Page 51 of On Her Terms
I stare at Luca and realize he’s not denying what’s in the letter; he’s trying to explain it. I take that moment to wrap my brain around everything that’s happened between us, from our college days until this very moment, and what it all means.
Luca is a duke, has a fiancée waiting for him in Massara, and nothing between us was real, not back at Oxford and not here in the Alps. He wasn’t falling for me; he was just having sex. The fact that he has a girl waiting for him makes him a two-timing jerk. I’ve had one too many of those in my life already.
“Brianna—”
I hold my hand up to stop him. “You don’t need to explain anything.” I force out a laugh, determined to portray indifference. “Don’t you get it?” I ask.
He reaches for me and I inch away, unable to have his hands on me. “Brianna,” he says. “Listen to me.”
“No, you listen to me. I know who you are, Luca. We met back at Oxford, at a party.”
His head drops, and he nods. Jesus, so all along he knew who I was, too.
“I was wondering why you were pretending you didn’t know me,” he says.
A laugh bubbles in my throat, and it comes out almost manic. “Oh, because I was just playing with you. The same way you played with me that night.”
His brow furrows as he stares at me. “What are you talking about?”
“Give me a break,” I say and roll my eyes. “Have fun with the pudgy freshman, pretend you like her, walk her home and close the door in her face. I bet you and the guys had a good laugh over that.”
He steps toward me, and I take a measured step back, tears pounding against the back of my eyes. “Brianna, you don’t understand—”
I poke his chest and wish I hadn’t touched him. “No, Luca, what you don’t understand is I set this up as payback. That first night at your spot.” I do air quotes around spot as heartache wells up inside me. I’m not normally spiteful or mean—then again I’ve been doing a lot of things this week that I’ve never done before—but I strike back with, “I decided to seduce you, take you back to your place and leave you hanging.” I give a casual shrug even though there is a storm going on inside my stomach, tossing the contents around and making me nauseated. “Then I thought, why not just use him for sex. Take from him now what I thought I was going to get from him back then.”
His shoulders sag, and his lips part, his eyes dark, pained. The sound of him swallowing as he digests my words curls around me. “Are you serious? This was all a game to you?”
“Of course it was.” I wave a dismissive hand. “So go, marry your fiancée. Or don’t. I don’t care one way or another.” I shove his jacket into his arms, and with my head held high I float past him on my heels. Fearing I’ll never make it to the elevator before the floodgates open, I walk back into the dimly lit ballroom and search for a quiet, dark corner where I can give myself a good, hard lecture and cry my eyes out in private.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Luca
IN MY LATE father’s study, I pace to the window and pull back the curtain to see my mother tending to the weeds in one of her many flower beds. Tall trees line the long driveway of our massive family estate, and bright flowers burst from the gardens throughout. But not even the vibrantly colored foliage, or the bright sunshine feeding them, can lighten my mood.
Brianna was playing a game with me?
I’ve been home for a little over ten days, and I still can’t wrap my brain around that truth, still can’t quite loosen the knot in my gut. While one part of me is angry, there is another part that tells me I have no right to be. I kept things from her, too, important things.
A dark car slowly crawls up the driveway, and my mom stands to wave to my uncle Gio. It shouldn’t have surprised me when he showed up at the wedding that night, begging me to come back sooner rather than later. After Marco’s latest antics, which were splashed in every newspaper, Gio needed me home, taking my rightful place at the head of the family so I could get things in order and prepare for his retirement.
I drop the curtain and pace around the room. I glance around, and my father’s presence hits like a physical blow. Grief presses down on me, heavy, suffocating, squeezing the air from my lungs. I miss him, goddammit. I miss my brother, too. As I catalogue the room, my throat tightens, and I fist my hands, shove them into my pants.
This office has been waiting for me to stand up and be the man everyone needs me to be. I want to live up to my dad’s expectations. Make him proud. But how the hell can I do it without the woman I love beside me? Dad was a free thinker, a man who stood up for what he believed in, even if it went against tradition. Putting a stipulation like marriage on his surviving son makes no sense to me, doesn’t seem like the sort of thing he’d do at all. None of this adds up.
As I think about that—and something niggles in the back of my mind, something just out of reach—Uncle Gio comes into the office. He’d been looking into the marriage clause, trying to find a way around it. Even if he does, the only woman I really want with me has been playing a revenge game, payback for something she thinks I did.
But was it really all a game to her?
There is a part of me that doesn’t believe that. How could a woman touch and kiss the way she did if deeper feelings weren’t involved? She even did special things to please me, like a day kiteboarding when she feared it herself. Something isn’t adding up there, either.
As Uncle Gio takes the chair on the other side of the desk, my thoughts once again wander to Brianna. My heart beats a little faster, pounds harder against my rib cage. I love her. I love her so goddamn much, it hurts. I pinch my eyes shut, recall the adventures we took, the games we played, the way she touched me, kissed me. The way her body opened up for me, welcomed me in like we were made for each other.
We are made for each other.
I slowly open my eyes, and the frown on Uncle Gio’s face is a good indication that he’s not been able to find a way around the marriage clause.
“I’m sorry, Luca,” he says. “It’s ironclad. Marco and I went over the details these last few days. Your fiancée is aware that you are home, and she’s waiting for you.”