Chapter 69
LUCA’S APARTMENT, THE brONX
From the bed, Gabriella gazed down at Luca, deep into his eyes, and let her mind record exactly how he looked at this specific moment and how she felt, fizzing and burning from another soul-searing orgasm.
Initially his eyes had closed, as she had rocked them both to that sweetest of spots but then, when everything intensified to the point of release, his eyes had opened again.
And now he was looking back at her, breathing laboured, expression seeming to try to write a thousand stories.
She wouldn’t see that look for a while. She didn’t know how long it would be.
This brain video she was creating was going to have to last until they could recreate it again.
‘What?’ he whispered, reaching up to brush her slightly damp hair away from her face.
‘Nothing,’ she answered.
‘Hey,’ he breathed. ‘Tell me. I can kinda see the thoughts.’
‘I was just thinking, when I get back to England…’
‘Go on.’
‘I want to be the Gabriella there that I’ve become here.’ She sighed, shifting her hips, moving off Luca and dropping down to the mattress. ‘Is that stupid?’
‘You think you’ve changed?’ Luca asked, pulling her closer to him.
‘Do you think I have?’
He didn’t seem to think for long before he answered. ‘No. And there was nothing wrong with who you were when you arrived except now…’
‘What?’
‘You give less fucks now.’
She smiled. ‘I suppose you think you’re funny.’
‘No,’ he said, smiling back. ‘I was actually being serious.’ He palmed her face.
‘I think you were hiding most of the real Gabriella Felix because you thought you had to. To sell the book. To please Cheyenne and the publisher. To keep things stable for Phoebe.’ He brushed her hair back.
‘I think you focussed all your energy into being the Gabriella Felix you thought they needed you to be.’
She mused on what Luca had said, deliberating in her own head, but only coming up with one proper conclusion. She nodded. ‘You’re right.’
‘I know,’ he said, but not in a smartass kind of way.
‘Because it’s kind of how I’ve been showing up in life too, you know.
’ He sighed as she put her arms around him and held him.
‘Distancing myself from my family and pretending I could push it all away, be someone else without fully dealing with what I did and why I had to do it and what that truly means for the future.’
‘Deep thoughts,’ Gabriella said.
‘Yeah,’ he answered. ‘For both of us.’
She held onto him, knowing in an hour or so, she would have to go back to her hotel suite and Phoebe for a few hours of sleep before it was time to get ready to leave for the airport. She breathed him in, the scent of his skin, his curly hair, all the aromas that made Luca uniquely Luca. Her Luca.
‘Will you come back?’ he whispered into the dark.
She held on to him. ‘Do you want me to?’
‘Yes, Gabriella. I want you to.’ He shifted then, moving out of her embrace to sit up in the bed and look straight at her. ‘If I didn’t make that clear introducing you to my mom and all the shady characters at Valentino’s then let me make it clear right now. Yes.’
‘Good,’ she answered. ‘But I don’t know when it will be.
Phoebe has exams in the spring and even if I don’t have a new book contract I need to unravel things and speak to the publisher about a new, better, more cohesive version of Zero Fucks Given.
I can’t just leave it as it is, feeling it’s not what it could be. ’
‘I get it. You’re going to be busy. And, I think, me too. Sybille is getting all kinds of new business opportunities for La Facon; it’s lucky that she took on Errol when she did.’
‘That’s amazing,’ Gabriella said, holding his hand.
‘Yeah, it is amazing and I love my job but…’
‘But?’
‘I guess I always kind of thought that would be all I had and then…’ He paused. ‘Then I met you.’
Gabriella’s heart soared and she kissed his lips softly, before drawing him back into her arms and holding on tight. ‘I’ll take New York and you, Luca Manning.’
And as he kissed her again, his fingers tracing the line of her collarbone as she got closer still, Gabriella realised that she hadn’t just found the best connection with Luca, she had finally re-found herself.