Page 98 of Beautiful Dangerous

Who the fuck is Cillian? And as I glance quickly at Lucca it’s obvious he’s thinking the same thing. And that’s enough to make me wary, extremely wary, if he’s keeping shit from Lucca then something isn’t right. And yet, still I’m choosing to ignore the cold shiver that’s creeping up my spine.

“Come on,” Lucca murmurs as Javier is joined at the table by this mystery man, and I can’t help feeling like any control I thought I still had here, it’s dissipating by the second.

Lucca

“This doesn’t feel right, Lucca. I don’t trust him.”

Her eyes are flitting this way and that, almost as if she’s expecting Javier to appear from behind one of the palm trees out here on the terrace.

“Why would he happily send you away like that? With no hesitation?” Her gaze finally rests on me, and I hate that she looks so sad. “I didn’t even think about it before, because I was so desperate to get away from him. To be with you…” She drops her head and shakes it, her arms wrapped around herself. “No. I did think about it. I did wonder, I just…” She slowly raises her head, her eyes back on mine. “All I wanted was to be with you. I ignored everything else.”

I get it. I do. I understand that her trust in Javier is waning, but how much of that is down to nothing but paranoia?

“How much does he know, Lucca?”

I don’t know. He may know nothing, he may know everything, he isn’t always an easy man to read. Which means this could also be a trap. He could’ve sent us home together because he suspects there’s something going on, he could have eyes on us, people watching, and I hate that I’m feeling that paranoia creep up on me, too. Ever since his return things have slowly started to spiral downward in a way I don’t like, and I need to get a grip on that. And then leave this entire fucked-up world behind.

Even though it’s the only one you’ve ever known…?

Yes…

“We need to get out of here, Liv. Soon.”

She looks at me, and I know she’s scared to come near me because she’s thinking, like me, that this could be a set-up, so we’re playing it safe.

“Soon?” She questions, wrapping her arms tighter around herself, and I ache to hold her. Kiss her. Fuck all this shit away, and we will. We will, we’ll leave this crappy life behind and we’ll start again, somewhere. “Lucca, we don’t even know what’s going on here.”

“Doesn’t matter. The less we know the better, as far as I’m concerned. We just need to get out, I think it’s time.”

She sits down in Javier’s chair underneath the tree, it’s dark now but there are dozens of tiny twinkling lights strung up in the branches that illuminate this once-shrine-like space. I don’t think she sees it like that anymore.

“I’m supposed to be organizing a vow renewal…” She trails off, and she looks at me again, and it breaks my fucking heart. “There’ve been times when I wished, with all of my heart, that I could start to feel something for him again,” she whispers, dropping her gaze to her hands clasped together in her lap. “I wanted to love him, like I used to, I wanted the numbness to disappear and for everything to go back to the way it was, because it was safer. For all of us.”

But even as she’s saying the words I can tell, like me, that she knows there’s no such thing as safe in our world.

“But it wouldn’t go. The numbness. It hasn’t gone. And I still love him, Lucca.” Her eyes meet mine, and again it’s a look that shatters my already fragile heart. “I still love him, but it doesn’t even come close to how I felt about him before. Because I can’t get pastyou.”

I rest a hip against the sturdy wooden table behind me, crossing my arms, and I watch her as her focus shifts to the ocean and the palm trees swaying gently against the darkened sky. And then she bows her head, gets up; comes over to me. She cups my face in her hands and she kisses me, a deep, soulful kiss and I wrap an arm around her, pulling her against me. Given that this could well be a trap, it’s reckless, what we’re doing, but fuck it. Fuck all of it, we’re getting out of this shitty life.

“I love you,Lucca,” she whispers, her mouth resting against mine as she speaks. “I love you, so much.”

“I love you, too,mi reina.”

She smiles a wider, more hopeful smile, and I can’t help smiling back. She’s beautiful and broken and all I want to do is put her back together.

“I’ll fix this, Liv…”

She presses her fingers to my lips and shakes her head. “We’llfix this. Okay? Both of us. Together.”

“I just want to get away. For so long this has been my world, for as long as I can remember it’s all I’ve known. But now – now I want to know something else.”

She smiles again, her fingertips gently stroking my cheek. “This is a whole new Lucca I’m seeing here. It’s not like you to just cut and run.”

I sigh, because we both know we can’t do that. We can’t just pack a bag and get out of here before Javier gets back, although, I can’t say the thought didn’t cross my mind. Up until a few minutes ago I was seriously considering that option. But he’d find us. It isn’t safe, and I want us to be safe. I want a life with this woman, so we need to be careful. We need to be so fucking careful.

“You were actually considering that, weren’t you?” she laughs, stepping out of my arms and backing up against the tree.

“For a moment.”

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