“I'm sorry. I love you.” I feel her fingers run through my hair.
For some reason, I feel like her sorry is for so much more. For something she hasn’t done now but will, and that makes my skin crawl. I lift my head to look at her, eyebrows raised, but she looks away. Without thinking, I grab her face, forcing her to look at me, and tears are trailing down her cheeks. My dick goes fully limp. “What’s wrong?” Worry laces those words as I pull myself from her. It all feels wrong.
She leans up on her hands, something I wouldn’t even consider a smile on her face. “Nothing,” she lies.
Roughly pulling my pants up and tucking my dick back in, I don’t take my eyes off her as she lies naked, still. “Why do you always have to close yourself off from me? When I think we're getting somewhere, here the fuck you go again,” I angrily tell her. I don’t think twice about leaving her naked, my cum dripping out of her while storming into the gym.
Chapter Twenty-three
Rowan
Tears come freely as I pull my clothes back on. He left me, just left me naked in here.
“Fuck,” I groan out to the empty breakroom. Luca is the best thing that ever happened to me, and here I am, fucking it all up. Fucking him up.
I’m ready to go back home. I need to be out of this town; it’s fucking with me more than I thought was possible. That and David combined are a disaster for my mind.
I’ve never told Luca why I like to make myself feel pain. It’s a coping mechanism, a new one because of that night. I know I can open up to Luca, but I’m scared he’ll see something he won’t like…me. He didn’t get to know Rowan before; only Rowan now.
Deeply breathing in, I throw my hair into a messy bun and exit the breakroom, looking for Luca. I find him in his office, lights off, head on his desk. I don’t knock, just enter.
“Luca,” I mumble his name.
He doesn’t answer me.
“Luca, baby.” I’m fucking with this man’s head, and I’m not meaning to. I’m laying all this shit on him, and I hate myself for it.
He finally lifts his head when I stand next to him, and I’m taken aback. His cheeks are wet. He’s been crying. And that breaks me more than I ever thought possible. He looks defeated.
I want to hold him, tell him I’m sorry, that I won’t do something stupid, but I’d be lying. So, I say the only thing that needs to be said. “Can we go home?” I’m hoping he says yes.
He pushes his body up and wipes his face. “Yeah.” It’s curt, and he gives me nothing else, just leaving me once again standing alone.
I run to grab my tote, following him outside. We both get into the car, neither of us saying a word. It’s a long, three-hour drive. The tension is thick and palpable. It’s uncomfortable, but neither one of us breaks. I don’t know what to say, what to do, so I just stay quiet, as the radio is the only sound in the car, trying its hardest to cover the discomfort that emanates around us.
Riffling through my tote, my hand feels for my glasses, placing them on like I can hide behind them. Hide away from Luca. I watch him from the corner of my eye. He truly is beautiful, everything a woman would and could want in a man, and he’s in love with me…Me.
Finally pulling onto the long driveway, my breathing became easier. My body automatically knows we’re home.
We drive slowly up the gravel, passing by the tree, as I silently ask Lauren to please help me. Because I need all the damn help. If I’m honest, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. Why am I still doing all of this? But there is this minuscule, little voice that won’t shut up inside me. I have to do this. And I know it won’t quiet down until they’re all gone.
Roxy meets us outside before we even park in front of the house, her tail wagging happily.
I drop to my knees, letting her jump on me, giving me sloppy kisses. “You better of been good.” She gets free rein now that the new doggie door, Luca, is installed. Who the hell knew they sold doggie doors that open only with the collar device around her neck… I didn’t.
My hand roams down her head, to her collar, and immediately my eyebrows rise. The metal clasp locked haphazardly, twisting her collar.
“What the fuck?” I ask her as if she’s going to answer me while I untangle her collar, placing it the right way. Roxy doesn’t even let the mailman come up the drive, so my mind is spinning on how her collar would have been removed from her. It isn’t possible. Right? She’d eat someone up.
Luca doesn’t speak to me when he walks by. I’m still bent down, loving Roxy, mind spiraling. Panning up to watch him unlock the house, then disappear inside. One by one, the house lights up with each switch he touches. Illuminating the muted evening, a torch coming to life.
Still bent over Roxy, the hairs on the back of my neck stand. I let my eyes move around the parts of the property I can see, but they come up empty.
“Come,” I call to Roxy as I bolt to the front door, locking it once she’s secured inside with us.
Throwing my tote onto the island, I feel on display through the enormous windows, a fish in a fish tank, being gawked at. I can’t shake the feeling of being watched.
I wrap my arms around myself like I can make myself disappear as I walk to the window. I never told Luca about the night Roxy went crazy. I honestly believed it was an animal outside, but now I’m not so sure.
