-Seven Years Ago-

"Dom, we are going to get caught!" she whispered. Or at least, tried to.

He squeezed her hand once, reassuringly, and kept marching ahead.

Lights from the party outside formed swirls on the wall of a corridor that was otherwise completely dark. Their steps ricocheted like bullets off the marble floor and bounced around the high ceilings.

Clara did not know this part of the villa well but trusted Dominic to know where they were going. The variegated light lit up his white shirt with each window they passed, outlining the planes of his shoulders. She was grateful for the darkness that hid her warm cheeks.

"Here we are," he said, pushing open a set of French doors.

His father's office was even darker than the hall, and Clara reached for the nearest wall, taking care not to knock over something expensive, which was pretty much everything in that room.

"Dom, are you sure about this? There's plenty of wine at the party."

He reached underneath the desk, feeling for the secret compartment with the key to his father's cabinet. Clara leaned over, trying to see what he was doing.

"He won't notice it missing, and I've been dying to get my hands on it. Tonight's the night," he said, holding up the key with a wolfish grin.

Clara leaned back on the desk, arms crossed, watching him with one eye as he walked over to the locked cabinet, the other trained on the door, expecting Cole Senior to come in any second and lose his marbles over their shenanigans.

He slid the small door aside, and an automatic light shone on the expensive tequila his father had received as a gift from some Latin industrial tycoon. Dom pulled the stopper and took a swig right out of the bottle, sighing after he swallowed. "Oh yes...."

Clara couldn't help but giggle. "Your father would be scandalized to see you drinking straight out of the decanter." She reached for it and took a bigger swig than she was ready for. She coughed, her throat suddenly on fire. "Oh wow... That is something, alright." The wine she'd had earlier bubbled up in the form of giggles. She reached for Dom standing in the half-light and threw an arm over his shoulders. He did not move.

"Dom, is something wrong?" She stepped forward and found him staring at a document left on the shelf, but before she had a chance to read what it said, he quickly snatched it and shoved it into his pocket.

"Yes. Fine. Let's go back to the party," he said. His smile didn't quite reach his eyes. He gently shut the cabinet, returned the key in its place, and led her back out to the party fueled by live music and lots and lots of booze. It was a beautiful warm Mediterranean night, and a full moon sparkled between the lights strung across the great lawn.

"Come on, let's dance!" Clara said, pulling Dom onto the dance floor. There was tension in his body still, and it took a couple of songs for him to loosen up, but all else was forgotten when Clara took his hands and placed them on her hips, reached hers behind his neck and leaned into his arms.

The music picked up again, and as Dom twirled Clara a camera appeared to their right. Their friend Giuseppe was a budding photographer, more passionate than talented and, Dom knew, secretly in love with Clara. Who could blame him.

Clara was giddy with laughter, wine, and dance, and if it wasn't for Dom holding her up, she wasn't sure she'd be able to remain standing.

"Smile for the camera!"

Dom spun her one more time, and she shrieked with joy when he pulled her back, never for a second taking his eyes off her.

"Bella!" Giuseppe smiled, and satisfied he moved onto the next perfect shot.

"You heard that? I am bella," she said, her tongue heavily slurring the l's. She giggled and hiccupped. Maybe that tequila wasn't the best follow up to all the wine.

Dom brushed a blond tress aside and looked at her solemnly. "You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," he said.

Something about the way he said it made Clara pause, a small bubble of clarity floating through the haze of her inebriation. His lips had never seemed softer, more kissable. She stood on her toes and did what she'd been thinking about doing all of last summer, and all of this summer, too. She pressed her lips to his, wanting—no, demanding more of him. All of him.

She gasped when he returned the kiss with fervor that was more intoxicating than anything either of them had drunk that night. The crowd around them faded, the music could have been something played in another room of the house, and who knew whether it was night or day anymore. All that existed was the two of them, in each other's arms, like the most euphoric drug either of them had ever tasted.

Clara neither could nor wanted to think right now, all she wanted was to feel. And the only thing she wanted to feel was Dominic. He ran his fingers down her spine and sent shivers through her whole body, up and down and back up again like an electric current.

Dominic did not know if he'd be able to stop kissing her. He had half a mind to pick her up and carry her upstairs to his bedroom—

"Ahem."

They pulled away, gasping for air. Cole Senior was standing behind Clara.

"Father," said Dominic quickly, stepping away from Clara who looked as if she were trying to remember what century they were in. Dominic could relate.

"A word?" One ash eyebrow suggested this was not a question. He began walking towards the privacy of the topiary garden. Dominic mouthed don't worry at Clara and followed his father.

Clara found a tent pole that she could lean her dizzy head against and watched the two, father and son, getting into what looked like an argument. Several times they glanced at her, and she would quickly look away. She was officially bad influence over the heir to the Cole empire.

"Clara, darling?"

Clara spun to find her mother and father standing on the pebbled path. She turned too fast, and almost lost her balance. Thank goodness for that sturdy pole. Sturdy, sturdy. Good pole.

"Time to go home, amore," said her father.

"Oh, ok." It was difficult to hide her disappointment. She didn't want to go home. She wanted to stay at the party with Dominic. She glanced back, trying to catch his eye, but he was waving a folded sheet of paper at his father, whose face had lost all color. Whatever this was about, it no longer had to do with that tequila they filched. She made a mental note to ask him about it later and followed after her parents.

She could still feel her lips scorched where his kiss branded her and traced the memory with the tips of her fingers.

There was no denying it anymore.

She was falling in love with Dominic Cole, and that was going to be a problem.