Chapter 16 – Luca
LUCA
All this time, I thought she abandoned me. Knew it. Believed it with every fiber of my being.
I make it as far as the hallway before my fist connects with the wall. The plaster cracks beneath my knuckles, pain shooting up my arm, but it's nothing compared to the rage tearing me up inside.
The whole time, it was him planting the idea she didn’t want me in my mind like poison. She was there, and he knew all this time.
My father's face swims before me, that smug fucking smile he wears when he's won, outmaneuvering everyone around him, and they don't even know it yet. And this time, he got me.
I was so fucking stupid.
A memory hits me as I shove into my room and slam the door behind me. My father, sitting in the chair beside my hospital bed, acting like a concerned parent, when he was the one who put me there.
The smell of disinfectant. My body was a symphony of pain, ribs cracked, back shredded, and one eye swollen shut. If my mother had been alive to see it, seeing me like that would have killed her.
Even high on painkillers, I refused to speak to him, but I wasn’t in any position to stop him from subjecting me to his endless justifications of what he did. Or had to do, in his mind.
"I told you she couldn’t handle our life. Women like that, they like the idea of danger, the romance of it, the excitement, the money. But when it comes to reality?" He shook his head slowly. "They run."
With my jaw wired shut, all I could do was glare through my good eye, hatred and heartbreak warring inside me.
"Forget about her." He’d patted my hand, the comforting gesture obscene given what he'd done to me, torturing me to teach me a lesson about loyalty and family.
"Focus on learning the business. You'll have plenty of women, Luca.
Beautiful women. Uncomplicated women. Someday, you'll thank me for not letting you tie yourself to someone who could never handle our world. "
I wanted to murder him then almost as much as I want to murder him now.
Mindlessly, I stare at the blood on my knuckles, flexing my fingers to make sure nothing’s fractured, watching it well up from the split skin.
All that suffering. Years of darkness and depression, then anger, convincing myself I was better off, that she'd done me a favor by showing her true colors before I threw everything away for her.
And it was all a lie.
He threatened to kill her. My Sienna.
And when that didn’t work, recognizing she was braver than he thought, he threatened to kill me, knowing she would never put me in danger.
The rage builds again, white-hot and consuming, and I have to keep moving before I put my fist through another wall. Or get in my car, drive to my father's house, and beat the shit out of him.
Instead of locking myself away in my office, I wander, eventually finding myself drifting toward her room, now certain the plan that’s been percolating in the back of my mind is the best way forward.
Her door is slightly ajar, light spilling into the dark hallway. I should leave her alone, but I can't. Not after what she’s just told me.
I stop in the doorway, and the sight before me makes my chest ache.
Sienna is face down on the bed, fully clothed. A frustrated scream tears from her throat, swallowed by the pillow. She thumps the bed like it's personally responsible for everything that's happened, then sinks into the mattress.
She doesn't know I'm here.
"Sienna."
Slowly, she turns her head, hair wild and messy, yet still guarded. "What do you want?"
I step into the room and close the door behind me.
She sits up, wiping at her face even though there are no tears, just exhaustion written in every line of her body.
"I have a proposition for you."
She chuckles, not a happy sound but bitter and hollow. "I’m already helping you, mixed up with the Calvano’s, again, against my better judgment. What more can I do for you?"
I ignore the jab and move closer, stopping at the foot of the bed.
"Your debts. I'll pay them off. All of them." And there are quite a few.
Her lips thin. "Feeling guilty? I never wanted your money, Luca. And I don't need it now."
“Yes, you fucking do,” I snap before I can stop myself, wanting her to admit that she needs help, needs me, instead of being so relentlessly independent and determined to do it all on her own.
“Well, fine, maybe I do. But I don’t want it. Or your pity.” She makes everything so fucking hard.
I mentally curse myself for getting into this situation, where my plan relies on breaking the will of the most spectacularly defiant person I know.
"College then. I'll pay for you to finish your degree. Wherever you want. Best program in the country."
She glares at me, not even listening to the offer I’m making, just dismissing it instantly. Pulling her legs up underneath her, she faces me, kneeling on the mattress now, pouty lips stubbornly pressed together.
"I said no." The words are spoken slowly but firmly, however Sienna doesn’t yet realize there’s no saying no. Sienna is the last piece of the puzzle, in a plan I’ve already set in motion, and now that I know she should have been mine all along?
I’m not letting her get away again.
"You can stay here as long as you need. Protection. Security. A roof over your head that isn't falling apart."
She glares at me, chin lifted in that defiant way that makes me want to shake her and kiss her all at the same time.
"That all sounds wonderful,” she drawls, “but where will you be? I’m not sure we make good roommates anymore, with our somewhat complicated history.”
I let the silence stretch. Then I say the words I've been turning over and over in my mind since I left here earlier to go meet the O’Sullivan’s.
Stepping closer, I loom over her, enjoying how she has to crane her neck back to hold my gaze, her lips parting.
"We wouldn’t be roommates, Sienna. You’d be my wife."
She stares at me like I've lost my mind. Seconds pass, then she smiles, a bemused chuckle, and an eye roll as she shakes her head.
“Are you mocking me?” Resting her hands on her hips and cocking one to the side, she gives me a look of censure, no doubt comparing this to my first proposal which was far more romantic. “The same problem remains, Luca. I don’t think your father will approve.”
And we both know from bitter experience that he’s not above interfering.
"Do I look like I’m laughing?" I bring my face close to hers, letting her see how deadly serious I am.
Sienna’s smile immediately flips into a confused frown, questioning my sanity as the seriousness of my intention dawns on her.
“What? Luca, no. Not again. Not after last time.” She looks at me in disbelief, waiting for the joke she’s sure is coming, a sign I’m winding her up.
Except I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.
"You wanted to marry me once before." I stroke my palm over her messy hair. "I’m sure you can pretend to want me again."
And this time, I’ll keep my meddling father away.
"Pretend." She repeats the word flatly, staring at the wall somewhere behind me, refusing to meet my eye.
"You play the part of my wife, I take over the family business, and in return, I clear your debts, pay for your education, and keep you safe. When it's over, if you want to, you walk away with enough money to start fresh."
It’ll never be over.
"You're insane," she whispers.
I laugh because it probably appears that way to her, but this is no rash decision. Nothing I do ever is. "Probably."
I’m acting nonchalant, even as my desires, dark and greedy, take a hold within me, and my confidence that this might just all work out as it was meant to, grows.
"Kate was supposed to be the one who allowed me to take over. Now she's gone…” A shrug, intended to look careless, like I haven’t got all of my hopes pinned on this plan. “The wedding is already planned, and I need someone who knows what we do, who I am, and is smart enough not to cause trouble.”
Sienna’s nostrils flare, her anger showing, and I allow myself to hope that it’s because she wants it to mean more. But if I tell her what I really want, her, forever, she’d never agree.
Not yet.
“You need a replacement bride. Someone convenient.” She practically spits the words out.
“And? You need a house, money, and a way to get the career you always wanted. Plus, someone who can keep you alive if the killer comes to tie up loose ends. It’s win-win."
When I reach for her, she turns her head away from my touch, her hand coming up to push my fingers away, but I catch it, fingers wrapping around her small wrist, my thumb stroking over the delicate skin on the inside.
"I never stopped thinking about you. I can’t believe he…" I trail off. It’s not good enough. I should have suspected he wouldn’t have left it at that, at punishing me. “I’m sorry.”
She still refuses to look at me.
"Get out." There’s no heat in her words. She tries to hide it, but I hear the wobble in her voice, the emotion she’s refusing to acknowledge.
Fuck, her pain guts me.
"Sienna—"
"I said get out," she whispers, pulling her hair out from behind her ears so she can hide behind it. She lies down, curling onto her side, knees tucked up, giving me her back.
I should go, let her think about the offer I’ve made, allowing us both time to process how fucked up what my father did to keep us apart was, to mourn what could and should have been, but I can't make myself walk away. Not again. Not when I see her looking so lost.
As I crawl onto the bed, she tenses, feeling the mattress dip under my weight, but doesn’t look at me, refusing to let me see the tears she’s fighting back. "What are you doing?"
Smiling, I’m happy to hear her irritation again.
"Staying."
"I asked you to leave." She sighs, rubbing her temples. “This has been… a lot. Can’t I have some time alone to think?”
I stretch out behind her, not touching, but close enough that I can feel the heat of her body. Close enough that her scent fills my lungs with every breath.
"The idea that you’d changed your mind, that you didn’t want me the way I wanted you, devastated me.” Speaking to the back of her head is the only way I can get these words out.
She doesn't respond, holding her tension in her shoulders as she listens and waits.
Running a finger gently between her shoulder blades, along her spine to the middle of her back, over and over, the way I used to when she was worked up over exams and needed to calm down, the repetitive action soothing me as much as her.
"So, I made you the villain. Chose to believe him when I shouldn’t have and refused to get in touch, telling myself I wasn’t going to chase you when you rejected me, rejected us."
This time, I start a little higher, at the base of her neck, touching bare skin, and traveling all the way to the curve near the bottom of her spine.
"It was the only way I could survive, the only way I could make myself stay away, because I knew that if I defied him, he’d kill us both."
The silence stretches between us.
Then, barely a whisper, "We were so young."
I shift closer, my body pressing against her back, my arm sliding around her waist.
She lets out a shaky breath and melts into me.
"And we were good together," I murmur against her hair as a barrage of memories assaults me. Sienna in my arms, lying on the beach, watching the sunset. Waking up beside each other, naked, in a tangle of sheets.
"It’s a terrible idea." She turns in my arms, her face now inches from mine, those stunning eyes searching for something or someone I’m not sure is there anymore.
"It is." My fingers travel over her hips to rest on her waist, my thumb brushing across the tiny strip of creamy skin I see there.
"Messy. And complicated.”
There’s no denying that.
I nod. “Dangerous too.”
Finn O’Sullivan might use it as a reason to get rid of me. My father might go back on his deal to hand over the business. We could kill each other if the last two days are anything to go by.
“I’m so angry at you." She arches a little, closing the gap between us just a bit, but it’s enough.
"I know."
I kiss her, softer than in the kitchen, a question instead of a demand.
She hesitates for just a heartbeat, then her fingers are in my hair, and she's kissing me back.
It tastes like victory.
Sienna fits against me perfectly. Her body remembers mine, even if her mind is still fighting it, still hanging onto the rage in her heart.
I pull her closer, one hand splayed possessively across the small of her back, and she makes a sound in the back of her throat that goes straight to my cock.
When she finally pulls back, lips swollen and lids heavy, I don't let her go far, but I also don’t push her further. At least, not yet.
"Think about it." I rest my forehead against hers before turning her away with a reluctant growl, scooping her back against my chest and wrapping her up in my arms. "Now, sleep. We could both use it."
She twists to look over her shoulder at me, perplexed but exhausted, physically and emotionally. Then she relaxes, settling against me, her back to me, my arm draped over her waist, and one leg now over hers. Tangled together.
Exactly how we used to sleep.
Neither of us speaks again after that, lost in our own thoughts of what was, what could have been, and whether the future I’m proposing will ruin us both all over again.