20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
The Answer Is Yes
Luca
“Are you in love with me?”
Those are the first words Simone says when I enter our room.
I stop inside the doorway.
I went straight to the washroom after helping Brock and several villagers extinguish the remains of the bonfire. My hair is still damp, and the clean shirt Brock loaned me strains across my shoulders.
Simone stands near the foot of the bed in Claire’s pale dress.
Most of the flowers have fallen from her hair, leaving only two caught among the dark waves framing her face.
She must have been pacing before I entered.
Her arms are crossed tightly over her chest, and her expression is too serious to dismiss as another attempt to provoke me.
“Are you?” she repeats.
I’ve faced gunfire.
Carried people through burning buildings.
Stood between Simone and a rifle.
Nothing has ever unsettled me as completely as those six words.
Because the answer is yes.
It has been yes for longer than I have been willing to admit.
And that terrifies me.
“Luca.”
She uncrosses her arms.
“I asked you a question.”
I close the door behind me and turn the lock.
The pistol rests on the table beside the bed, close enough to reach if someone approaches the cottage.
Outside, the village has grown quiet. Brock and the harbor master placed men along the northern paths, but the pilot remains somewhere on the island.
Danger hasn’t disappeared.
Yet Simone is the only thing I can see.
I set the towel in my hand over the back of the chair.
“Why are you asking me that?”
Her eyebrows rise.
“That’s your answer?”
“No.”
“Then answer the question.”
“I want to know why you’re asking.”
Her arms fall to her sides.
“Because I need to know I’m not imagining this.”
Her voice remains firm, but uncertainty flickers across her face.
“I need to hear it from you. Not from Claire. Not from the way you look at me. Not from what happened last night.”
Claire.
Of course.
“What did she say?”
“That she sees love in your face.”
Simone steps closer.
“And I told her she was wrong.”
The words strike harder than they should.
“Do you think she is?”
“I don’t know.”
Her fingers curl into her palms.
“That’s the problem.”
I haven’t let myself name what happens inside me when Simone laughs.
When she walks away.
When another man touches her.
When she stands on a stage and becomes something too bright for the rest of us to look at directly.
I haven’t named the fear that grips me whenever she’s hurt.
Or the emptiness that follows whenever she leaves a room.
I called it responsibility.
Protectiveness.
Attraction.
Anything except what it is.
Because I’ve never felt this way about anyone.
Only her.
“I’ve thought about everything,” she continues. “The way you behave around me. The way you touched me last night. The things you said before you kissed me.”
She holds up one hand when I attempt to speak.
“I’m not an idiot, Luca. I know when a man wants me.”
Her voice softens.
“But wanting me isn’t enough.”
The words land exactly where she intends.
“You look at me like I matter more than anything. Then you act as though feeling that way is some kind of punishment.”
“It isn’t.”
“It feels like one.”
Her eyes shine, but she refuses to look away.
“You make me feel as though being with me is something you have to survive.”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
“Me.”
She releases a humorless laugh.
“That’s the most insulting part.”
“Simone—”
“I’m not fragile.”
“I know.”
“I’m not a child.”
“I know that too.”
“Then stop treating my feelings like they’re less informed than yours.”
She crosses the remaining distance between us.
“We could be rescued within thirty-six hours. Once we’re home, Dad and Bran and the rest of the world come back into this.”
Her throat moves as she swallows.
“I need to know what last night meant before that happens.”
I should answer.
Instead, the words remain trapped beneath years of fear and obligation.
Simone sees the hesitation.
Pain changes her expression.
“You rejected me twice.”
“I didn’t reject you because I didn’t want you.”
The admission leaves me before I can stop it.
She becomes still.
“I don’t think there has ever been a time when I didn’t want you.”
Her lips part.
“Then why did you hurt me?”
“Because you were off-limits.”
“To whom?”
“To me.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It was the only one I had.”
I drag one hand through my damp hair.
“Bran is my best friend. Francis gave my father work when he needed it. Then he gave me a place in his organization. He trusted me with his family.”
“And?”
“And I wasn’t supposed to look at his daughter the way I look at you.”
“Dad doesn’t own my body.”
“I know.”
“Bran doesn’t choose who I love.”
My heart stops.
Simone seems to realize what she said at the same moment I do.
Neither of us moves.
She lifts her chin.
“No,” she says. “I’m not taking it back.”
Heat spreads beneath my skin.
“This isn’t only about them.”
“Then tell me what it is about.”
The answer is uglier than loyalty.
Harder to confess.
“It’s about me.”
Her expression softens, but I don’t want softness.
I want her anger.
It’s easier to withstand.
“I never believed I was enough for you.”
Simone frowns.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It doesn’t feel ridiculous from where I stand.”
I turn away from her, needing distance to force the words out.
“I grew up on the other side of everything you’ve ever known. I watched families like yours live lives I couldn’t imagine touching.”
“Families like mine?”
“Wealthy. Powerful. Untouchable.”
I face her again.
“My father worked for yours. Then I did.”
“You’re more than your job.”
“That doesn’t change how I entered your world.”
“Through Bran.”
“Through service.”
Her jaw tightens.
“You think Dad sees you as a servant?”
“Sometimes I don’t know what he sees.”
The bitterness in my voice makes me hate myself.
But once the first crack appears, everything behind it pushes through.
“I’ve spent most of my life standing beside people I never believed I belonged with.”
The room feels too small.
My chest feels smaller.
“My family left France when I was five. I grew up French at home and American everywhere else, never fully certain which one I was allowed to claim.”
I look toward the shuttered window.
“Then my father died, and whatever sense of belonging I had disappeared with him.”
Simone’s face changes.
She knows enough not to interrupt.
“I was sixteen.”
I haven’t spoken about this in years.
Not honestly.
“He left the house that morning because Francis needed something handled.”
My throat tightens.
“I know your father didn’t kill him. I know the accident could have happened anywhere.”
I press one hand against my ribs, as though I can contain the old pain there.
“But part of me still blames him.”
Simone remains silent.
“I’ve hated myself for that every day.”
“Why?”
“Because Francis helped my family. Because he took me in afterward. Because Bran is my brother in every way that matters.”
My voice becomes rougher.
“How do I resent the man whose family became mine?”
“You grieve your father.”
“That doesn’t make the resentment fair.”
“Grief isn’t fair.”
The simple statement hits something deep.
Simone steps closer.
“You were sixteen, Luca. You lost your father and needed somewhere to put the anger.”
“I put it everywhere.”
“Including yourself.”
I look at her.
She sees too much.
Always has.
“I never found my own direction afterward,” I admit. “I became what people needed. Francis needed someone loyal. Bran needed a friend. My mother needed me to survive it.”
“And you?”
“I didn’t know what I needed.”
“You still don’t.”
The words should irritate me.
They don’t.
“Maybe.”
“You need to stop treating duty like it’s the only thing that gives you value.”
Her voice grows quieter.
“You don’t have to earn the right to exist beside us.”
She has no idea how impossible that feels.
Or maybe she does.
“Falling for you felt like stealing something from the only family I had left.”
Her eyes shine again.
“I’m not something you can steal.”
“I know that now.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
The answer comes firmly.
“Then why are we still discussing whether you’re good enough for me instead of what I asked?”
Because she’s fearless.
Because she’ll tear directly through every excuse until nothing remains between us.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Need someone.”
Her expression breaks open.
I force myself to continue.
“You’ve always seemed impossible.”
“That’s flattering.”
“Not the way I mean it.”
I step toward her.
“You were a mirage. Something beautiful I could stand near as long as I never tried to touch it.”
“I’m not a mirage.”
“No.”
My gaze moves across her face.
“You’re painfully real.”
Her breathing changes.
“For years, I convinced myself you were only Bran’s sister. Then you grew up.”
My voice lowers.
“You kissed me on your eighteenth birthday, and suddenly every lie I told myself became harder to believe.”
Simone’s eyes search mine.
“I hurt you because I wanted you.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It did at the time.”
“It was cowardly.”
“Yes.”
The admission surprises her.
“I was a coward.”
Her anger softens.
“I thought if I made you hate me, you would move on to someone appropriate.”
“Appropriate?”
“Someone from your world.”
“You mean someone rich.”
“Someone who didn’t feel as though he entered your life through the service entrance.”
Pain flashes across her face.
“Is that really how you see yourself?”
“Sometimes.”
“Then you haven’t been paying attention.”
She reaches for me but stops before touching my chest.
“Do you know what I see?”
I say nothing.
“I see the man my brother trusts more than anyone.”
Her hand settles over my heart.
“The man my father trusted with my life.”
Her voice catches.
“The man who carried me out of gunfire. Who walked back into a plane leaking fuel because he knew we’d need supplies. Who hunted food because I couldn’t eat the fish.”
A smile threatens the edge of her mouth.
“The man who tells terrible jokes without realizing they’re jokes.”
“I don’t do that.”
“You absolutely do.”
Her fingers curl into the borrowed shirt.
“I see you.”
The words echo what I told her beside the pool.