Page 46 of Beautiful Dangerous

His eyes meet mine, and I take a step back because just looking at him now, it messes with my head. “Did you want something?”

“Everything okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Trying to pretend like the feelings we have for each other don’t exist, it’s hard. But for some reason we both feel the need to keep up that charade, even though every fiber of my being wants to touch him. Wantshimto touchme.

He peels himself away from the wall and comes toward me, and my breath catches in my throat, it’s like I’ve suddenly turned into some infatuated teenager, but I can’t ignore that that’s exactly how this man makes me feel. I can’t pretend that I don’t like it.

“I don’t know. We just haven’t had a whole lot of time together lately, that’s all.”

I don’t want him to come any closer, and yet, I want him to come as close as he can. I want him to kiss me, something he hasn’t done since we had sex a few nights ago, he’s barely come near me since, and that’s both hurt and been a relief, all at the same time. I don’t think either of us really knows what to do next, I just know that I’m falling deeper in love with him. And it’s a different kind of love. What I felt for Javier, it didn’t feel like this. It wasn’t the same, Lucca isn’t the same even though, for so long, I thought he was. But that’s not true. He’s a very different man to Javier, and I love him.

God help you…

“We could make time, to be together?”

I phrase that as a question, because although I’m almost certain of my feelings for him, I’m still not entirely sure if what happened between us in the kitchen that night was borne out of love or lust. And that may just be my paranoia playing up, but I need to know. And then he breaks the stare, drops his head, and I feel my stomach jolt in the worst possible way.

“I’m sorry, Liv.”

“For what?”

He sighs quietly, and I can almost feel the regret seeping out of him, and it’s heartbreaking.

“I can’t do it.”

“Can’t do what?” I whisper, even though I already know what he’s going to say.

He looks up at me, and when his ice-blue eyes meet mine my stomach dips to the floor, and I’m suddenly blinking back tears. Angry, frustrated, confused tears.

“You’re beautiful and strong and everything I fucking want, Olivia, but I can’t have you.”

I stare at him, because no words are forthcoming, and as I look at him I know that everything I’m feeling for this man, it’s painfully real. And that’s devastating, it’s fucking cruel.

“It wasn’t a mistake, Lucca. You told me – you said it was something that was always going to happen, you said…”

“I was wrong. I got carried away, let my guard down, I was weak, Liv. And we can’t afford to be weak.”

“Javier’s gone, he isn’t coming back, and you aren’t betraying him.I’mnot betraying him, there is nothing wrong…”

“There is. There is so much wrong with this.”

I quickly wipe a stray tear away, angry that I let it fall in the first place, I really didn’t want him to see me like this. This isn’t who I am.

It’s what you’ve always been.

Everything else is an act. A show. A warped reality…

“Don’t,” I whisper, shaking my head as he comes closer; reaches out to wipe another tear away and I grasp his wrist and pull his hand from my face. “Don’t.”

“Believe me, Liv, if the circumstances were different…”

It’s my turn to shake my head, turning it away, and I laugh a hollow, humorless laugh. “If the circumstances were different…” I repeat, deadpan. And then I forget the tears, I push the anger and the confusion aside, and I stare at him. I look right into his eyes. “What would you do, Lucca? Hmm? If the circumstances were different?”

He takes another step toward me, and he’s all up in my face now, his eyes burning into mine. “I would love you so fucking hard it would make your head spin.”

“But you’re too scared to do that, right? Too scared to be happy, to let yourself feel anything other than this pointless loyalty to a dead man.”

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