“So… why did you sound so tense and unhappy this morning?” Katie asked over the rim of her glass.
“I think I’m falling for Luca, Katie.”
“What?” she blurted out, spraying wine all over the tablecloth.
I couldn’t help it. I had to laugh. She was so funny.
Red faced, she mopped at the table. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious.”
She looked at me incredulously. “How can you possibly fall in love with someone after less than a week?”
“I don’t know how, but from the first moment our eyes met at the party it was as if I am connected to him at a deeper level. And every time we have sex I feel myself slip just a little more.”
She was speechless. “He’s that good?”
I shook my head in despair. “Sometimes I even cry real tears.”
“Woah,” she said and leaned back into the chair. “That’s not good.”
“See why I’m panicking now.”
“You can’t have feelings for him,” she said. “You’re meant to be out of there in what? Two weeks?”
“Two and a half,” I answered. “It sounds like nothing, but that’s a long time for me. I can’t explain it, but when I am at his house, it’s like being in a different world. I just...” I sighed in frustration. “I guess I just want to know how to switch me off. How to not react so intensely to him every single time. How would you do it?”
Her gaze on me softened. “I have absolutely no idea. I’ve never been in a relationship like that.”
My mouth slightly parted in disappointment, even though it was what I should have expected.
“Isn’t there any way you can get out of this early?”
I shook my head. “I can’t. I’ve signed a contract and Dad needs this.”
“You know something, Skye. It’s not the end of the world. I mean, if I were you I’d go for it, and if my heart gets broken so fucking what? Most people live the kind of lives that they might as well be dead. At least you are really living now. To be perfectly honest I’d love to be in your shoes right now.”
I shook my head. “I thought you disapproved of my relationship with him.”
“That was before I saw your coat,” she said with a laugh.
At the moment the waiter arrived with our food and we both turned our attention to the food, but her words kept ringing in my head.
If I were you, I’d go for it.
I wondered what would happen if I did go for it…Chapter 33LucaThe door to my study burst open suddenly, but I was already with my gun drawn and cocked. I’d heard the unfamiliar footsteps. Unrecognizable as any of my house guards. One much heavier than the other. What had alerted me was the way they were creeping forward. I felt calm. No emotion. My gun was cocked and pointed to the door. I was ready to shoot the motherfuckers dead the second they opened my fucking door.
It happened so fast. If my reflexes had not been so quick I would have shot Angelo. For it was my brother who stood at the threshold of my study
“Are you fucking insane?” I growled, fury coursing through my veins. “I could have blown your head off.”
“That’s what I told him,” a soft female voice said from behind him, and I realized then that there was someone behind him. She stepped forward with a bright smile on her face and both my brother and his fiancée stood before me. My gaze moved between the both of them, as I swallowed my anger at my brother. I could have killed him.
Angelo laughed. “Be thankful, big brother. I was testing your reflexes.”
“It looked more like you were trying to win the Darwin award,” I muttered. Then I turned to his fiancée. “Sienna,” I greeted.
“Hey,” she said with an easy smile, as she moved her hand to entwine her fingers with my brother’s.
She was everything Skye was not. Tanned, confident, sure of her place in the world. She never had to sell herself to pay for her father’s medical bills. A great sense of protectiveness filled my chest. At that moment I made myself a promise. When our thirty days were over I would make sure she was financially secure for the rest of her life. Never again would she have to sell herself to low lives for anything she wanted to do or buy.
“Can I get you both a drink?” I asked.
“Sit down and relax. I’ll get it,” my brother said, as he moved towards the bar.
I led the way towards the leather sofas by the fireplace. I lowered myself into the armchair and left the sofa for them. I wasn’t in a very chatty mood, but fortunately Sienna launched into a comment about alcohol and a story about the state of my brother’s fridge when she first met him.