Broken Promises

four

|Xavier's POV|

Throngs of media reporters and photographers are crowding the entrance of club Kalindi and their questions and yells for just a look from me increase the moment they see me stepping down from my limo with Azriel.

Lately the two of us are being called the most eligible bachelors of the Upper East Side and even though I am least interested, Azriel seems to be enjoying all the attention he is getting.

I stare at him with an almost bored expression and without waiting for him, I enter the club while my men follow after me.

I step through the black doors and into the main arena and feel like I have entered heaven.

The decorations, the scents of flowers and lavender and the lights, they are all reminding me of summer mornings and surfing in the waves.

A comforting peace embraces my heart for a short moment or two before it shatters when I meet the stare of my father standing across from me.

He sees me and is now making his way towards me as I look back at my men and gesture them to take their posts in the back of the room and keep an eye on everything.

My father approaches me and his raven eyes, much similar to my own, are giving me a disappointed stare.

"You're late." He tells me with his lips pursed in a thin line. My father is hardly expressive outside the comfort of our home, however, he never fails to express his disappointment whenever I am in the wrong.

I give him a look of all seriousness, "I had some important business to attend to." I tell him dryly. I am currently in no mood to even get in an explanation about my whereabouts.

His vein on his temple looks like it is ready to pop at any time as he stares at me seething in anger. I look around and give him a small smile for show, knowing that making a scene tonight is the last thing he wants.

"Father, will you calm down?" I ask him, "I am here now, aren't I?"

He glares at me for a few more minutes before he finally huffs and shakes his head. "You know well enough that your arrival here was important. You will never get the throne if you do not marry Sage."

There it is.

This is the main reason why I am even agreeing to this godforsaken deal that my father made with her father while they were drunk and lost on some island all those years ago.

I could not care less about literally anything in this world but if there is one thing that can get me to cross every limit, then it is the business— both the good, and the bad.

I was born to rule after my father and I know that I will not stop at anything until I get the place I deserve.

For the last three years, I have been taking all the decisions for both sides of our business behind closed doors. The trusted ones know who is holding the reigns but right now, this marriage is necessary for me to truly be crowned.

The world will only know that I am the acting CEO of the Esmeraya Group of Industries and the Genovese Unit of Organised Crime, if and when I marry Sage Princeton.

And if marrying this girl is going to get me closer to my goal, then marry her I shall.

"Excuse me." I tell my father, my eyes searching for the washrooms and the moment I find them, I escape my father's skeptical gaze.

My phone once again buzzes in my pocket and I take it out just as I walk towards the washroom, hoping to freshen myself up before the big announcement.

However, just as I am going through my phone, a small body collided with mine, and my instincts kick in when I realise that it is a woman.

My arm instantly goes around her waist and the moment my eyes take in her appearance, my breathing gets caught up in my chest.

Strawberry blonde hair, softer than silk and voluminous, fall behind her in thick waves. The grey gown she is wearing is covering her milky skin as a layer of second skin with embroidery and rhinestones embellished in it. The heavy gown flows down in an elaborate skirt but leaves her shoulders bare. She is wearing a simple diamond necklace with matching earrings and her face...oh, she is most clearly the most beautiful woman I have ever laid my eyes on.

Her heart shaped lips, a cute button nose, cheeks that look red and desirable that I want to run my fingers through her porcelain skin and when she opens her eyes which she had tightly scrunched shut in the feat of falling— I know that I am a goner.

Crystal blue— the colour of the sky from a broken prison wall, the colour of a perfect raindrop on blue aster, the colour of a river, earthy and beautiful. Caramel streaks the centre of her eyes like a rising sun before melting into the blacks of her pupils like the darkest depths of the ocean. Her blue eyes are the rain shrouding the mountains, the waves splashing against cliffs, the storms rising in the midnight sky. Her blue eyes are chaos, and mystery, and passion, and joy...all combined into one.

She blinks at me for a few seconds, before her perfectly plump lips part and I hear the most melodious voice that stirs butterflies in my stomach.

"Thank you for not letting me fall." She whispers in a raspy manner and her voice tickles my soul, reaching my heart on its own accord.

"Not a problem." I mumble back, not knowing where I am standing or what is even happening around me. Right in this moment, this small girl has captivated me and I do not wish to know better.