“Merda.” I reached for a towel from the bar with shaking hands and crossed the floor in two strides. She tensed as I knelt at her side and wrapped the plush burgundy bath sheet around her body, but she didn’t lift her head, and from her muffled sobs, I could tell she was still crying. Which was my fault as well.
My chest contracted, and pain stabbed as deep as a dagger plunging to the hilt in my chest. Sitting next to her on the floor, I scooped her up and pulled her onto my lap. She didn’t fight me, and I had a sinking feeling it wasn’t because she wanted my touch but that she had no more fight left inside her. And that knowledge sent that dagger stabbing deep again and again because there wasn’t a thing I could do or say to make this better.
So I just held her. Leaning back against the tub, I rubbed my hand down her back and my fingers through her hair, and I did what little I could to comfort her while she cried against my shoulder.
And the whole time, I tried like hell to figure out what the fuck I should do next.
Or even if there was anywhere for us to go from here.
Chapter Seventeen
Natalie
Rolling to my back on the plush mattress, I stared up at the beamed ceiling as the warm light of morning shone over the bed.
A good crying jag had a way of leaving a person feeling wrecked, and I was wrecked. Completely wrung out. At the end of my metaphorical rope.
I raked my fingers through my messy hair, inwardly cringing at the scene I’d made last night. I hadn’t planned to let the waterworks loose, but once the tears had started, I hadn’t been able to stop them. Not even when Luc had come barging into the bathroom.
I hated that he’d seen me like that. I hated even more that I’d let myself get to that point.
Sighing, I dropped my hand against the comforter and glanced across the empty bed. At some point, Luc had carried me here, tugged one of his big cotton T-shirts over my head, and tucked me underneath the covers. He’d stayed with me last night—probably because I’d freaked him out with my emotional breakdown and he hadn’t been sure what I’d do next—and though he’d wrapped his arms around me and held me, he hadn’t spoken. He hadn’t apologized or reassured me everything was going to be okay or even told me he loved me. He’d simply stroked my arms and hair and any parts of me he could reach until I’d drifted to sleep.
Pain lanced my chest—so much pain, I closed my eyes and breathed through the worst of it so it wouldn’t trigger another waterfall of tears.
God, I hated this. I hated being this emotional, messy girl. I wasn’t a crier. Before meeting Luc, I could count on one hand the number of times I’d cried in my entire life. I was on the verge of crying again right now, dammit, and I had no idea why.
“Stop,” I snapped at myself, throwing back the covers. So big whoop. Your life pretty much sucks right now. I crossed the floor and jerked my dresser drawer open. Stop moping and deal with it.
I yanked a pair of shorts free and shoved the drawer closed with my hip. Then stilled because...I had no clue how to deal with this mess. Luc had kept so much from me. Yesterday, it was clear he was still keeping things from me. I couldn’t make him include me in his life if he didn’t want to. And I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—stay with a man who didn’t view me as a true partner in every sense of the word.
My gaze strayed to the thick diamond band on my left hand, and my eyes burned all over again.
I loved him. Madly. Without reason. But something inside me was terrified that love was not going to be enough. Something kept holding me back. Something I didn’t understand. Something I had no idea how to fix.
I pulled on the shorts and crossed into the bathroom with limbs that were heavy and slow. Somehow, I managed to brush my teeth, but my stomach was a mass of nerves, and I was afraid it might revolt at any second. I didn’t want to face Luc. Didn’t want to instigate the conversation we needed to have. Didn’t want to hear what he would say. But I couldn’t wait any longer. I couldn’t stand who I was becoming. I was making both of us miserable.
My conversation with Felicity yesterday at the lake rolled through my head as I wandered out of the bathroom. I had options. They weren’t great options, and if I went there, it would undoubtedly cause problems between Luc and Marco, but I was fairly confident Felicity would help me. She’d helped Sela, after all. She knew what it was like to be in my shoes. I just wished I knew what it was like to be in hers.
“Fucking stop,” I said to myself again.
The scent of fresh brewed coffee greeted me as I moved into the quiet living room. Nerves bounced around in my stomach as I shuffled across the tile floor, listening to the sounds of dishes clinking in the kitchen.
I stilled just before I reached the arched doorway to the kitchen and drew a deep breath for courage.
“I’m someone completely different when I’m with him...”
From out of nowhere, my friend Elena’s words from the last email she’d sent me before her death circled through my memory. At the time, Laney had been writing about the man she’d fallen for. About the obsessive relationship that had ultimately been her undoing. And as I stood outside the kitchen door listening to Luc moving around only yards away from me, I was suddenly struck by the fact I’d said those words to myself after I’d gotten involved with Luc, drawing similarities between our relationship and Laney and her mystery man’s illicit affair.
Only...the truth was...those words didn’t pertain to me. I’d never been someone different with Luc. The times we’d been together—before all the crap with his family had consumed us—had been the best of my life. He’d pushed me, emotionally and sexually, in ways I hadn’t known were possible, and yes, part of me had changed with him, but not in any way that was bad. That part of me I’d kept closed off to protect my heart had simply come awake. My soul had burst to life. The real me had finally broken free. I hadn’t been numb then. I hadn’t been going through the motions of life anymore. I’d been alive. And I wanted to be alive again.
My eyes fluttered open, and before I could talk myself out of it, I stepped into the kitchen.
Luc glanced toward the doorway when I entered, and his stormy-gray eyes held mine as I stood there, trying to think of something to say.
He was wearing loose jeans and a black T-shirt that stretched seductively across his strong shoulders, and my heart bumped at the sight of him, standing barefoot in the small kitchen, stirring something in a pot on the stove.
He was cooking. He’d cooked me breakfast yesterday, but I hadn’t let myself appreciate it. I hadn’t know he could cook. He’d had people to do that for us everywhere we’d been before this. There was so much about the man I didn’t know, and I wanted to know more. I wanted to know everything.
“Hey,” he said. “I hope I didn’t wake you. I tried to be quiet.”
He didn’t smile. And I couldn’t read his expression, which didn’t ease my stress any.
I licked my lips, feeling insanely self-conscious as I ran a hand through my hair. “You didn’t.”
“Good. This is almost ready. Why don’t you go sit down, and I’ll bring you some coffee in a minute. I set the table on the patio. It’s a really nice morning out there.”
“Okay.” I glanced toward the screen door, my stomach a mass of nerves as I crossed the kitchen and pushed it open.
Luc was right. It was a gorgeous morning. Sunlight glinted over the lake, making it sparkle as if thousands of diamonds were scattered across the water. Tall trees rose on both sides of the curved brick patio, overhanging the pergola and wisteria above to provide shade. A small circular table sat in the middle of the patio surrounded by four padded chairs. I took the closest, gazing at the bouquet of fresh wildflowers Luc must have picked this morning, wondering how long he’d been up, what he’d been doing all morning, and how long he’d stayed with me last night in that bed.
“Here.” He set a bowl of oatmeal in front of me, already topped with cinnamon, sugar, raisins, and a splash of milk, then placed a steaming
cappuccino near my hand. I’ll get mine and be right back.”
We didn’t have a cappuccino maker in the cottage. Not one I’d seen anyway. If we’d had one, I was sure Luc would have made cappuccinos yesterday. It was the one coffee drink I’d discovered in Rome he really liked.
He brought his own cappuccino and bowl of oatmeal to the table and sat beside me. “Dig in before it gets cold.”
Swallowing hard, I reached for my spoon and took a small bite, blinking hard against the burn in my eyes all over again because he’d remembered exactly how I liked my oatmeal. I’d only ordered it once with him—when we’d been in Venice—but he’d paid attention. He paid attention to everything, even things I thought he’d missed.
We ate in silence with the water lapping softly at the lake’s shore and birds chirping in the trees around us. I did my best but could only stomach about half of the oatmeal, especially with all the nerves spinning in my gut. Luc finished his breakfast and pushed his bowl to the middle of the table, and as I set down my spoon and sipped my cappuccino, I expected him to tell me to keep eating, but he didn’t. He just sat back and stared out at the lake, looking somber and the slightest bit sad. And as I studied at him and tried not to make it look obvious I was studying at him, I realized the stress of what was happening between us was taking its toll on him as well.
I saw lines on his face that hadn’t been there a few weeks ago. A couple very faint gray hairs near his temple I hadn’t noticed before. And a sorrow in his features that told me our relationship—I—was a burden he shouldn’t be worrying about when he had so many other things to deal with.
Guilt pushed heavily against my shoulders, sending that burn of tears right back into action. A guilt that seemed impossible to crawl out from under. I closed my eyes and fought it, trying like hell not to cry again, forcing myself to stop being a coward.
“I...I’m sorry about last night,” I managed, my voice raspy and weak. I shook my head, hating this never-ending tension between us. “I shouldn’t have gone out to the living room to—”
“I’m not.”
My eyes popped open. Sure I’d heard him wrong, I stared at him.
He met my gaze head-on, his incredibly unique eyes no longer somber or sad but as fierce as a hurricane. “I’m not sorry about last night, and I don’t want you to be either.”
For a heartbeat, I didn’t move. Was sure I’d imagined that answer. But the longer his gaze held mine and the deeper he looked into my eyes, the harder it was for me to believe him. Especially when those emotions were welling inside me all over again, feeding off every one of my fears and neuroses and doubts.
I closed my eyes, willing the dam to hold so he wouldn’t see. “Don’t say that,” I whispered. “You don’t have to say things you don’t mean just make me feel bet—”
My chair jerked to the left. Tensing, I looked up to see Luc leaning over me, his hands on both armrests of my seat, his face only inches from mine, his eyes as wild and stormy as they’d ever been.
“Get this through your head right now. Everything I’ve ever said to you has been the truth. I don’t say things I don’t mean. I’m not sorry about last night. I’ve been dying to get my hands on you for weeks. I want to put my hands on you right this second, only I’m fighting that urge because I don’t want to scare you any more than I already have. And I guarantee later today when I’m gone, I’m going to be plotting all the ways I can put my hands on you tonight when I get back.
“I know I fucked things up, and I’m trying like hell to fix them, but that doesn’t mean I’m lying to you. I didn’t tell you the details of what happened with Dante yesterday because I didn’t know how to tell you without stressing you out. I handled it badly, and I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry that everything I’m doing is only making things worse between us, but I swear to you that’s not my intention. I’m not trying to hurt you, Natalie. I’m trying to protect you. And I promise I’ll try to be better about sharing with you what’s going on. But don’t you dare tell me what I think or feel or mean or want, mannaggia. I know what I want. I want you. I want us. And more than anything, I want you to believe in me the way you did before everything went to shit, because nothing I’m doing to try to get us out of this fuckstorm means a goddamn thing if I don’t have you on my side.”
My heart stuttered as I stared at him, his words spinning in my head in the silence that followed. Then, very slowly, it picked up speed until it was a whir in my ears.
Of all the things I’d expected him to say in response to my apology, that wasn’t it. That wasn’t even close to how I thought he’d react.
“I...” My tongue was dry, so dry I had to swallow to find the words. “I do believe in you,” I whispered, my heart suddenly pounding in my chest. “I’m just...scared.”
“Cazzo. I’m scared too, but if you give in to that fear, they win. They don’t want us together. You know that, don’t you? All the shit happening around us and the fact you can’t leave this estate is because they’re afraid of you. They don’t want you in my life. But you know what? I don’t give a righteous fuck what they want. This is our life, not theirs. I have no intention of giving you up. You’re mine and I’m yours, and everyone else can go to hell as far as I’m concerned.”
He captured my mouth in a hard, swift kiss that stole my breath. It wasn’t brutal, but it wasn’t sweet either. It was possessive and domineering, and when he dipped into my mouth and tasted me with his sinful tongue, I felt like the center of the universe, like every moment was spinning outward from this one.
Spinning outward from us.
He drew back long before I was ready to let him go, and, breathing hard, all I could do was melt under his assertive gaze.
He rose to his full height, then grasped the back of my chair and carefully slid me up to the table once more as if I weighed nothing. “Now eat the rest of your oatmeal before it gets cold,” he said more gently than before. “You need the calories, angioletto. You’ve lost too much weight recently.” He pressed a kiss to the top of my head and reached for my coffee cup. “I’ll heat this up for you.”
I blinked against another rush of tears as he disappeared into the house, still spinning from the things he’d said and the way it had completely thawed my anger and hurt and even some of the resentment I’d been holding on to. He’d told me more about his feelings in two short minutes than he had in weeks of dancing awkwardly around each other. And even though it hadn’t solved everything, even though it didn’t fix the issues with his family and his House that still lingered between us, it made me think...maybe...
Maybe there was a chance for us after all. All I had to do was trust.
Not just in him, though. Not even in us. If I wanted this to work, I had to trust in that elusive thing called love.
And I had to trust that this love wasn’t destined to destroy us both.
I stayed on the patio and finished my coffee while Luc went inside to shower. He’d told me he had to go see Dante this morning, and though I knew that was the whole point of our trip to Italy, I wasn’t thrilled he was going back to his parents’ estate.
Unable to sit still for long, I wandered toward the bedroom, the familiar scents of jasmine and vanilla and cedar I always associated with him drifting my way, luring me closer. When I rounded the corner, I spotted him standing near the window in black slacks and wing-tipped dress shoes, sliding the cuff links into the hooks on his dress shirt.
A wave of heat spread through my body as I stilled in the doorway and watched him twist his arm so he could slide the cufflink through the slot on his sleeve. Muscles in his shoulders and back flexed beneath the fancy white fabric. His hair was damp at the edges from his shower, his strong jaw covered in a thin layer of sexy scruff, his dress shirt open down the middle to show off the hard ridge of muscles in his abdomen and those sexy pecs I loved to run my fingers over.
His head lifted, and he glanced toward the doorway with his flawed and captivating irises, stilling with his hand
on the cuff of his sleeve when he caught sight of me standing in the doorway. “What?”
My breasts tingled, and my whole body ached to be touched by him again. Only this time, I promised myself I wouldn’t be blind to what was so very obvious to me now. “What do you mean, what?”
“You’re looking at me.”
“I know. I like looking at you.” I crossed toward him, took the cufflink he was struggling with, and turned his arm over. “Here. Let me.”
A shiver rushed down my spine as I worked the cuff link through the buttonhole. His eyes were locked on my face while I fixed his sleeve, then pulled the two halves of his shirt together, working the buttons from the top down for him. That warmth inside me grew hotter. I liked when he watched me as he was doing now. As if he couldn’t take his eyes off me. And I’d missed it, more than I’d let myself realize until this very moment.
I slid the buttons into each hole, taking my time, skimming my fingers over his broad chest as much as I could. It was one of my favorite parts of his body. Strong, lean, perfect to press my cheek against when he held me like he had last night. I’d never told him that. There was a lot I hadn’t told him. So many things we’d yet to share even though we were technically married.
“There.” I left the top button undone, knowing he wouldn’t wear a tie, and smoothed my hands down his chest, unable to resist. He hated ties. When we’d been in Rome, meeting with fashion designers during that week I’d been his assistant, I’d watched him rip his tie off more times than I could count. He was insanely handsome in whatever he wore, but I had to admit, I liked my Luc more casual. I liked to see him relaxed and at ease. I told myself I was going to work hard not to add unnecessary stress to his life from now on.
I let my hands slip from his body and drift to my sides, knowing I didn’t have a reason to keep touching him. But I didn’t move back as he tucked his shirttails into his slacks. I stayed close and focused on the buttons of his shirt, feeling his warmth and inhaling the sweet scent of his cologne. Savoring it and him. “How long will you be gone?”