Page 26 of Beautiful Dangerous

“Back at the clubhouse.”

“You should’ve called me.”

“I wanted some time to myself.”

“I don’t like you being alone. It isn’t safe.”

It is, actually. She’s as safe as she can be, here, with guards and dogs surrounding the place, but I guess I’m just not used to being away from her. It makes me uneasy, because I’m so used to being by her side. Constantly.

“It’s safe, Lucca.” She puts her drink down and uncurls her legs, leaning forward in her chair. “To be honest, though, I’ve never really felt truly safe since Javier died. I’m always looking over my shoulder, but I knew that was the way I had to live, when I embraced this life. I know the Pino cartel still wants me dead, and I know they’ll still be looking for ways to make that happen, that won’t stop until we’ve finished the job. It’s understandable that they want to bring us down just as much as we want to end them, it’s a war. Oneweneed to win.” She tugs on her ponytail, an action I don’t think she knows she’s doing, it’s a nervous thing. Traits like that, she doesn’t have that many of them, not in public, anyway. But, I guess, when she’s with me she feels more comfortable. And even if it isn’t something she does deliberately, she lets that mask slip more often than she realizes, when we’re alone. “Angel asked me if I was lonely.” She looks at me, and there’s a sadness in her eyes that I’ve never seen there before, not since the day I told her Javier wasn’t coming home. “And I think I am. A little. I mean, I didn’t tellhimthat, but the more I’ve thought about it…” She breaks the stare and looks out of the window, even though it’s dark outside. There’s nothing to see. “I think that’s why I wanted some time alone. To see if I really am as lonely as I think I might be.”

I don’t know what to do. What to say. Because I’ve never heard her talk like this. She might’ve been this open with Javier, I don’t know, all Idoknow is she’s never been this way, never been thisrealwith me before. Ever.

She gets up, goes over to the table by the fireplace, and pours herself another drink.

“Do you want one?” she asks me, and I nod, watching as she pours the drinks, but keeps her back to me. “Have you ever been in love, Lucca?”

That’s a question I wasn’t expecting to be asked. “No.” And I’ve answered with a lie, because she can’t know the truth. I can’t do that to her. I can’t do it to myself.

She slowly turns around, walks over to me, and hands me my drink, our fingers touching briefly as I take the tumbler from her. And that brief skin-to-skin contact is enough to let me know that I’m still fucked. I’m so freaking fucked.

“Never?” She sits down on the arm of the chair and sips her whiskey.

“Never.”

Her eyes bore into mine, she’s almost challenging me, in a way, can she tell I’m lying? Does she know how I really feel…?

“Don’t you want to know what it feels like? To be in love, I mean.”

“I’ve never really thought about it.”

Another lie. I know what it’s like to be in love, and it fucking hurts.

“Do you want to be alone for the rest of your life?”

“I’m not alone, Olivia. I have you. I have the cartel…”

“That isn’t the same as being with somebody you truly love. It isn’t the same.”

“What if it’s enough?”

She shakes her head. “It can’t be. It shouldn’t be.”

No. It shouldn’t. But what other choice do I have? “I don’t need the distraction.”

“Javier loved, Lucca. Javier lovedme, and he still managed to run this cartel. He didn’t see me as a distraction.”

“What do you want me to say?”

That I love you? That I want you? So fucking much…

She looks down, shakes her head again, and finishes the last of her whiskey. “I don’t know.” She shrugs before raising her gaze. “I don’t know. Forget it.” She gets up, puts her glass down and heads for the door. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Olivia?”

She stops in the doorway, her arms crossed against herself. “Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

---