Chapter 20 Luca
LUCA
Gigi’s acting funny.
I can’t ignore it any longer during breakfast three days after our conversation about her father.
She’s pushing eggs around her plate, creating patterns in the hollandaise sauce rather than eating.
Her coffee sits untouched, steam curling up from the surface like accusatory fingers pointing at her complete lack of interest.
“Not hungry?” I ask, keeping my tone casual even though alarm bells are already ringing in my head. She hasn’t eaten much in the last few days and it’s worrying me.
She startles slightly, like she’d forgotten I was sitting across from her. “What? Oh. No, I’m fine. Just not feeling it this morning.”
Fine. That word again. The one people use when they’re anything but fine.
I study her face, noting the careful way she’s not quite meeting my eyes. The slight pallor to her skin that wasn’t there yesterday. The way her hands tremble slightly when she reaches for her water glass instead of the coffee she usually craves.
“You look tired,” I observe, which is an understatement. There are shadows under her eyes that speak of poor sleep, and her usual brightness seems dimmed somehow. “Did you sleep okay?”
“Yeah.” But she won’t look at me when she says it. “Just—you know. Restless.”
Except I was in bed with her all night. I would have known if she was restless. She slept fine. Better than fine, actually, curled against my side with that trusting contentment that’s become familiar.
So why is she lying?
The thought sends ice through my veins because I know what lies mean. They mean secrets. They mean planning. They mean the careful construction of false narratives designed to obscure true intentions.
They mean someone’s preparing to do something they don’t want you to know about.
“Gigi.” I lean forward, keeping my voice gentle even though suspicion is clawing at my throat. “If something’s bothering you—”
“Nothing’s bothering me.” She stands abruptly, her chair scraping against the floor. “I’m just not hungry. I think I’ll go check on the animals.”
She’s gone before I can respond, practically running from the room like I’m a threat she needs to escape.
My hands clench around the table hard enough that I’m surprised I don’t rip a chunk out of the wood.
She’s lying. She’s definitely lying. The question is why.
Over the next two days, I watch her carefully. Not obviously—I’m too skilled for that—but with the attention I once reserved for enemies requiring elimination.
The patterns emerge quickly.
She’s avoiding wine. At dinner last night, when I poured her usual glass of red, she made an excuse about having a headache and asked for water instead. Tonight, she claimed she wanted to stay sharp for some research she’s doing on surgical techniques.
Two nights in a row. Two different excuses for the same deviation from routine.
She’s disappearing for stretches of time I can’t account for.
Yesterday afternoon, she said she was going to the sunroom but when I checked an hour later, she wasn’t there.
Danny found her in her old suite—the one she hasn’t used since the wedding—and she claimed she was looking for a book she’d left behind.
A book she could have asked any staff member to retrieve.
She’s being secretive with her phone. I’ve caught her typing messages with that careful concentration people use when they’re worried about someone seeing over their shoulder, then quickly closing out of whatever she was looking at when she notices my presence.
I’ve gone through her phone after she’s gone to sleep and there’s nothing. She’s wiped her history clean of anything incriminating. No texts. No searches. No nothing.
And most damning of all is that she won’t quite meet my eyes anymore. That direct, fearless gaze that first captivated me has been replaced by something more guarded and careful. Like she’s constantly wondering what I might notice, what might give her away.
Like she’s planning something.
The paranoia I thought I’d moved past comes roaring back and sinks its claws into me. I’ve seen this before. I know what it looks like when someone’s preparing to betray you, when they’re building an exit strategy while maintaining the facade of loyalty.
Is she planning to escape? The thought makes my stomach turn even as my mind races through logistics.
She could contact Katie somehow, arrange for help outside my knowledge.
She could have been using those disappearances to scout the property for weaknesses in security. She could be coordinating with—
With who? Who would help her? Who even knows she’s here that would have the resources and motivation to mount a rescue?
The questions spiral through my mind, feeding the growing dread in my chest. Because despite everything I’ve told myself about trust and love and our future, the evidence is undeniable.
Gigi is keeping secrets.
And in my world, secrets are how people get killed.
“I need you to increase surveillance on Gigi,” I tell Danny in my office the next morning, hating every word that comes out of my mouth.
He looks up from his phone where he was typing out a message, his eyes widening with surprise. “Boss—”
“Just do it.” I cut him off before he can argue. “I want to know everywhere she goes, everyone she talks to, everything she does when she thinks no one’s watching.”
“Why?” Danny’s voice carries concern rather than judgment, but it still grates. “What’s going on?”
“She’s acting strange.” I move to the window, staring out at the grounds. Gigi is probably in the sunroom right now, doing god knows what. “Secretive. Avoiding certain things. Disappearing for periods I can’t account for.”
Danny sets his phone down and stands up. “So she’s acting like someone adjusting to a complicated situation,” he observes carefully, approaching me. “Not necessarily like someone planning to betray you.”
I whirl on him, rage and fear tangling into something toxic. “I know what betrayal looks like, Danny,” I snarl, my heart racing. “I know the signs. And she’s displaying every single one of them.”
“Or,” he says slowly, talking to me like I’m losing my mind, “you’re seeing what you expect to see because you’re terrified of losing her.”
I grit my teeth. “That’s not it.”
“Isn’t it?” His green eyes are sharp, cutting through my bullshit with the precision of someone who’s known me too long to be fooled.
“You’re in love with her, which means you’re vulnerable in ways you haven’t been since Marco died.
And vulnerability terrifies you, so you’re looking for evidence that she’s going to hurt you before you let yourself get hurt. ”
“I’m being practical,” I snap, even though his assessment stings with its accuracy. “She’s keeping secrets, Danny. She’s lying about where she’s been and what she’s doing. That’s not paranoia—that’s observable fact.”
“Then talk to her.” The suggestion is so simple it makes me want to scream. “Ask her what’s going on instead of increasing surveillance like she’s a hostile asset.”
But I can’t. Asking means admitting I’ve noticed, which means tipping my hand. Because asking means making myself vulnerable to whatever lie she might tell and means potentially confirming that everything I’ve built with her is nothing but sand waiting to wash away.
“Just increase the surveillance,” I repeat. “I want someone watching her at all times. No blind spots, no gaps in coverage.”
Danny sighs heavily, disappointment evident in every line of his face. “You’re going to push her away, boss. You’re going to turn into who you were before you got to know her, and she’s going to prove you right about not trusting her because you gave her no choice.”
“Then I’ll deal with that when it happens.” I turn back to the window, dismissing him. “Until then, I need to know what she’s planning.”
He leaves without another word, and I’m alone with my thoughts and the uncomfortable realization that I’m becoming my father after all.
My father, who trusted no one and saw betrayal in every shadow and treated my mother like an enemy requiring constant surveillance. He drove her to pills and alcohol and eventually death because he couldn’t believe that anyone could actually love him.
I’m doing the same thing to Gigi. I can see it clearly even as I can’t seem to stop myself. The love I feel for her is being corrupted by fear, twisted into something possessive and controlling that will destroy us both.
But I can’t stop. Because the alternative—trusting her blindly while she potentially plans to leave me—feels like volunteering for annihilation.
So I increase security. I have Danny assign additional guards to monitor her movements. I restrict her access to certain areas of the estate under the guise of “security concerns” following some vague threat I manufacture. I make sure someone is always watching and reporting back to me.
And I watch Gigi’s frustration grow with each new restriction.
“Why can’t I go to the north gardens anymore?” she asks one evening, her voice filled with barely controlled anger. “I’ve been going there every day for weeks.”
“Security concerns,” I repeat the bullshit explanation, purposefully looking down at my plate. “It’s temporary.”
“Everything with you is temporary.” She throws her napkin onto her dinner plate with more force than necessary.
“The restrictions are temporary, seeing my father is coming soon, my future is something we’ll figure out later.
” She sighs and I look up to see her close her eyes.
She looks exhausted and some tendrils of guilt try to take hold.
“I’m tired of temporary, Luca. I’m tired of being kept in the dark about things that affect my life. ”
I could laugh at the irony, and those guilty strands wither away. She’s tired of being kept in the dark while simultaneously keeping me in the dark about whatever she’s planning.
“I’m doing what’s necessary to keep you safe,” I say through gritted teeth.