Chapter 11 #2
His nostrils flared as he breathed out and then, turning around to her, he stopped walking and put his hands on her hips, ignoring the strange sense of calm that jolted through him when their eyes met. The feeling that suddenly, nothing else really mattered.
“May I?” he asked.
She frowned, but he picked her up by way of explanation, lifting her against his chest, cradling her there, realising the sense of calm spread, the more he held her.
“I can walk,” she said, unevenly, and he knew she was feeling as affected by all of this as he was.
Different reasons, different feelings, but the same rioting emotions.
He hated it. He hated feeling anything that he couldn’t control, and something about this moment was exactly that.
Spinning wildly away from him. He hadn’t been there to protect her, and Paolo had touched her.
Had touched her when she’d asked him not to.
Had pulled at her arm. Had spoken to her loudly.
Had treated her with disrespect and every single protective instinct he possessed had fired to life.
A whole jumble of feelings, probably mixed up with not having been able to save Marco, with having let his best friend down, all skittered inside of him.
He’d seen red. All he’d known in that moment was a fierce, desperate need to make her safe.
And make her his.
Yes. He’d wanted to wipe his brother off her; he’d wanted to erase his touch, his words, everything.
Down near the water, rather than turn towards the speedboat, he stalked in the opposite direction, back towards the yacht.
“Where are we going?”
“Why do we not take the scenic route home?”
He saw the way her face changed, something shifting in her features he didn’t understand. He slowed, his chest moving with each ragged breath.
“I want to shut out the world for a while.”
“Luca,” she lifted a hand to his cheek, making something swirl inside of him, just like it had on the terrace. “It’s okay to be angry.”
He ground his teeth. “I wanted to kill him.”
Her throat shifted as she swallowed. “He was just trying to get my attention.”
“He had no right to touch you.”
“I know.” She shook her head. “He didn’t hurt me.”
“You asked him to stop. He didn’t.”
She bit into her lower lip; he ached to kiss her.
“He had no right,” Luca growled.
“I know that too.”
“I was so angry.”
Her lips flickered in the hint of a smile. “Yes.”
He couldn’t dredge up a similar emotion. He blinked and saw Paolo, holding onto her. The man who hated him, who would stop at nothing to ruin his life. Including his marriage.
And even though this wasn’t a real marriage and Allegra not a real wife, his feelings of jealousy and possessiveness had been anything but false. “If you have any objections, say so now.”
He was conscious of the sound of the waves, the birds, the trees, her breathing. Conscious of everything, including the fact she didn’t answer for a very long time. Tension spread through him, a feeling that he could not force her to spend days alone with him on a yacht if she didn’t want to.
“I like your plan. Let’s blot the world out together. For a while,” she added, as if they both needed to heed that reminder. Now, more than ever.
“Have you tried therapy?”
The look on his face would have made her laugh under different circumstances. He looked as though she’d just asked if he’d brushed his teeth with honey.
“In what sense?” To his credit, he covered the reaction swiftly.
“With Paolo.”
He laughed then. A deep, husky sound that was coated in rejection.
She settled back in her seat, enjoying this despite his obvious scepticism.
She liked being on the water with him, watching him drive.
Did one drive a boat? She didn’t know for sure.
If she’d grown up in this world, like Luca had, she’d have all the terminology down pat, but this was as far removed from Ally’s version of ‘normal’ as it was possible to get.
She pulled her hair over one shoulder, stroking the ends, then stopping when Luca’s gaze fell to her fingers and clung in a way that made her brain grind to a halt.
“Are you asking if my half brother and I have gone and shared cups of tea whilst discussing our feelings?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t act all macho.”
The coastline to her left was a blur of warm lights against the cliffs. The moon was silver and full again tonight, though not yet as high as it had been.
“It’s just not really who I am.”
“Therapy can be helpful.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“But you don’t agree?”
“Are you speaking from experience?”
She lifted her shoulders. “I talked to the school guidance counsellor, when my dad first got sick. It’s not the same thing. I couldn’t afford a full shrink or anything. But it did help, yeah.”
“In what way?”
She knew what he was doing. Turning the conversation skilfully away from himself, and onto her, because that was more comfortable for him. She let it slide, though.
“I had to learn to let go of the idea of control. There was only so much I could do to help him. Only so much I could change. No matter how much I wished it, or how hard I tried, some things can’t be fixed. It’s hard.”
He grunted.
“You know this is true.”
She watched him carefully, saw the way his knuckles gleamed white through his skin, as he gripped the wheel more tightly.
“You felt it with your friend.”
He turned to face her, eyes glittering darkly. She curled her legs beneath her on the seat and held his gaze. She was not afraid of him. If anything, there was something about Luca that empowered her, and made her think she could say or do whatever she wanted.
“It’s not the same.” He stared straight ahead. “I was not powerless.”
“What do you mean?”
He cut the engine, so the silence was instantly jarring.
She leaned forward, and a balmy breeze picked up off the ocean, drawing her hair away from her face.
Luca leaned against the driver’s seat with an appearance of nonchalance that she knew to be assumed.
“I was his commander. I sent him out that morning. I’m the reason he died. ”
She blinked, not quite following his logic. “That makes no sense.”
A muscle jerked at the base of his jaw. “But for me, he would still be here.”
She sighed softly. “You were in a warzone. Sending him out to do what he’d signed up for was part of your job. Unless you wrapped him up in cotton wool, there were risks everywhere. He knew that, too. He went on deployment accepting what that might mean.”
“He should still be here.”
“But you can’t control that,” she said, frustrated because she obviously wasn’t getting through to him. She stood and closed the distance between them, so they were toe to toe. “He went to war knowing there were risks. If not that day, then some other, he might get hurt, or worse.”
He just stared at her.
“Just like my dad did everything right, lived like a saint, and still got cancer. Shit happens.”
He made a sound. A strangled noise that wasn’t a laugh, but something almost like it. “That’s your answer?”
“Do you have a better one?”
He looked towards the coastline. “Are you happy here?”
She didn’t immediately follow.
“We can keep going, but I figure there’s no rush.”
“Oh,” she followed his gaze. “Yeah.” A frown moved over her face. “Do we have food?”
“Enough for tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll brave a market somewhere.”