Page 135 of Luca
They were here. In our home. So close, yet they felt too far away. I hoped to see her again, but deep down I feared it’d never happen. And now, she was so close that I needed to see her.
“My daughter,” I murmured, tasting the word on my lips. “Penelope.” I met my brother’s gaze. “I never thought I’d see them again. I hoped but… fuck,” I breathed.
“She has your eyes,” Cassio said. “Looks like her mother but when she smiles, she’s all you. The mischievousness. She’ll be a little rebel.”
My heart expanded in my chest and my expression softened. My daughter was back with me.
“I have to get everything for a three-year-old. I don’t even know what she likes. Barbies maybe?”
Cassio smiled. “Ask her. She won’t have any qualms telling you.”
My brother stood up and left the room to go get my family while my chest thundered with excitement and another feeling.
An unsettling feeling.
ChapterFifty-Three
MARGARET
Dé-jà vu.
We came full circle. I watched Penelope move around plants as Nonno directed her with a soft smile on his face. He was enamored with his great-granddaughter who chatted to him like she’d known him forever.
Three years ago, Luca and my story, our second chance, started here. Our life began here. Not at Temptation nor in Vegas. Not the day he killed my father. But right here. This island was the first time I got a glimpse of the real him and saw the man who could make me happy.
Once I learned that Marchetti had known where we were all along, I realized I had made a miscalculation. A grave mistake.
Three years were lost and it was all for nothing.
I thought I was protecting our daughter. Instead, I led us into more danger. We were at Marchetti’s mercy the whole time, and I was oblivious to it.
Luca wasn't innocent in all this either. It didn’t make any of this better though.
Cassio came onto the terrace and sat down next to Nonno.
“Ciao, Zio Cassio,” Penelope greeted him with a grin, never missing a beat.
Nonno smiled. “Ah my little Penelope,vieni.” Penelope didn’t understand so he repeated it in English. “Come.”
Getting to her feet, she strutted to Nonno. “Vieni,” she repeated, testing the word on her lips.
“That’s right. You’ll learn Italian fast, piccola Penelope.”
Enthralled with everything Nonno, she paid me little attention. I looked up to find Cassio’s eyes on me.
“Luca’s awake.”
Without thinking, I got up to my feet and Penelope’s attention shifted to me. For a moment I debated whether Luca and I should have a conversation alone after all these years apart, but it seemed cruel to keep Penelope away from him for a second longer.
“Penelope, want to go talk to daddy?” I asked her. I wouldn’t force her. There have been a lot of changes over the last twenty-four hours. New country. New home. New faces.
But my little girl was already nodding her head excitedly.
He was in his old bedroom. The room that would have been ours if we’d have ever made it back to Sicily together. We entered the bedroom, hand in hand, finding Luca sitting back against the headboard.
He looked better. There was color to his skin, but his face was still bruised. He wore a shirt but there were bruises hiding underneath that also.
Luca’s eyes met mine and the world stopped turning. Everything came to a standstill, including my heartbeat. Everything faded, leaving me in his darkness.
