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 him and tried not to make it look obvious I was studying 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 slip 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.