Page 76 of Luca
“Where are you running to, little girl?” he purred, lifting me up into the air. My fingers clawed at his wrist. I gasped for air as he carried me, my feet dangling off the ground. My father’s body was right underneath me. I wanted to hug him. I wanted to save him. But he was gone.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
A cold blade pressed against my throat.
I kicked and clawed. It was then I caught a glimpse of my mother. Her face was smeared with blood, tears, and makeup. She was in a nightgown. It was the middle of the day. Why was she in a nightgown?
“Mamma,” I choked out, every syllable hurting my throat. She didn’t move.
My vision dimmed. My consciousness slipped. A loud roar broke through the haze in my brain. My body jerked.
Falling. Falling. Fallen.
My head hit the hard marble floor and the world went dark.
I woke up with a start, the silky sheets sticking to my sweaty skin. Terror spun its web through every inch of my body. Catching my breath, I stared at the ceiling of Luca’s penthouse. The dream always came back at random times. There was something in it I was missing, but I couldn’t pinpoint what.
The memory hurt. The revelation didn’t surprise me, but it still hurt. My mother didn’t protect me. She didn’t care about Da. She only cared about herself.
The penthouse was covered in darkness. Just like my dreams. The nightmare I didn’t like to remember.
Glancing at the clock, I noted it was only eleven at night. It was quiet. Way too quiet. Luca usually had the television on either in the living room or his bedroom.
For noise,he said.
A tiny flash of disappointment flared in my chest. Was he having a night out with another woman? No cheating was a condition of our agreement, but maybe he got tired of waiting for me. It was only now that I realized how much fidelity in our marriage meant to me.
Restless energy coursed through my veins. Decidedly trying to shut my mind down, I turned to my side and stared out of the large window, the city skyline flickering with lights. I had lived in New York my entire life, yet nothing had ever felt as good as Sicily.
Suddenly, I missed quiet nights there. I missed dark streets and the distant sound of the waves crashing against the shoreline. Even the language that I didn’t understand. It was more soothing than the constant buzzing of this metropolitan city.
After an hour of tossing and turning, I gave up on sleep. Luca was on my mind and there’d be no finding rest. Not until I got him out of my mind.
With an exasperated sigh, I threw off the blankets and slid out of bed. Grabbing the nightgown, I put it on and padded down the dark halls to the kitchen. The moonlight spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows and lit the gray and white cabinets. I opened the refrigerator and grabbed the milk container.
Luca insisted on getting organic and unpasteurized milk for me to drink. As I poured it into a glass, my lips curved into a soft smile thinking about his thoughtfulness. I never imagined I’d get here with the son of Benito King.
Once I downed it, I rinsed the glass out in the sink. As I bent over to put the glass into the dishwasher, I noticed the faint glow coming from Luca’s bedroom from the opposite hallway. When we arrived, he insisted our bedrooms be on the opposite sides of his penthouse, claiming he was often up late into the night and didn’t want to wake me.
I didn’t think anything of it. But now, hesitancy slithered through my veins. What if he had insisted on that so he could have another woman in his bed and then slip her out the door before I ever woke up?
A faint moan rang in the air.
My body went white-hot then froze as I realized what could be happening behind that door. Fury rippled through me like a tropical cyclone, ripping the faint threads that started forming between us.
I blinked hard, my throat tightening.
It was hard to understand this reaction. All my walls seemed to crumble around this man and that made him even more threatening to me.
Glutton for punishment, I padded down the hallway. My steps were silent, just like Da’s were all those years ago. Insecurity had my steps faltering right at his bedroom door. The dream was still fresh in my mind, weakening my resolve.
I braced myself on the doorframe, the dream kept sweeping me away to that day. The day I lost my father. I gripped the frame of the door, determined to push the memories away, and just as I leaned against it, the door drifted ajar. Just enough to see Luca’s shadow in the middle of his king size bed.
My breath caught. My husband was in the middle of his bed totally naked. And alone.
On the nightstand next to him, a glass with ice and brownish liquid sat. A whiskey if I had to guess. And next to it was a tube of lube, the cap open.
My heart fluttered. My thighs clenched with need. And my mind whispered of pleasure I could get if only I’d cave in.
