My ex-fiancé slams the glass onto the table, spilling some water over his hand and the surface. “It wasn’t your decision, Emma!” he shouts. “You broke my fucking heart! And I’m sorry he scared you like that, but youknewwhat he was capable of! You knew better than anyone!”
“I did.”
“This whole conversation is pointless,” he mutters, pacing around the table between us.
“No, it’s not, Luca! You weren’t the only one who suffered! I lived in fear and heartbreak because I couldn’t have you! I was just a kid, I didn’t know how far your dad would go, and we could barely afford food! I couldn’t risk testing Thomas Walker!” For the first time, I’m yelling.
Luca listens.
“I was a child,” I say again, softer now. “I was terrified. I lost you and had to live with the fact that you hated me.” Tears fill my eyes. “And I hated myself for years.”
“Why?”
“Because more than once… I was willing to sacrifice my family just to be with you.”
Silence.
Luca’s brows soften. There’s guilt in his expression now. I lower my gaze, not wanting to look at him, but I track him as he moves toward the wrapped painting on the table.
My heart pounds. My nerves spike. A chill runs through my arms. He tears the paper. Shreds fall to the floor as he unveils the painting. The modified one.
His eyes widen as he stares at it. He’s seen his face through my hands before—but not the white-inked question written across his body:
Will you marry me?
He lifts his gaze and holds mine for several seconds. He exhales like he’s been holding his breath.
“Are you sure?” His voice is heavy, just like the first day I met him in his office. “Because if you say yes, Emma Green, I’ll put you on a plane and marry you today. Vegas.”
I nod slowly.
Luca drops the painting like it’s on fire and walks toward me, stopping just inches away. His eyes are scared. Almost desperate. “Are you serious? You want to marry me?”
“I always did.”
His hands frame my face, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Emma…” he breathes over my lips.
“You didn’t answer me, Luke.”
He laughs.
“Of course I want to marry you, little lamb. I’ve wanted to marry you since the day you yelled at me in the halls of Willow High.”
His mouth crashes into mine, desperate and claiming. My gasp disappears against his lips as his hands grip my waist, pulling me flush against him like he’ll never let go.
I hook my legs around his hips, and we stumble until we collapse onto the couch in a tangle of limbs. His jacket is gone in seconds, tossed somewhere, and his hands are already tugging at the zipper of my dress.
“Off,” he growls, breaking the kiss just long enough to peel the fabric down my body. His eyes devour me as the dress falls away, his chest rising and falling like he’s starving.
My fingers fumble with his shirt, yanking it open, buttons scattering, the smooth heat of his skin finally under my palms. He groans into my mouth when I slide my hands down his torso, and then he’s out of the rest of his clothes, urgent, unstoppable.
“You took too long, Emma,” he says against my skin, his voice wrecked. “I couldn’t wait one more day.”
I bury my fingers in his hair, tugging him closer. “I’m here now. I’m yours.”
His answer is a feral sound, low and raw, before he sinks into me with hunger and purpose. The world falls away—there’s only his body, his heat, his wild rhythm as he takes me like he’s carving me into his soul.
“Luca!” My cry breaks the air, and he swallows it with another kiss, his hand tangled with mine, our bodies moving in frantic sync.
