Of Blood and Bone (The Minaldi Legacy #1)(49)
Author: Courtney Cole

Luca knows that and he gives it to me.  Slowly, gently, lovingly.

He loves every part of my body, worshipping my arms and my legs and my lips.  He looks into my eyes as he enters me slowly, filling me with everything that he is.  I am crying now, crying from the satisfaction that I am with him again.  He kisses my tears away and moves faster, pulling me to his chest and rocking with me.  I clutch his back and whisper into his ear, whisper words that I don’t even know I am saying.

It is an emotional experience and I am limp when it is over, after he arches against me and shudders; after he empties everything that he has into me.  He is hot and throbbing, then he lays against me, careful not to crush me.

“I love you,” I tell him softly against his strong shoulder.

He is silent, but I feel his muscles tighten.

“I know you love me too,” I tell him. “I know you do.  Whether or not you feel that you should doesn’t matter.  Because I know that you do.”

Luca rolls to the side and looks at me, his dark hair damp on his forehead, his eyes stormy and troubled.

“I love you,” he tells me, as though he is admitting a secret.  “Of course I love you, Evangeline.  How can I not?”

But he turns away now, hiding his expression from me.  I touch his shoulder.

“What is it?”

And he doesn’t answer and his silence is frightening. An ominous feeling shudders through me, laying heavily on my heart and I shake his shoulder again.

“Luca, you’re scaring me.  What is it?  What’s wrong?”

He sits up, pulling his shirt back over his head, not looking at me.  He gets up to find his pants and he puts them back on before he says anything.  But finally, when my heart is firmly lodged in my throat, he speaks.

“I can’t be with you anymore,” he tells me.  His voice is flat and expressionless and I know he is purposely trying to distance himself. It’s why he’s not looking at me.  I turn his chin toward me, trying to force him to look at me.

“Look at me,” I insist. “Luca!”

My voice is something that I have never heard. It is desperate and anxious and sad.

Scared, terrified, alone.

“Please, Luca.  You’re not making sense.  I’m an adult. You can’t make these decisions for me, for the both of us.  You can’t protect me.  I will protect myself.  I will help you, Luca.  Everything will be alright.  I promise.”

But my voice is thin, as though I’m trying to convince myself too, because I am.  He knows that and he looks at me sadly, his hands limp in his lap.

“Eva, you deserve someone like Adrian.  Someone with no secrets or darkness.  Someone who can make you laugh like there’s nothing wrong in the world; because in your world with him, there won’t be.  Please. You deserve a normal life.  And you won’t get that from me. While you are with me, you are going against everything you’ve been trained to do as a doctor.  You should have turned me in to the authorities, but you didn’t.  I can’t put you in this position anymore.  I won’t do it.”

I am clutching him, trying to make him listen to me, to reason.  But he won’t. He is stoic now, hard.  His face grows impassive, once more the Luca Minaldi that I used to see before I grew to know him.  The softness and sadness are gone, replaced by power and authority.  He is unwavering and he won’t listen to me.

He touches my shoulder and leans in to murmur in my ear.

“I love you, Eva.  I do.  Please do this for me.  Please have a happy and glorious life.  It will make me happy. I’ll send Adrian to retrieve your bags and take you to your cottage. You’ll be safe there now that you know that the danger is me.”

“No, Luca!” I clutch at him but he pulls away and walks out and there isn’t anything I can do but watch him through my watery eyes.

He’s gone. And it feels like he took my heart with him.

I sit still for a while, soaking in his scent from the room around me, absorbing him as much as I can.  I look at the walls, at the priceless pieces of art that I know he chose himself.  At the silver cufflinks that I have seen him wear a hundred times.  They are laying on his heavy mahogany desk. A pair of soft leather loafers peek from under the desk.   Bits of him are scattered throughout this room and I try to memorize every bit of it before I finally get up and leave, turning only once to look behind me before I close the door.

I make it to my room before I fall to pieces.  I collapse onto my bed and cry until I can’t cry anymore.  I don’t have any more tears left, and my eyes are red and hot and burning.  I picture Luca here, in this room with me.  I remember him smiling over me, his smile white against the dark shadows of his eyes.   I remember him laughing as we rolled in the bed, twisted in the sheets.

I remember him squeezing my throat.  I remember his eyes as he looked into mine.  I remember the look on his face when I found him in the stables, so shattered and alone.   And I don’t want to leave him here.  He’ll be alone, with no one close to him but Adrian.

But I have no choice.  As I sit up and wipe at my eyes, I know that I have no choice.  He has decided and I will not be able to change his mind.  It’s done.

I get up and fold my clothing and place them into my bags.  I gather my research and my notes and my laptop and put everything into a pile to load into the car.  With each thing that I place on the pile, I feel my heart breaking just a little bit more.  I don’t know how much more it can take until it shatters into a million jagged shards.

There is a knock at my door and I open it, hoping to see Luca, but knowing that it will be Adrian. And it is.

Adrian is apologetic and sympathetic as he carries my things to the Mercedes.  I look behind me as we get into the car and I think that I might have seen a movement at a window, that Luca might have been watching, but I can’t be certain.  As quickly as I see it, it is gone.  I close my eyes, fighting the hot wetness that I feel building there.

We are silent on the way to my cottage and I force myself to not cry.  Not in front of Adrian.  I am stoic like a stone as I look out the window, watching the greens and blues blur past. We pull into the drive and Adrian unloads my things from the car, carrying them into the house.  We are still silent.