Chapter Thirty-Five
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Georgia/ Four Years Ago
I t’s been a long time since I’ve seen the boy who looks like a younger version of his father. Luca Carbone has grown into his features since the last time I saw him, gotten taller and more put-together. Gone is the baby fat he used to have, and in its place is a sculpted jawline. His dark hair is short, but the ends curl just enough to tease his forehead, and his green eyes are guilty from roaming over me just like he did with other girls whenever we’d be forced together at those boring events our families went to.
I’m almost done sweeping the floor at Turning Pages bookstore when he saunters through the pile of dust and pine needles with his polished Tom Ford shoes. “Fancy seeing you here,” is how he greets me, looking completely out of place in business slacks and a button-down that probably cost more than my car payment.
I glare at the mess he made. “Funny. I was going to say the same to you. I didn’t know you could read.”
One of Luca’s eyebrows pops up when I bat him with the broom to get away from the pile he’s spreading everywhere. “Nobody told me how feisty you are. We could have had a lot of fun together, you and I. Imagine all those dry events we were dragged to that could have been different if you didn’t avoid me.”
Avoid him? “I wasn’t avoiding you.”
“You never spoke to me.”
Is he forgetting that he was always surrounded by other people? “I never had a reason to. And you had plenty of other women to make the time fly faster.”
“Were you jealous, Little Del Rossi?”
I scowl. “You wish.”
He hums. “Do you honestly like this place? It seems so…boring. And there’s an odor.”
“Yes, I do,” I say crisply, my grip on the broom tightening. “And there is no odor. What are you doing here, Luca?”
I ignore the eyes I feel following me as I try to finish closing. The last person I want to be stuck alone with is the person I was supposed to marry in a different life.
“Did one of our fathers send you?” I question when he doesn’t answer right away. Last I heard, my father was proposing some sort of deal with his dad that didn’t include marriage since I closed that chapter of my life. Who knew how much money I cost him by staying with Lincoln.
At least fifty million.
I’m tired and slightly dreading going home because of the wedge shoved between Lincoln and me lately.
He hated me not being honest with him, but he didn’t seem inclined to tell me what he was trying to dig up on my father when he had the opportunity to. His hypocrisy has weighed heavily on my shoulders since.
“Believe it or not, no,” he finally answers, drawing my attention up. He speaks so casually it confuses me. “Leani did.”
My brows pinch together. “Leani?”
Since when does Leani talk to the Carbones?
He dips his chin and picks up a trinket from the shelf, studying it before putting it back. “I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about me, Georgia. But I’m not the bad guy.”
Wouldn’t a bad person say that? “And Leani told you to come here and tell me that?”
His lips lift. “No. She told me to check in on you to make sure you were okay. And to convince you to come to dinner with all of us on Sunday.”
Dinner? “Why would I want to come to dinner after everything my father has done?”
“Because you want to help him despite his actions,” he answers simply, picking up a book and opening the first page. His eyes scan it before closing the cover and sliding it back into place. “Do people actually read this?”
I don’t entertain him with an answer.
He shrugs it off. “And because Leani wants that too. My mother is friends with her, and she’s concerned about Leani’s well-being.”
“Her well-being?”
“I didn’t see them for myself, but my mother said she noticed bruises on your stepmother’s arms. She thought they looked like fingerprints. Leani tried to brush it off, but my mother wasn’t keen on forgetting that.”
Bruises? “Do you think my father is hurting her?”
“ I don’t know what to think. I’m just relaying what I’ve heard. Do you think it’s possible your father is capable of that?”
The memory of him raising his hand to me when he found out what I’d done comes to mind. If he was willing to strike his own daughter, what could he do to others?
Luca must take my silence as an admission. “I’ve seen firsthand the stress your father is under. Everybody who knows him thinks he’s cracking under the pressure of people you’ll be glad not to know. But that puts him, and the rest of you, in a vulnerable position.”
He flicks a tasseled bookmark that’s hanging on the shelf. “Cute,” he remarks, nodding at the cartoon kitten on it wearing glasses. “Very…innocent. Unlike the page of that book I just read.”
Ignoring him, I say, “Get to the point.”
Luca tucks his hands into his pockets, turning to me. “Leani has taken the brunt of your father’s anger, and frankly, I don’t know how bad it truly is. My mother usually doesn’t tell me these things, but she felt it relevant enough to bring to my attention. Especially when Leani was sent away to a rehabilitation clinic out of state to…heal.”
Heal. “Heal, from what exactly?”
He doesn’t answer that. “You know what.”
My father.
“It’s only a matter of time before Nikolas goes off the deep end again. His business is going under because of the choices he’s made. The choices that you’ve made.”
“And what am I supposed to do about it now? I can’t go back and change what’s already happened. I don’t want to.”
“I didn’t ask you to. I’m here because Leani seems to think that you coming to dinner will relieve some previous tensions. She thinks your appearance will make him less testy.”
It doesn’t make sense why he cares. “I have a feeling that my presence will do the exact opposite. And there’s no way that Lincoln—” I wince at his name in front of the person I married him over. “—will agree.”
Luca’s eyes spark. “Trouble in paradise with the cop?” he guesses, watching my face heat. “You seem a little tense over the subject matter.”
I force myself to smile. “Your presence does that to people, I’m sure.”
His eyes flash with amusement. “How is your husband doing? It must be hard not having him around with his work schedule as crazy as it is.”
How would he know anything about that? “I don’t get why you’re here delivering the message. Why couldn’t Leani? And what do you have to benefit from this? I already told my father that I’m not going to marry you.”
“Good,” he replies with a shrug. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t want to marry you either.”
His statement makes me pause, blinking at the easy smile he gives. “You…don’t?”
“Nope.”
I don’t know what to say.
“So, why are you here?”
“Because my father has been on edge since you ran off and disobeyed your family. He thinks I’m going to rebel since their original matchup didn’t pan out. I don’t particularly enjoy dealing with my father’s mood swings, and I can’t imagine Leani likes dealing with Nikolas’s. So I’m asking you on behalf of your stepmother and me to come to dinner. Maybe then our fathers will get off our asses.”
This can’t be real. “Luca, I offered to help my father before and he refused. How much can I let him get away with by coming to his rescue despite everything that’s happened. He’s not himself, and I don’t think there’s anything I can do to fix that.”
Luca steps forward, dropping his voice. “You have to understand that it wasn’t your father making those calls. Trust me, I’m well-versed in the type of people who cross his path. They want results that he’s not getting, and they’re withholding funds until they get what they want. It’s put him in a very tricky situation.”
“That has nothing to do with me.”
“That,” he says quietly, his eyes uncharacteristically soft, “has everything to do with you.”
We fall into silence, his presence suddenly less evasive as I realize the genuine concern on his face. “He wants a marriage contract signed. I can’t give him that.”
His hand gently wraps around my arm, his warm, breath brushing against my face when he says, “He wants freedom far more. We all do. But some of us aren’t as lucky.”
Swallowing, I look him in the eye and wonder what that even means. Before I can ask, a throat clears from the entrance, and Luca lets go of me. I stumble back, putting a safe distance between us, when I see Lincoln standing at the door in his uniform.
“Am I interrupting something?” he asks, looking between us.
Luca stands taller, smirking at the man who put a ring on my finger. “We were just talking about you, actually.” He walks over, holding out his hand. “It’s good to officially meet you, Officer. I’ve heard…things.”
Not good things.
Just things.
Internally, I sigh at his baiting tone.
I can tell from here that Lincoln’s grip on Luca’s hand is tight—tighter than it should be. Not that I can blame him.
Lincoln closes the distance between him and Luca, towering over the devil’s spawn by a few inches. But neither of them says a word to the other as they standoff.
When they stay like that for a solid sixty seconds, it’s me who’s clearing my throat. “I need to finish closing,” I tell them both. “Goodbye, Luca.”
It takes a moment for them to finally break their contact, Luca backing down first. I know for a fact Lincoln never would have, and we’d be stuck here all night.
Luca turns, smiling at me in a way that makes nausea coil in my stomach. “It was lovely seeing you, Georgia. Consider what I said.”
He walks out after another head dip in Lincoln’s direction before slipping out the front door.
Finally, I take a deep breath. “Thank you.”
Lincoln turns the sign over to say CLOSED .
“Does he come here often?”
I stop sweeping to look at him. “What?”
“Luca,” he replies as if I’m too dumb to know who he’s referring to. “Does he come in here often?”
I shake my head. “No.” He watches me with skepticism clear on his face. “ No. I would have said something if he did. This is the first time.”
Lincoln’s lips press into a thin line as he studies the place. For what, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me he doesn’t want to look at.
I lean the broom against my side and put my weight onto the handle. “Is that why you’re here? Because you wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing something I shouldn’t?”
When he doesn’t answer, anger boils under my skin. How could he think I’d want to spend time with Luca Carbone ? After everything we’ve done to avoid the family, and he somehow thinks I’d want to be around him now?
“Wow,” I breathe in disbelief, going back to work. Is this who we are now? “Well, now that you know I’m not screwing anybody on the counter between customers, you can go back to work. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than check on the welfare of your slutty wife.”
His radio goes off, the static murmurings of a domestic almost ironic for the moment.
After a few minutes, I hear him sigh. “I came here to see if you wanted me to follow you home.”
“Why?” I snap, holding the broomstick so tightly it may just break. “Because you don’t trust me?”
Lincoln blinks slowly, his expression too distant to read. “Because,” he says quietly, “it’s supposed to storm, and I know you hate driving in the rain.”
I stare at him, embarrassment flooding my veins and making my cheeks heat. “Oh.”
The quiet is thick, suffocating the room.
Then he asks, “What happened to us, Peaches?”
I peek up at him through my lashes, feeling that crushing weight get heavier and heavier on my chest. “I don’t know.”
But I do.
It started with the lies.