Page 68 of Alpha-Ex Wedding Ruse
His brows drew together. “Made things worse? What the hell are you talking about?”
I turned away, but he followed.
“Leila, what’s going on? Is that man threatening you? I will—”
“You’ll do what?” I spun back around, eyes burning. “Haven’t you done enough, Luca? What more do you want from me? Why can’t you just leave me the fuck alone?”
My voice cracked on that last word, and I hated it, hated how broken it sounded.
“Just stop, Luca. Just leave me alone. You’re making everything worse in my life.”
This time, when I turned and walked away, he didn’t follow.
Chapter Fifteen
Luca’s POV
I stood barefooton the veranda of my penthouse, the wind off the East River grazing my skin as I stared out at the silver glint of Roosevelt Island in the distance. Sunday mornings followed a ritual: workout, breakfast, then this—silence. Solitude. The kind only this place could give.
It was why I moved out of the city five years ago. I needed quiet. Not just around me, but inside me. When the property went up for a ridiculous price, I hadn’t bothered negotiating. I wanted it. I needed it. Not for the luxury or the view, but for the distance. From her.
She was everywhere, even when she wasn’t. In the hallways of Vaughn Industries, in the cracks of my sanity. I’d walk into boardrooms and smell her perfume like a ghost. Turn a corner and catch a memory so sharp it winded me. I couldn’t come home to that, too—not to her scent in my sheets, or the ache of remembering her in my arms.
So I moved here.
This place gave me what I wanted. Peace. A buffer between me and the world. Between me and her. Focus. Until recently.
I took a slow sip of rum, feeling the burn in my throat. Since leaving the park, I hadn’t been able to steer my thoughts away from her. The same loop kept playing in my head.
I recalled the moment in the park when I’d slid my hands around her waist. The way her body reacted to my touch like it never forgot—like it still remembered who it belonged to. I wanted more. I wanted to drag her out of that crowd, slam the door on the world, and press her against the nearest wall just to hear the way she used to moan my name.
I knew that kind of love. Or at least I thought I did.
Then there was Blaze, the bastard who’d dared to put his hands on her.
But what the hell did she mean by, “I made it worse?”
Lord knows what that man might’ve done if I hadn’t shown up when I did. I’d expected at least a sliver of gratitude. Something. Anything other than the verbal hell she unleashed on me.
She’d been terrified of him. I saw it clear as day in her eyes.
At first, I thought he was someone to her. An ex, maybe. Some sorry excuse of a lover. But that didn’t sit right. Leila had standards. And Blaze? With tattoos covering every inch of his skin like a walking billboard? That wasn’t her type of guy.
At least, not the Leila I knew.
But then again, people change. And Leila had changed so much in the last five years.
Maybe he was someone from her past. Someone she still felt the need to protect.
Her former lover? Ollie’s father?
The thought hit like a punch to the gut—hot and irrational and fucking infuriating.
Was that why she’d looked at me like I was the villain for stepping in? Like I was the threat?
My jaw tightened. My fists curled.
I needed to know—who the hell was he to her?
