19. Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
I See Love
Simone
Brock’s home is overflowing with people.
Villagers move through the cottage in a steady stream, carrying baskets of bread, bottles of wine, bundles of herbs, and children who weave between everyone’s legs.
French spills from every corner.
Fast.
Melodic.
Mostly incomprehensible.
Claire explained that the village holds a celebration every year pour honorer la mer—to honor the sea.
The bonfire rotates among the island’s twelve families, and this year, Brock and Claire are responsible for hosting it.
That means feeding almost the entire village.
The smell of burning wood and roasted garlic drifts through the open windows and into the clearing behind the cottage. Bread bakes inside the stone oven. Pots simmer over the stove. Fish, beef, herbs, and something sweet perfume the air all at once.
Luca and Brock left before I woke.
Not without precautions, apparently.
Claire told me Luca checked every window and door twice, spoke with the harbor master, and arranged for two villagers to keep watch near the cottage before he agreed to go anywhere.
He and Brock returned to the cliffs to attempt a transmission while the weather remained clear enough.
So, this morning, it has been me, Claire, Julien, half the village’s children, and my relentless memories of what Luca did to me last night.
The villagers started arriving shortly after sunrise.
Now I stand near the doorway with my arms crossed, watching them work.
Claire moves through the crowded room with someone else’s baby balanced on one hip. She gives instructions, stirs pots, checks the oven, and somehow notices every time I attempt to touch something I shouldn’t.
I’m not a lazy person.
Not exactly.
I tried to help.
I really did.
Unfortunately, I have never done anything like this.
Dad made sure the estate had enough staff to operate as a small country. Even after moving into my own penthouse, I hired a cleaner, a cook, and an assistant who once arranged for someone to reorganize my refrigerator because the sparkling water looked “visually chaotic.”
I can perform basic chores.
I know how to vacuum.
I make exceptional scrambled eggs.
Surely those count as life skills.
The villagers clearly disagree.
I attempted to chop vegetables and produced pieces so uneven that one woman quietly took the knife from me before I removed a finger.
When Claire handed me dough, it stuck to my hands, arms, borrowed dress, and somehow my hair.
Then I misunderstood a request involving the stove and nearly set a folded stack of linens on fire.
Most of the villagers judged me silently.
A few kinder ones found my incompetence entertaining.
Ana?s laughed so hard she fell against a chair.
Still, as much as I hate admitting it, I’m beginning to understand the appeal of this place.
It’s isolated and inconvenient.
But there’s warmth here.
Closeness.
Everyone knows everyone else’s children, histories, habits, and preferred bread.
They work together without being asked.
They argue loudly, forgive quickly, and behave as though belonging to one another is the most natural thing in the world.
It isn’t only the village that feels different.
It’s the way Luca looks at me here.
As though there’s no Rochefort name.
No history.
No scandal.
No father or brother standing between us.
Only me.
And it terrifies me how badly I want to remain in that version of reality.
Ana?s catches my attention from across the room and motions for me to follow her.
I hesitate before joining her in the corner.
Five children sit on a woven blanket around an elderly woman. Wooden animal figurines are scattered between them, and the children take turns guessing what each one represents.
At least, I think that’s what they’re doing.
Their French moves too quickly for me to understand more than isolated words.
They don’t seem to care.
They make room for me without question.
Rémy hands me a wooden figure that could be a horse, dog, or malformed goat.
I select goat.
The children erupt with laughter.
Apparently, it is a fish.
While they continue playing, my mind drifts to Luca.
To last night.
His mouth.
His hands.
The bruises his fingers left along my hips.
Thinking about sex while surrounded by children makes me feel indecent, even though no one can hear my thoughts.
I can’t stop them.
I’ve had sex before.
Plenty of it.
Casual hookups were easy because they required nothing afterward. No emotional conversations. No expectations. No risk beyond whether the experience would be worth the effort of removing my clothes.
Most of the men blur together now.
Faces.
Bodies.
Names I forgot before breakfast.
I’ve never pretended to be innocent.
But no one has ever touched me the way Luca did.
No one has ever kissed me as though he had spent years starving for the taste of my mouth.
No one has ever made me feel more complete after sex instead of vaguely emptier.
People claim sex is different when love is involved.
I always thought that was something romantics invented to make orgasms sound meaningful.
Sex was sex.
Two bodies exchanging pleasure.
Simple.
Easy.
Temporary.
Nothing about Luca is simple.
One glance from him ignites me.
Every touch reaches deeper than my skin.
His fingers don’t merely graze my body. They press into something beneath it.
His mouth doesn’t only make me want more.
It makes me feel known.
Last night wasn’t better because Luca possesses some supernatural sexual ability—although I’m not ruling that out.
It was different because it was him.
Because I love him.
The realization settles over me with frightening clarity.
I bury my face in my hands.
I am hopelessly, irrevocably in love with Luca Moreau.
Again.
Or still.
I’m beginning to suspect I never stopped.
After he rejected me five years ago, love turned into humiliation. Then resentment. Then anger.
I mistook the bitterness for proof that the love was gone.
It wasn’t.
It was only wounded.
Waiting.
As long as Luca remained in my life, I was always going to fall back into him.
Maybe I never climbed out.
That should terrify me.
The first time I handed him my heart, he crushed it because he believed that was kinder than keeping it.
This time feels different.
We’re adults now.
The desire between us isn’t something I imagined from across a room. I feel it in his body whenever he touches me. I hear it in his breathing. I see it in the way his eyes follow me.
Last night, he told me he sees me.
Then he showed me exactly how much he wanted me.
But wanting isn’t the same as choosing.
Luca has spent his entire life sacrificing what he wants for the people he believes he owes.
Bran.
Dad.
His father’s memory.
His job.
His impossible code of honor.
I don’t know whether last night changed anything for him or only proved how dangerous I am to his control.
Afterward, he kissed me until I could barely breathe.
When I reminded him what I wanted him to do next time, he carried me into the pool and cleaned both of us with a tenderness that almost hurt more than the sex.
Then he dressed me, carried me back to the cottage on his back, and held me until I fell asleep.
By morning, he was gone.
Claire said he left for the cliffs.
Reasonable.
Necessary.
Still, I woke alone in a cold bed with no idea whether he regretted everything.
I haven’t spoken to him since.
Part of me expects him to walk through that door and say it was a mistake.
That we were afraid, isolated, and caught up in the moment.
That we need to forget it ever happened.
I won’t let him do that.
Not again.
The familiar weight of his footsteps enters the cottage.
I look up.
Luca stands in the doorway beside Brock.
He has traded his ruined dress shoes for a pair of weathered boots. Dirt marks his trousers, and the wind has left his dark hair wild around his face.
His cheeks are flushed from the climb.
He scans the room immediately.
Windows.
Doors.
Faces.
Then me.
My pulse jumps when our eyes meet.
His expression gives away little as he moves through the crowded cottage, but his gaze softens the closer he gets.
He stops in front of me.
“Why do you have flour on your face?”
That is the first thing he says after fucking me beside a moonlit pool.
Romance is thriving.
“I tried to bake bread.”
He swipes his thumb across my cheek and shows me the white powder on his skin.
“Do you know how to bake bread?”
“No.”
His lips twitch.
Then his expression grows serious.
“We reached Bran.”
Relief hits so quickly my knees weaken.
“You did?”
“The weather station’s uplink held long enough for a short transmission.”
“What did he say? Is Dad okay? Does everyone know we’re alive?”
“They know.”
Luca’s gaze stays on mine.
“Bran and Francis are both safe. They’ve been searching since the aircraft disappeared.”
I close my eyes for one second.
Thank God.
“When are they coming?”
“The weather is expected to deteriorate tonight. A private rescue team has our coordinates, but they can’t bring in a helicopter safely until the wind drops.”
“How long?”
“Twenty-four to thirty-six hours.”
“That long?”
“It’s the safest estimate.”
The relief remains, but something else aches beneath it.
Soon, I’ll see my family again.
I’ll go home.
I’ll return to my studio, my team, and the life that feels as though it belongs to another woman.
I should feel nothing but happiness.
Instead, I think about Luca.
The disaster that brought us here also stripped away every barrier we used to keep between us.
Now the island is about to release us.
And I don’t know what will happen when the real world returns.
“That’s good,” I say.
My voice sounds too careful.
“Very good.”
Luca studies me.
“There’s something else.”
Of course there is.
“The missing radio?”
“We have to assume the pilot heard our transmission.”
My stomach drops.
“Why?”
“The station’s uplink wasn’t encrypted. Anyone monitoring local emergency frequencies could have caught part of it.”
“Meaning he knows help is coming.”
“Possibly.”
“And where we are.”
“He already knows the island.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It isn’t meant to be.”
His attention moves around the room again.