Give me my phone back,” I said. To my surprise, he reached into his back pocket and tossed it into my hands. I clutched it in my fist, still reeling from our latest fight but also oddly touched by the fact he stayed awake and waited for me. He started his days at five in the morning, after all.

“You’re in my way.” I rustled, trying to keep my teeth from chattering.

He stared at me blankly.

“Push me away. Fight for what you want, Francesca.”

“I thought that’s what made us enemies.” A vicious smile found my lips. “Because I want to break free from you.”

It was his turn to smirk.

“Wanting and fighting are two different things. One is passive, the other active. Are we enemies, Nemesis?”

“What else can we be?”

“Allies. I’ll scratch your back. You’ll scratch mine.”

“I’m all for not touching you ever again after last night.”

He shrugged. “You might’ve been more believable if you hadn’t grinded on me before I kicked you out of my bedroom. At any rate, you’re welcome to come in. But I won’t be making it easy for you, unless you give me your word Bandini is deleted from your phone and your life.”

I got why he did that. He could have done it himself, but he wanted it to come from me. He didn’t want another battle—he wanted my complete surrender.

“Angelo will always be in my life. We grew up together, and just because you bought me doesn’t mean you own me,” I said evenly even though really, I had no intention of responding to Angelo’s texts. More so since I’d heard that he was going on a second date with the vile Emily.

“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to show some of your temper and fight me.”

“Can I ask you something?” I rubbed my forehead tiredly.

“Certainly. Whether I’ll answer or not is a completely different story.” His smirk grew more smug and mocking.

“What’s your leverage over my father? He obviously hates your guts, yet he won’t claim me back, even after I told him I’m going to college. That’d put a huge strain on his reputation as people will know that I am going against his wish. It must be quite substantial, then, if he’d rather have me in your bed than have you dish out the goods on him.”

I scanned his face, expecting him to rebuke and belittle me as my father had done earlier that day.

Wolfe surprised me again.

“Whatever I have on him could take away everything he’s worked for, not to mention throw him in jail for the rest of his miserable life. But your father didn’t throw you to the dogs. He trusts me not to hurt you.”

“Is that foolish of him?” I looked up.

Wolfe’s muscular arm flexed under his shirt. A barely visible movement.

“I’m not a monster.”

“Could’ve fooled me. Just tell me why?” I whispered, the air rattling in my lungs. “Why do you hate him so much?”

“That’s two questions. Go to bed.”

“Move out of the way.”

“Accomplishments are so much more rewarding when obstacles are in the way. Fight me, darling.”

I snuck under his arm, ducking into the house and launching for the staircase. He caught me by the waist in one swift movement, pulling me into his arms and plastering me against his strong chest. His knuckles trailed down the length of my spine, and goose bumps burst all over my skin. His lips found my ear, hot and soft in contrast to the harsh man they belonged to, his breath tickling my hair. “Maybe I am the monster. After all, I come out to play at night. But so do you, little one. You’re out in the darkness, too.”