“Pretty sure I’m the reason we’re in this mess,” I say. “I went into the basement when I shouldn’t have?—”
Luca sighs heavily. “Yeah, well, I shouldn’t have even let you come to the compound that night. We’re both to blame.”
I want to reach out, run my hand across his back. I can see the weight of it, the struggle that he’s endured. It isn’t just me dealing with what’s happened. We’re in this situation together.
While it’s hard not to feel guilty that I’m the cause, I can see he has remorse, and I don’t want him regretting any of it.
“It’s not your fault,” I say and reach my hand out, placing it on his arm.
“No, it’s both our faults.” He stares at me and then down at my hand on his arm. His gaze is enough to burn me, and I flick my hand away, putting it back in my lap.
“Bet you don’t feel that way about me running away on our wedding day,” I mutter.
Luca’s jaw is terse. His shoulders tense, and he stares down at the pages of notes, his voice rough and raw. “Believe it or not, I had a feeling that you wouldn’t show up.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and I want to touch him, but I don’t want him hating me either.
I’m trying to give him space, let him simmer down and come to realize that we’re married. Unless he plans on taking another girl to his bed—and I don’t think he’d do that; eventually, he has to want me again.
This self-loathing and hatred of me can’t last forever.
“Don’t apologize,” he growls. “Not when you don’t mean it.”
I press my lips together and think better of telling him that I do mean it. That if he had read the letter, then he should know I did it for him. I was trying to set him free, let him live without being under his father’s shadow.
Silence fills the void between us, and when I glance at him, it’s hard not to stare. His neck muscles ripple from the tension he’s holding in his shoulders.
I should let the quiet continue to fill the air, but I can’t seem to remain still.
“I saw Kensley at lunch today.”
Luca swallows, and his hand pauses as he’s fixing my notes.
“She has bruises on her wrist,” I whisper, and he flinches. “Do you know anything about that?”
“Don’t ask me questions that you don’t want the answers to,” Luca snaps. He puts the pencil down, flips through a few more pages in the notebook. He’s caught up and slides the notebook in front of me to review the new items.
“You interrogated her.”
“I did what was necessary to find you.”
“I told you not to chase after me,” I say, and he turns his seat to face me.
“No, Harper, you wrote me a letter. You didn’t tell me anything.”
“Semantics.”
Luca is shaking his head. “Do you honestly believe that if I just let you go to Las Vegas or wherever you were running away to, that my father wouldn’t have dragged you back?”
That’s what I’d been hoping. It’s why I used Kensley’s credit card and not the one that my parents had given me for emergencies.
It didn’t occur to me that they could track down her purchases and figure out where I went.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run.”
“Again, don’t apologize when you don’t mean it,” Luca says, glaring at me. I’m surprised he hasn’t gotten up and stormed off.
He’s still so incredibly angry, but I’m not sure there isn’t also hurt and grief locked up inside his heart.
