14. Chapter 14
Lucy
Iwake up to sunlight. Not the polite kind that slips through curtains and asks if maybe I might consider opening one eye.
No, this sunlight pours into Luca’s cabin like it owns the place, warm and golden and entirely too cheerful for a woman who fell asleep wrapped around a man she technically met yesterday.
Yesterday. That word feels insufficient.
Yesterday sounds like grocery lists and traffic and ordinary decisions made by ordinary women with ordinary lives.
Yesterday does not sound like climbing into a stranger’s lap at a wedding, kissing him in front of an ex, meeting his entire family, being renamed by his grandmother, boarding a yacht, finding out said yacht was headed for the Bahamas, and then ending the night in Luca Moretti’s bed.
I stare at the ceiling for several seconds, letting my brain line up the facts. It refuses.
Beside me, the bed is empty, though the sheets still hold the shape of him. I press one hand lightly against the space where Luca slept, then immediately pull it back as if I’ve been caught doing something incriminating.
No one is here to catch me. Which somehow makes it worse.
I sit up slowly, holding the sheet against my chest, and look toward the wide window. For a second, I forget how to breathe.
The water outside is not dark anymore. It is turquoise.
Ridiculously turquoise. The kind of color that looks fake in travel ads, like someone turned the saturation up too high and hoped no one would question it.
Sunlight flashes over the surface in bright shards, and beyond the yacht, a strip of white sand curves along the edge of a small island like powdered sugar spilled against the sea.
White sand. Palm trees. Clear water. Blue sky.
Apparently, while I was sleeping, my bad decisions sailed into paradise.
“Oh,” I whisper.
The bathroom door opens.
Luca steps out wearing dark swim trunks and a white linen shirt open at the throat, his hair still damp from a shower. He stops when he sees me sitting in the bed, sheet clutched to my chest, mouth probably hanging open like a woman who has just discovered she has accidentally vacationed.
His gaze moves over me, and even after everything that happened last night, it has power. Maybe more power now, because there is no performance left to hide behind. No fake boyfriend. No family audience. No explanation I can point to and say, That was why.
This morning, his eyes are warm. Possessive.
“Good morning,” he says.
I look back out the window. “That is astounding water.”
His mouth curves. “Most people call it beautiful.”
“Most people were not kidnapped by romance and transported into a postcard.”
“You weren’t kidnapped.”
“I know. That’s the problem. I keep choosing things, and then they turn into geography.”
He laughs softly as he crosses the room, and the sound touches something tender in me. I like that laugh. I like knowing I can pull it out of him. That feels dangerous too, but everything about Luca has started to feel dangerous in increasingly specific categories.
He sits on the edge of the bed and brushes his fingers along my cheek. “Regrets?”
The question is quiet. Too quiet for a joke, though my instincts reach for one anyway. I could say yes, I regret not bringing sunscreen. I regret not asking yacht-related follow-up questions. I regret whatever my hair is doing right now.
But his eyes are on mine, steady and open in a way that deserves better.
“No,” I say.
The relief that moves through his face is small, but I see it.
He leans in and kisses me once, slow and soft, like he has all the time in the world and somehow still wants this moment first. I melt into it before I can remember to be embarrassed about morning breath, bed hair, or the fact that I am wearing nothing but a sheet and several life-altering choices.
When he pulls back, I chase him a little. His eyes darken.
“Careful,” he murmurs.
“Do not start threatening me with a good morning.”
“I was warning myself.”
That does something to me. Something warm and low and entirely unhelpful considering there is a knock at the door less than three seconds later.
I jerk back. “Please tell me that is not your grandmother.”
“It’s not my grandmother.”
“How do you know?”
“Nonna would not knock.”
The door opens an inch.
“Are you decent, emotionally or otherwise?” Isabella calls.
I close my eyes.
Luca sighs. “No.”
“Excellent. I’ll wait.”
“You will close the door,” he says.
“I am closing it slowly to show respect.”
The door shuts.
I stare at Luca. “This family has the boundaries of a raccoon in a bakery.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re all aware of that?”
“Yes.”
A folded pile of clothes has been placed on the chair beside the door. A swimsuit, a loose white cover-up, sandals, sunglasses, and a wide-brimmed hat that looks like it belongs to a woman who says things like my villa and the south of France without laughing.
Bianca has struck again.
Twenty minutes later, I step out onto the deck wearing a blue swimsuit under the white cover-up, my hair twisted into something I hope looks intentional, and my dignity functioning at reduced capacity.
The entire Moretti family is already gathered.
Bianca gives me one sweeping look and presses a hand to her heart. “Perfect.”
“I am beginning to believe you dress people for sport.”
“For victory,” she corrects.
Isabella lowers her sunglasses. “You look very Bahamas. Also very slept-in-Luca’s-cabin.”
I nearly trip. Adriana catches her by the back of her cover-up. “No.”
“What? She does.”
“Ignore her,” Sofia says, coming to kiss both my cheeks as if I am not a woman she met yesterday and whose overnight arrangements she absolutely knows too much about. “You look lovely, dear.”
“Thank you,” I say, because apparently I have entered the stage of this experience where I accept compliments and international travel without understanding how either happened.
Nonna sits beneath the shade of the upper deck in a cream linen outfit and oversized sunglasses, looking less like someone on vacation and more like someone who has agreed to let the sun worship nearby. She lifts one hand toward me.
“Lucia.”
“Nonna.”
Her mouth curves. “You slept?”
I feel every person on the deck pretend not to listen.
“Yes,” I say carefully.
“Good. A woman needs rest before a beach party.”
“A beach party?”
Luca appears beside me and offers me a glass of cold orange juice. “The crew is setting up on shore.”
I take the glass. “Of course they are.”
Isabella grins. “Chef Marco makes ribs that will make you believe in destiny.”
“I thought this family was Italian.”
“We are,” Alessandro says, appearing behind Sofia. “But we respect barbecue.”
A smaller boat waits beside the yacht, and beyond it, on the sand, I can already see the impossible evidence of preparation.
White umbrellas. Low tables. Coolers. A grill smoking lightly beneath the palms. Staff moving with cheerful efficiency, carrying trays, towels, baskets, and what appears to be an entire fruit market.
“This is not a beach party,” I say.
Luca looks at the shore. “No?”
“This is a luxury invasion with pineapple.”
His mouth curves. “Do you object?”
I look at the water again. At the sand. At the way the sun lights the world like everything has been forgiven. Then I look at him.
“No,” I admit. “I’m alarmingly open to pineapple.”
The ride to shore takes only minutes, but I spend most of them trying not to stare at the water beneath us.
It is so clear I can see shadows moving below, flashes of fish and pale sand ripples.
The little boat bumps gently over the waves, and when my hand tightens on the seat, Luca’s fingers cover mine.
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.
On the beach, the sand is soft enough to make me laugh when my feet sink into it.
I have never felt anything like it. Fine, white, warm, almost silky.
Sugary, my brain supplies, and for a strange moment I think of my dream bottles.
Tiny beaches in glass. Little worlds people can hold because the real ones feel too far away.
Now I am standing inside one.
Luca watches me take it in, and there is something on his face I don’t know how to name.
“What?” I ask.
“You look happy.”
The words hit softly.
“I think I am.”
The admission surprises both of us.
Then Isabella calls, “If anyone gets sentimental before I eat, I will make it everyone’s problem.”
The day unfolds in a blur of sun and salt and laughter.
The chef grills ribs and chicken and fish while platters of fruit, salads, bread, and little dishes I can’t name appear on the tables like magic.
Champagne is poured. Music drifts from hidden speakers.
Bianca insists I try three different sunglasses before declaring the first pair correct.
Adriana takes a business call while standing barefoot in the sand, which somehow makes her more intimidating.
Sofia tells me stories about Luca as a boy that make him groan and make me listen like I’m collecting treasure.
Nonna sits in the shade and watches all of us. Especially me and Luca. Always me and Luca.
At some point, I wade into the water, and Luca follows. The sea is warm and clear around my knees, then my thighs, then my waist. I turn in a slow circle, laughing because it is impossible not to, and Luca catches me around the waist before a small wave knocks me sideways.
“I’m fine,” I say, though I am holding onto him.
“I know.”
“You keep rescuing me from things that are not emergencies.”
“I enjoy being prepared.”
“You enjoy having your hands on me.”
His eyes drop to my mouth. “Yes.”
Well. That shuts me up for at least three seconds.
He kisses me there, in bright water under a bright sky, not with last night’s hunger but with something softer. Something that feels almost more dangerous because it is not trying to consume. It is just there. Warm. Certain. Real.
When we return to shore, the family pretends not to notice.
Badly.
Hours pass. The sun begins to soften, lowering toward the water and turning the edges of the clouds gold. I am stretched on a towel beneath an umbrella, full of barbecue and fruit and too much happiness, when Luca lowers himself beside me.
“Come with me,” he says.
I open one eye. “That phrase has gotten me onto a yacht, into couture, across international waters, and kissed in multiple climates.”
His mouth curves. “This time it’s only town.”
“Only town,” I repeat. “With you, that could mean gelato or a felony.”
“Jewelry,” he says.
Both eyes open. My heart makes one hard, ridiculous jump.
“That was not one of the options.”
“No.” He stands and offers me his hand, the sunset behind him, the sea still glittering at his back. “It’s better.”
I look at his hand. Then at his face.
Then at the family behind him, all of whom are suddenly very busy pretending they did not hear a single word.
Except Nonna, of course. Nonna lifts her glass to me.
I should be concerned. I am concerned. I take Luca’s hand anyway. Because apparently paradise has not improved my decision-making at all.