Chapter 17 #2
If anyone understood what it meant to harbor resentment toward a parent, it was Luca.
He didn’t talk about his mother often, but I knew she’d left when he was ten.
I’d always seen the anger in his eyes when he spoke about her.
And after my father died, I finally understood that anger.
I knew what it felt like to want to scream at someone who wasn’t there to hear it.
To hate them for leaving without giving you the chance to say everything that was burning inside you.
I wanted to scream at my father for being a coward. For killing himself and leaving me and his grandson in the aftermath. With nothing. No plan. No safety net. No way to claw our way out of the ruins he left behind. But I couldn’t scream.
Because he was gone.
And the dead don’t get to listen.
I broke the gaze, reaching for a chip and dipping it into the ketchup container. “How do you deal with it?”
“With what?” he asked.
“The anger. The hurt. The rage toward your mother.”
“I don’t,” he said. “I don’t deal with it—I live with it. I let it fuel me. Drive me. Remind me that if my own mother could wake up one morning and leave, then anyone could.”
For the first time in five years, I understood.
I understood why Luca was so quick to believe the worst of me.
Why he’d looked me dead in the eye and doubted everything we shared.
Because deep down, he’d always believed I’d leave.
And when the accusations came, they didn’t feel like betrayal.
They felt like confirmation. Confirmation of a fear he’d lived with his whole life: that no one ever stays.
Not even the ones who say they love you.
But understanding didn’t make it hurt any less. It didn’t soften the memory of him rejecting me. Understanding didn’t change the fact that I was the one left to pick up the pieces. That I’d raised our son alone. That I’d grieved him like I’d lost a part of myself.
And even if I wanted to forgive him—to fall back into the rhythm of what we used to be—there were too many reasons not to. I had a son to protect. Bills to pay. A business to run. I was a half blood his pack could never accept.
And he was still engaged to someone else.
It didn’t make the pain disappear. It didn’t erase the years. But it made something that had felt senseless…finally make sense.
“If you saw her now,” I asked quietly, “what would you say to her?”
Luca didn’t answer right away. His jaw ticced. One hand curled against the edge of the rooftop ledge. The silence stretched so long I thought he wouldn’t speak. Then he did.
“I’d ask her why.” His voice was low. “Why she didn’t think I was worth staying for. I’d ask if she ever missed me. Even once. I’d ask if leaving was worth it…if the freedom tasted better than being my mother.”
A bitter smile ghosted across his lips as his gaze found mine. “What about you? If you saw your father again, what would you say to him?”
What would I say to my father?
I’d never let myself think about it before.
“I’d scream at him,” I said. “Tell him he was selfish. A coward.” I swallowed. “But then maybe…I’d hug him. Maybe I’d cry and tell him I hate that I miss him. That I wish he’d stayed long enough to see his grandson grow.”
Luca didn’t say anything. He just nodded.
We sat in the silence that followed, slowly picking at the chips until there was only one left in the bag.
He smiled at me. “You can have it.”
“Of course I can have it. I paid for them.”
I scooped up a ridiculous amount of ketchup with the chip and shoved it in my mouth. Luca burst out laughing.
“What?” I asked mid-chew.
“You’ve got ketchup all over your mouth.”
“Where?” I reached for a napkin, but before I could grab it, Luca was already leaning in.
Gently, he brushed his thumb across my bottom lip. Then, to my surprise, he brought his thumb to his mouth and licked it clean.
My breath caught.
The wind seemed to still. The honks and shouts from the city below faded into silence. The whole world narrowed until it was just the two of us…suspended in a moment that suddenly felt too big for words.
Luca swatted the empty chip bag aside and shifted closer.
I didn’t stop him.
I knew what he was about to do. I knew it the instant his eyes dropped to my lips and the steel gray of his gaze darkened—heated with the kind of hunger you don’t mistake. I could sense his wolf, too. Pressing forward like it wanted to claim me.
I didn’t stop him when he cupped my cheek gently. My body responded instantly—to the warmth of his hand, the feel of his strong fingers against my skin.
Anyone could walk in and see us. And yet, even with the risk of being caught—of the chaos it could unleash if anyone found us here together—I couldn’t help it. I still wanted him.
I didn’t stop him when he leaned his forehead against mine, his eyes searching mine for something. Permission?
It didn’t matter. I was the one who closed the space between us. I pressed my lips to his.
Everything about our kiss was desperate. Rough. Fierce. Familiar. Filled with the tension that has been building between us for weeks, with everything we hadn’t said, everything we’d buried, everything we still wanted.
Luca kissed me like a starving man—like he’d been craving this, needing this.
And I let him.
It was dizzying. Like downing a shot of tequila.
My thoughts blurred. My pulse skyrocketed. My head was gone. I shoved that tic in the back of my mind that was telling me I shouldn’t be doing this.
I wanted more. I needed more. I needed him.
I inched closer, wrapping my arms around his neck, and he groaned against my mouth. His hands pulled me in like he couldn’t get enough, and when he sought my tongue, I opened for him—welcoming the familiar taste of him, the one I never could forget.
His hands dropped to the hem of my shirt, and just then his phone buzzed. Loud. Jarring. Like a wake-up call.
Reality hit me like a bucket of cold water.
My eyes flew open. And just like that, the weight of what I’d just done slammed into me. Oh God.
“Leila—”
I couldn’t look at him. “I—I’ve got to, um…go.”
I scrambled to my feet, my heart pounding hard against my chest—a cruel, echoing reminder of what I’d just done. And without another glance at him, I ran.