Page 131 of The Trophy

Crack!

The rumble of thunder makes me jump as I try to get away from those eyes.

A bigger one lights up everything around me as if it was daylight and I see what I was running from.

The Mouth of Truth.

The words of the prediction I got the night of my date with Cash come back to mind.

A midnight kiss will change everything.

Royal pain, royal gain.

Fire doesn’t always burn in a bad way.

Sharing is caring.

None of that was true.

That kiss changed everything, but it was only to show me how much I could lose.

Royal pain is right, but all that I gained from that was a broken heart.

Fire burned me and I’ll bear the scars forever.

The guys didn’t really care for me after all, despite agreeing to share me.

“WHAT A LOAD OF BULLSHIT!” I yell at the ugly reproduction of the Ancient Roman monument. “It was all a lie,” I sob at a more normal volume.

My tears are back in full force, mixing with the rain that refuses to relent.

“It wasn’t all lies, baby. It was all true. It is all true.” Cash’s voice reaches me before I turn around and see him advance toward me in the pouring rain.

I open my mouth to ask him what he’s doing here but I don’t have the chance because two other tall, imposing figures flank Cash.

“Pretty girl, please come home. I love you.” Blaze says.

“Bella,” Luca’s deep voice sounds as broken as mine, as if he were trying to keep from crying. “Ti amo, ti prego, perdonami (I love you, please, forgive me).”

I want to believe him, but when he tries to close the distance between us, I take a step back and then another until my back hits the faux-stone of the Mouth of Truth.

“How can you say that, Luca?” I sob. “How can you say you love me if you believe I could betray you to get noticed? Or for money or whatever other reason you think I had to spill all your secrets. Our secrets?”

Luca steps closer, stopping just shy of our chests touching.

He looks gorgeous, perfect even with his blond hair so wet that it’s flattened on his head, with big drops of rain trapped on the tips of his long lashes.

“I don’t believe you betrayed me. I never did.”

“That’s not what I heard.” I spit out.

“My Papà always says Chi origlia, prende solo cantonate (those who eavesdrop get only wrong facts). The stuff you heard was out of context, I swear. Yes, the mention of my piercing in that post shocked me and I didn’t know what to think. You were the only one who knew about it, aside from Cash and Blaze. I knew you would never willingly betray me though. I thought maybe you accidentally let it slip with Bay, but I doubt it, Lake.”

I want to believe him, so badly.

“You said it yourself, no one else knew. I can’t be with you if you feel you can’t trust me.”

Luca takes one final step toward me, one of his palms flattened over the top part of the Mouth of Truth, by the side of my head. “I trust you, Lake. I was just thinking out loud like a moron, trying to figure out what happened, and maybe even playing devil’s advocate because I couldn’t believe what the facts suggested. I don’t just trust you, I love you. I love you so much that I don’t even care if what happened today means no more hockey. Even if it means that rather than allowing us back on the throne, the people of Montebello exile us again. Without you, I want nothing, I am nothing because nothing matters. You’re everything to me, you have to believe me.”

---