Everything is a mess. My life is a mess.

“Sorry, Bella,” My landlord says. “But I can’t afford to fix it. Your lease is ending in a few months, and the repairs would cost more than the apartment is worth. Just deal, or move out, but you still owe me the rent.”

I slam the phone down onto the counter. The screen is already cracked anyway. I dropped the damn thing a few days ago. Like I said, everything is a mess.

All my textbooks were on the floor, which was flooded. I pulled them out as soon as I came home and saw the water everywhere, but they were already completely ruined.

Oh, and my final exam in Organic Chemistry is tomorrow. Not that I’ve had time to study. I spent all yesterday trying to save what I could out of the apartment, and then I had to move my mattress into the living room so I’d have somewhere to sleep.

I spent most of today begging my deadbeat landlord to do something, to save his own damn property, but he’s not interested. I could take him to small claims court, but that won’t fix anything right now. I’m probably stuck in this soggy mess of an apartment until my lease is up.

I look at my cracked phone screen and squint at the date. Wait, it’s Friday already? I thought it was Thursday. That means...the final exam is today. Not tomorrow. Today. In three hours.

I don’t waste time combing my hair, putting on decent clothes, or doing anything to look presentable. I grab my notes and my laptop and rush out the door. I don’t bother with the ruined textbook–the notes will have to be enough.

I throw the stuff onto the passenger seat and put the key in. I turn the key, and nothing happens.

“No,” I say in a desperate whisper. “Please, no.”

I check that I didn’t leave the headlights on. I didn’t. I turn the key back, then hold my breath and turn it again, hoping it will magically start.

It doesn’t. I drop my forehead onto the steering wheel, and tears well up in my eyes.

There’s a tap on my window. I look up and see my roommate, Sara. Her room didn’t get flooded, just mine.

I open the door and look at her with a desperate expression. Before I even ask her, she offers to give me a ride to campus.

Sara drops me off at a cafe just across from the building the exam is in. I grab a table, throw my laptop and notes onto it, and pull up the online study guide. I start desperately cramming harder than I have ever crammed before. I have been falling behind in this class, and I was going to spend three full days studying, but now I have two hours.

If one more thing goes wrong, I swear to God I will just drop out of college and become a nun. Nuns don’t have cheap landlord, cars that break down, or Organic Chemistry.

Just as I start seriously considering the idea, I get this prickly feeling on my arm. I look up and see the hairs standing on end, then I notice all the women around me are staring up at something. At someone.

I look up in the direction they are, toward the door. Then I see him.

It’s Luca Gallo.

Luca freaking Gallo. He’s tall as ever, impossibly handsome as ever, and with the same insufferable smirk as always. He runs a hand through his thick, dark hair as he surveys the cafe. His tattooed bicep bulges, and I hear a woman next to me whisper something to her friend, which I’m sure is about Luca.

Luca’s eyes lock onto me, and his smirk turns to a full smile. It’s a gorgeous smile, I will grudgingly admit. It frames perfect white teeth, and his razor-sharp cheekbones protrude as he favors me with his most winning smile. His piercing blue eyes don’t shy away from me even as he approaches.

Okay, time go be a nun. Luca Gallo is the last thing I need to happen now. The last piece of shit-flavored icing on a shit-flavored cake that I can take for today. Or for the rest of the year.

I slam my notes shut and move to stand–to just cut my losses and get out of here–but Luca sits himself down across from me, and he slams my notebook down flat onto the table.

“You keep the notes,” I hiss. “I’m leaving.”

He puts his hand on my wrist, meets my eyes, and through sheer force of his will, he makes me sit back down. He doesn’t pull on me or force me physically, but something about his presence makes me sit down. Makes me listen.

I’ve always found the man insufferable, cocky, arrogant, and worst of all: dangerous. I hate that I find him attractive, and that I always seem to run into him when I want nothing more than to avoid him. I always bump into him at the worst times too: times like these.

“What?” I ask.

He licks his lips and sits up straight, his broad chest straining against his tight t-shirt. He grabs my notes and opens them. His brows furrow as he flips through the pages. “This seems boring. Why are you bothering with this, Princess?”

“Don’t call me that,” I snap. “That’s what my father calls me.”

“I’m not your father,” he says, meeting my eyes again. “But you are a princess.”

I snatch the notes from his hands and flip back to where I was. I do my best to completely ignore him and try to study. Ignoring Luca Gallo while he’s this close to me is like trying to avoid a tidal wave rising up on the horizon while lounging on the beach. It’s not really possible. I grind my teeth and look back up at him. “Seriously, can you leave? I don’t have time for whatever this is right now.”

He calls me “Princess” because of my father. My father who I’ve tried so hard to make a clean break from. My father and Luca’s father were rivals. Rival families in the family business, which is–to not sugarcoat it–the Italian mafia.

I saw too many terrible things happen growing up. My mom died giving birth to me, and then the family business took my older brother away from me. It wasn’t Luca’s family that killed him, but my father found a way to blame them anyway. A few years ago, Luca’s father died, and now Luca is large and in charge of everything.

If I could give Luca credit for one thing, and one thing only, it’s that he hasn’t stoked the flames of the feud between our families. It’s not like he’s done anything to soothe it, but he’s at least not escalated it. I consider myself a neutral party, like Switzerland.

I might carry the Riela name, but I am not part of “the family.” Sometimes I wonder if Luca is so friendly toward me just to get a rise out of me–or more likely–to get a rise out of my father.

“Maybe I can help,” Luca says, grinning.

“I doubt it,” I say. “Unless you know organic chemistry.”

“I’d say,” he says, tilting his head and beaming at me, “That our chemistry is quite organic, though you put up a serious fight, Princess–”

“Luca,” I snap. “Seriously, not right now. My room is flooded. All my stuff is destroyed, and my landlord won’t fix it, so I have to live on a mattress in the living room for the next two months. All my books were ruined too, so it’s pretty hard to study for this final exam which I have in…” I gasp for breath and look at my cracked phone screen. “In one hour. Oh, and to add onto all of that, my damn car won’t start. And now you’re here, to make it so even that last precious hour of studying is ruined.”

“Sounds like princess problems,” he says.

I glare at him. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” he asks.

“Make my life out to be any less important than yours. Just because I am not part of the family doesn’t mean my life can’t be hard, or that my problems don’t matter.”

“You’re always part of your family,” he says. “But I can take the message. I heard you, Princess.”

He slides his chair back and stands up. He smiles down at me one last time, then turns to go.

I try not to watch him as he walks out, but only once he’s out of sight am I really able to look back down at my notes again.

* * *

I only get to study for another 45 minutes, and then I have to rush across the street toward the exam building. As I get there, a police van rolls up, sirens blaring.

I see people I recognize from class standing around outside the building, whispering to each other. I see one guy, a slacker frat guy, high-fiving his friends.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Bomb threat!” One of the frat guys shouts. “Fucking awesome! They’re closing the whole campus. Exam is postponed! Until Monday!”

“You sound excited,” one of his friends said. “You didn’t call it in, did you?”

“Fuck, no!” he says. “They don’t let you get away with that shit anymore. Just someone with balls of steel called it in I guess. Whoever it was, he saved all our asses.”

I walk away with my head swimming. My first thought isn’t a thought, so much as a feeling. A feeling of intense relief washing through me. It makes me feel almost giddy. I’ll have all of the rest of today, and then the whole weekend to study. I won’t fail the exam after all. Luck has been on my side, for once.

Then the elation fades, and my mind starts working. Someone with balls of steel must have called it in. Someone who doesn’t have any qualms about doing illegal or shady stuff. Someone who I just told that I had an exam I knew I was going to fail, and that I didn’t have time to study for.

Someone like Luca Gallo.

* * *

I take the bus home. I’m too exhausted to be upset, and the relief still feels too good. Like a crushing weight removed from my back. I’m planning to collapse onto my bed and pass out. Even though my bed is in the damn living room, and even though Sara will be able to see my mouth hanging open and hear me snoring, I won’t care. I just want to sleep.

Once I wake up, then I’ll study. After I study and ace the exam, then maybe I’ll give Luca Gallo a piece of my mind.

The first thing I notice as I walk up to my townhouse is a plumbing van in the driveway, and I see my landlord standing nervously beside it. He’s shouting something to the team of plumbers.

I tilt my head at him and ask him what’s going on.

He looks nervously at me. “Bella,” he says, smiling too wide. “I had a, uh, change of heart. I found a way to get everything fixed up, and I’m getting your room all cleaned up. The guys from Home Depot will come in later tonight and install the new flooring. I have movers coming after to move your bed back in there for you. I can replace it too, if there’s water damage.”

My mouth drops open. This is the guy I just shouted at over seven or eight intense phone calls. The guy who said I’d just have to deal with it. Now he’s suddenly going to call in movers just to move a bed a few feet?

He leans in closer to me and says in a soft, concerned whisper, “Bella, I can pay for you to stay in a nice hotel for the next few nights, then call you when everything is fixed up.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s do that.”

I look at the plumbing van, and then my landlord’s car, and I realize that my car is gone.