Chapter Twelve #2
She deliberately used her father’s first name, wanting him to know he was no longer someone who deserved any affectations of respect.
Despite her reassurance, Luca stepped up beside her and wrapped his arm across her back, sheltering her into his side as though she needed rescuing.
She patted the crispness of his shirt and looped her arms around him, prepared to hold him back from attack if necessary. Every inch of him was tensile steel and muscles coiled to spring into action.
“You see, I’m already doing you a favor,” she said to Noel. “Asking you nicely to back off and leave us alone.”
“You don’t fight your own battles?” Noel curled his lip at Luca.
“I do,” Luca said. “I told the man my father worked for that you’re about to make him the subject of international attention. Put your affairs in order.”
Jade gasped.
The color drained from Noel’s face.
Luca turned her toward the door.
“Luca.” She tried to dig in her heels. It was a death sentence. A step too far.
“No!” Noel’s voice behind her was panicked. “Call him off. Tell him I won’t do it.”
Luca paused, arms cradling her close enough that Jade could feel how hard and fast his heart was beating inside his chest, but his expression was bored as he glanced back.
“We will never hear from you again,” Luca said.
“Never,” Noel agreed shakily, voice turning to a cowardly wheedle. “Call him off.”
“I never called him,” Luca said with derision. “But I will. If I have to.”
He escorted her from the house.
“You’re angry with me,” Jade said when they arrived back at the town house.
Luca snorted as though she was making a gross understatement and went to the sideboard to pour himself a scotch.
She didn’t usually see him drink alcohol. He had been eschewing it because she wasn’t having any, but it was especially surprising to see him do it at ten o’clock in the morning.
“At least you kept Edoa with you.” He knocked back the shot.
“I’m not stupid.”
Another breath cut out of him, half admiration, half exasperation. “No, you’re smart and fearless and you fight almost as dirty as I do.”
“I’m the wife of a Sicilian,” she said with a negligent hitch of her shoulder. “He wants to treat me like a knife? I’ll flay him to ribbons.”
He poured another glass and turned to face her. “You didn’t go there to save him from me. You went there to save me from myself.”
“I was so mad. And for once, I didn’t feel helpless.
I didn’t ask myself how I could get around him to make him back off.
I wanted to run straight through him. I wanted to hurt him.
Which helps me understand you a little better.
” She nervously smoothed her shirt over her bump.
“It’s scary to be this angry on someone else’s behalf.
To be willing to take up any weapon and wade into battle. ”
“I’ve always been so angry with my father for that,” he admitted with a wince of culpability.
“He did the things he did out of love, but he still did bad things. And the choice he made eventually got my family killed. I have never wanted to be like him. But I was fully prepared to make that call, amato.” His gaze crashed into hers, anguished, but alight with an emotion that made her heart thrum in hope.
“I didn’t care what it might eventually cost me, so long as you and our baby would never be threatened by your father again. ”
“I know.” She gave a small nod, aware it was a twisted rationale but such was the logic of one’s deepest heartaches.
Emotions didn’t sit in orderly rows and boxes.
They were messy and reactive and threatening because of it.
“I know that’s why you don’t want to love me,” she said with a scrape of anguish in her throat. “It’s—”
“Oh, bella. As if I have a choice,” he said with a rasp of despairing humor.
“Maybe it started as lust for orange hair and freckles—which I have never had a fetish for, but Dio do I have one now.” His gaze trailed across her face the way his lips often did, as though he wanted to taste every sprinkle of cocoa against her nose and cheeks and throat.
“But you began stealing into my heart when we were arguing over faulty condoms. You’re so resilient and fierce.
So selfless and sensitive. And kind. I love you so much, it tears me apart inside. ”
“But why?” she asked through lips that trembled. Her heart was striking in her throat with sharp thuds. “Love is supposed to heal and…and make you feel strong. It shouldn’t hurt you, Luca.” Her eyes grew damp. “I don’t want to hurt you. Especially not by loving you.”
“You don’t, amato. These things you’re tearing up are fences and walls built of guilt and self-hatred. I should have been in the car with them. My last words to him were terrible. I am happy that I am starting a family with you, bella. And I don’t know that I deserve to be this happy.”
“Was that not what he wanted for all of you, though?” She moved closer to cup his jaw. “You know him best. Would he resent you for this?” She brought his hand to her belly, where their son was shifting restlessly.