Luca's POV

"Luca!" Harry yelled and I tossed in my bed. "LUCA!" He yelled louder causing me to wake up. I rolled out of bed and slumped out of my room to see what he wanted.

Still groggy with sleep I wiped a hand across my face to see my stepfather standing downstairs while facing the direction of my room with a newspaper clutched in his hand.

"What?" I asked in annoyance. Harry had his tendencies to throw a fit now and then. His tantrums never seemed to amuse me in the slightest.

'Luca you are irresponsible!'

'Luca why are you breathing the same air as me!'

'Luca why can't you be like your sister Stephanie!' This is how it went every single day.

Stephanie is my older sister. She is Harry's daughter. She was nothing like Harry. Unlike Harry, she had an outstanding, bubbly personality. She radiated love and warmth and always had a welcoming smile on her face.

Stephanie's mother passed away when she was five years old. My father passed away when I was a month old. My mother met, and married Harry when I was two and I've been putting up with him ever since.

"Get down here now young man!" Harry barked, and I sighed. I took the steps down two at a time. I was in a hurry to get the conversation over with."What is this Luca?" Harry asked, angrily while holding up the newspaper.

Harry was a thin, clean shaved man. His hair was always combed back and he looked like he was straight out of the eighteen hundreds with his brown pants and suspenders.

I, on the other hand, had long unruly hair I'd often liked to keep in a bun and a neatly trimmed beard, also I dressed like I was from this century, but Harry hated it. He often said I looked like a vagabond.

"Oh, can't you see father? It's clearly a newspaper," I said, in disinterest. The old man is losing it.

"Don't act smart Luca." He threw the newspaper at me and I easily caught it. I looked at the front page and I knew that this time I was in deep shit. The headline read: Luca Hendricks, son of Billionaire Harry Hendricks, goes on a booze cruise with friends.

"I'm warning you, Luca. You stop this flamboyant behavior and you stop your gallivanting. You are dragging my name through the mud!" He yelled.

"Honey, honey calm down," My mother said, walking into the sitting room area with a tray. My mother had blonde hair she often kept short and behind her ears. She loved wearing long floral dresses that swept the floor when she walked. Sometimes I felt that I lived in a very old movie because of the way everyone around me dressed.

"No Charlotte. The boy has completely lost it! He has gone bonkers."

"He is just a child Harry," my mother defended my shitty actions as usual.

"A child. A child," he emphasized. "What child goes drinking on a yacht?"

"I'm sure he didn't mean..."

"No Char. You too lenient with him, but I'd just about had it. You hear me," he said and whirled on me."Pack your bags, Luca. You are leaving for New York tonight." As if ice water had been injected into my veins, my blood ran extremely cold.

"What? You can't do that. My life is in London."

"Life," he repeated in outrage "What life? You call drinking till you can't remember your bloody name a life!"

"Mum, please," I turned to her to plead.

She wiped away a tear."I'm sorry dear but it's out of my hands. You have exhausted your father and I's patience."

"Jameson!" Harry yelled and James appeared. James was Harry's bodyguard and had been working for him for over a decade.

"Yes sir."

"You will be accompanying Luca to New York," Harry told him.

"For how long sir?"

"For as long as it takes."

"Very well sir," James agreed, but I didn't miss the disappointed tone in his voice. He didn't want to go to New York and neither did I.

______________________________________

Elizabeth's POV

"You're a cheat and a liar," I yelled as I poked my finger in his chest multiple times. He took a step back, rubbing at the spot my finger issued multiple blows.

"Liz please, hear me out," he said, and I refused to. One year of a relationship had been a lie. I should have known. Life wasn't like a romance novel or movie where you could change the bad boy for the better.

"She is my best friend. How could you!" I yelled again.

"But I didn't cheat. I didn't even send her that message. I promise Liz. It was my stupid friends. I would never do that to you. I would never tell her that I want her more than I want you." Something in me had doubts. Something in me didn't want to believe him.

Why was it so hard? I was a junior at Saint Laurent's, a private school in Manhattan. I had never had a boyfriend before and I guess I was naive to think that I would be the one to change Tyler.

Our one-year relationship meant nothing to him. "Save it. I don't want to hear it.

"Forget about her Tyler." I heard the voice of my once best friend say. "We can finally be together now." Jessica was my best friend until this morning. She was so happy to show me the conversation she and Tyler had through text messages the previous night.

One, two, three.

I counted in my head until I could calm down.

I didn't bother to turn around. I was broken on the inside. I lost two of my best friends in one day. Jessica had been my best friend for five years and it was so easy for her to drop five years' worth of friendship for my boyfriend.

The rest of the day was miserable. Everybody kept whispering when I walked past. The break up between me and the school's hottest guy was private, so naturally, the entire school found out about it.

I didn't care that Tyler was popular. I didn't care about the bad boy facade he had going on. He was different with me. I guess that I was just too in love with the idea of love, that I thought I'd be the one to change him.

My father's driver picked me up after school. He was standing by the car, waiting for me with a broad smile on his face. His smile soon faded when he saw my heartbroken face.

"Why so glum?" he asked, and I shook my head indicating that I didn't want to talk about it.

Usually, I would be excited to tell Charlie about my day. He was like my second dad. I had a lot of respect for him.

I walked over to the car and yanked the door open to get in. I closed it after myself and Charlie walked around the car to the driver's seat. He started the car and I rested my head on my hands as I stared out the window.

Excluding the one time, I cried in the girl's bathroom. I would say that I did well and didn't have any public breakdowns. I was already embarrassed enough that the entire school knew my business.

Time passed and then the car came to a rolling stop in the driveway of our mansion. Dad was a neurosurgeon. The best neurosurgeon in Manhattan.

I ran up to the door. Ready to shower, change, and get my homework over with, but I stopped in my tracks when I heard my mother's screams.

"Help someone," I heard my mother's hysterical screams echo throughout the hallways as I entered the house.

"Mom where are you," I asked, frantically. She didn't answer so I ran towards the sound of her voice. I ran into the lounge to see her hunched over my father's body.

"Mom, what happened?" I instinctively rushed over to my father's body that laid limp on the floor.

"He had... another heart .... attack," my mother said, hiccuping through her sobs.

"No." I didn't want to believe it. My father had a history of heart disease. He was sickly but he went on like he had no sicknesses. "He'll be fine mom... he has to be..." I fell to my knees in front of him and placed my ear on his chest. He had no heartbeat...

The sound of ambulance sirens and footsteps running into the house caused both my mother and me to stand up and let them through.

They carefully placed my father's body on a stretcher and carried him out of the house. I followed after them, watched them load him in an ambulance, and put an oxygen mask on his face before they closed the ambulance doors and drove off with him.

I lost my life in one day.

************************************************

Authors note.

So the prologue is just so that you know what went on in their lives before they met and why they behave the way they do.

Hope you enjoyed it. Please vote, comment, and recommend.

💜P. A💜