Page 3 of Angels Are Falling

Chapter

One

STEFAN

The Gilded Lamp was the fanciest restaurant in town, and when I pulled up and handed my keys to the valet, I wished I had fought harder to make my little sister presentable. While my two younger brothers were willing to dress the part, Bella flat-out refused. The other men and women wore expensive suits and cocktail dresses, and even I felt incredibly out of place here.

My wife, Amelie, looked like a goddess stepping out of my beat-up Camry. Her turquoise satin jumpsuit was sexy as hell with a sheer midriff and sleeves that hung off her sun-kissed shoulders. She paired it with gold teardrop earrings, a matching necklace, and tall, strappy heels.

My younger siblings clamored out of the back seat, pushing and shoving. Their bickering was driving me insane, but Amelie just smiled and reached for me. I couldn’t even remember the last time I was able to take her out like this. We never expected to be responsible for three hell-raisers, but when my parents died in a car accident, the kids had no one else but us.

Overnight, I went from a new college graduate with a promising career in travel photography—winning competitions, selling pieces to collectors, planning big trips around the world to build my portfolio, dreaming of heading my own travel magazine—to a parent of three. I barely had time to process my gut-wrenching grief over losing my parents before I was thrust into a role I wasn’t ready for.

I took on my siblings, my parents’ mortgage, and settled for a job that covered health insurance for five. My life was a living hell. The house was a mess, I never had a minute to myself, and my bank account was constantly drained. This wasn’t the life I had envisioned for us.

I had often worried Amelie would eventually resent me for dragging her into this pit stain, but she stuck with me through it all. Every time my own bitterness bubbled up, one glance at Amelie was enough to silence it all. We were high school sweethearts and married straight out of college, though she had always been out of my league.

She threaded her arm through mine as we entered the front hall, and the gossip hit us immediately. Servers who were paused with empty trays spoke in hushed voices.

“I thought it was against restaurant policy to book private events without a twenty-four-hour notice.”

“It’s not an event. Just a dinner for six.”

“The manager shut down the entire upstairs for six people?”

“I heard some rich guy paid one hundred thousand dollars to rent the whole mezzanine level.”

The other server whistled. “He must be trying to impress a girl.”

“Lucky girl.”

I gave our name to the maître d’ and watched her eyes shoot up. First to me, then to the kids, then finally to Amelie. “This way.” She smiled brightly, but I knew what she must have been thinking.

I held one hand out, gesturing for my wife to lead the way, and God she looked incredible. Shiny pink gloss over full lips and thick black liner that made her brown eyes even more striking. Her long, dark hair fell nearly to her waist, partly pulled back with the jeweled clip my mother had bought her years ago. It wasn’t expensive next to the finer jewelry and trinkets she had collected over the years, but she treasured it as if it were gold.

Her hand skimmed the satin backs of chairs as she moved through the restaurant, the finery something she must miss on occasion. Amelie came from a wealthy Lebanese family, but after her father passed away, they lost everything. Bankruptcy. She still carried herself with the easy grace that others noticed, but she hadn’t let her high-society upbringing go to her head. She was my Middle Eastern princess, elegant and regal. She could hold her own at a black-tie gala and then spend the next day barefoot in the kitchen, dancing between the counter and stove for homemade ramen.

And by some miracle, she was all mine.

Heads usually turned when she walked by, but tonight, the room’s attention was on someone else—the man we were meeting for dinner.

Kai Cavendish awaited our arrival on the mezzanine balcony overlooking the downstairs. He wore a black suit with a deep crimson shirt, and his cuff links and tie clip were gold.

He had a certain quality, a king on his mezzanine throne, watching the rest of us. Everyone stared at him. Even in the dimly lit restaurant, his sleek black hair and tall, confident presence emanated the aura of a sultan. He was worth many millions, perhaps even billions, and he was treated like royalty wherever he went.

I wondered if Amelie was calculating what one hundred thousand dollars could have meant for us: catching up on the mortgage and paying off our credit card bills.

I hardly knew Kai Cavendish. I only met him yesterday when I picked Amelie up from her shift. She was the lucky nurse who had removed some shattered glass lodged in his palm, and he’d stopped by the hospital to repay her kindness with a dinner invitation for her and her family.

I knew he was well-off when he suggested treating us to dinner at The Gilded Lamp. We had eagerly accepted the generosity, but Mr. Cavendish had surpassed my wildest expectations by dropping one hundred thousand dollars. Money was no object to him. But this kind of obscene money?

“Who is he?” someone asked.

“They call him the Prince of Darster.”

“Like a real-life prince?”

“No. No. They just call him that because he owns everything in Darster.”