Page 71 of Beautiful Dangerous

“I’m thinking that Olivia and I might retake our wedding vows.”

I swallow hard, my fingers gripping the wheel so tightly my knuckles are starting to turn white.

“As a way of marking our new beginning. What do you think?”

“I’m not sure it’s got anything to do with me. What does Olivia think?”

“I haven’t mentioned it to her yet. It’s just an idea, but I’m beginning to think it’s almost necessary.”

I frown. “Necessary?”

“In order to put the past behind us. Move on. We’re all starting a new chapter, Lucca. All of us. It would be nice to recognize that in some way.”

His eyes again meet mine in the mirror, and I feel my shoulders tense, but I keep my focus. I’ve got no choice. “You should really talk toherabout this, not me.”

“You and she grew close while I was away, closer than you were before I left, I just thought you might have some idea of…” He stops talking, and my stomach drops like a boulder from a cliff edge.

“Of what?”

“How she feels, about me.”

I frown again, I’m not enjoying this conversation. It’s not making me feel comfortable. “You’re her husband. She loves you.”

“Love can weaken, during a prolonged absence. Feelings can fade, people contemplate moving on. Maybe they find someone else to love.”

Does he know? Does he fucking know about me and Olivia? How I feel? What wedid…? No. If he knew, he’d kill me. He wouldn’t hesitate, he’d end me.

“All she wanted was for you to come back to her, Javier.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t feel like that,” he sighs, turning his head to look out of the window. “She keeps pushing me away. Won’t let me touch her in the way I want to touch her.”

My skin prickles at the thought of his hands on her skin, even though he has every right to be that close to her. I have none. I shouldn’t even be thinking about her in that way.

“Javier, believe me, she has spent the past two years consumed by a sadness she couldn’t shake, I saw it in her eyes, every day. And you coming back like this, it’s a shock. Understandably so. She just has to get her head around it, that’s all. She needs time.”

Tell him what he needs to hear…

“Maybe.”

“Talk to her, Javier. Take her to dinner, or have Celine cook you something special, set a table out on the terrace. Step outside of this world for a few hours and go back to a time when you were falling in love with her, and try to bring all those feelings back. Start again. It’s what you want, after all. Right? To start again? A new beginning?”

Every one of those words was like a knife cutting into me, but this is what I have to do.

She can never be yours, remember?

She can never be yours…

I look in the mirror again, and he’s smiling. A genuine smile that reaches his eyes, he looks almost grateful.

“Thank you, Lucca.”

And I hate that I’m giving him advice on how to pull Olivia even further away from me, but in the end that’s just something I have to accept. That Olivia will never be mine. We left it too late.

You never stood a chance.

Never…

Olivia

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