Page 135 of Alpha-Ex Wedding Ruse
“You don’t have to do anything, Luca,” I said softly. “Just listen to her. Just hear what she has to say. Just once. And if she disappoints you again, then you’ll know for sure. You’ll have your answer.”
He closed his eyes, leaning into my touch like he was drowning and I was the only thing keeping him afloat. “Why? Why do you care what happens between me and her?”
I thought about my own father—about the years of anger and resentment, about all the things left unsaid. About how I’d give anything for one more chance to make peace with him.
“Because I know what it’s like to lose a parent and never get the chance to make peace with them. I don’t want you to carry that regret for the rest of your life.” My lips pressed together, my heart growing heavy. “You still have a chance, Luca. Maybe not to rebuild what you had, but to get closure. To understand what has been a conundrum all your life.”
“I don’t want to face her alone,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Will you come with me?”
I smiled, a small warmth breaking through the heaviness. “Of course, I will.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Luca’s POV
“Are you nervous?”
Leila’s hand rested on my knee—the same knee I hadn’t realized was bouncing my foot against the floor like a drumbeat.
I turned to her, catching the worry etched into her wide green eyes.
“It’s okay to be nervous, Luca,” she said softly. “I’d be nervous too if I was meeting my father again.”
I gave a short, noncommittal laugh and shook my head. Nervous? For my own mother? Correction—that woman. She stopped being my mother the day she walked out of my life.
A glance at my wristwatch told me we’d been sitting here far too long. “I’m not nervous, Leila. What I am…is irritated. The least she could do is keep to time. We’ve been waiting for ten minutes now.”
My mother had contacted me yesterday, begging we see her. And she must have been surprised at how easily I agreed, considering our last encounter. As if on cue, the restaurant door swung open and she walked in.
Her hair was slightly windblown, strands escaping in different directions as if she’d fought the breeze all the way here. Sweat clung to her forehead, her expression just shy of frazzled.
“I’m so sorry,” she said when she stopped at our table. “I had trouble commuting around Manhattan. The city’s even crazier than I remembered.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Leila replied, already pulling a napkin from her bag and offering it over. My mother took it with a grateful nod, dabbing her forehead and neck before sitting across from us.
Her gaze landed on me, and it lingered, like she was seeing me for the very first time. Her eyes traced my face, full of a pride I didn’t want, but not long enough to make my skin crawl. And beneath that pride was something else. Something harder to ignore.
Love.
It didn’t make sense. How could you love your son and still leave him—ten years old—alone with his father, knowing exactly what kind of man he was?
“My handsome boy.” My mother’s voice was soft, trembling, and I caught the slight beading of tears on her lower eyelids before she quickly wiped them away. “I never much cared for the news, but I started watching just to catch a glimpse of you. Imagine my pride and joy when I saw you thriving. And it pained me every day that I couldn’t be there to watch you grow up…to thrive in person.”
“Well, that was your own doing, wasn’t it?” I didn’t mean for it to sound cold, but the words came out before I could stop them. Her expression faltered, sadness sweeping through her features.
Beside me, Leila tapped my thigh gently, as if telling me to be nice.
I was nice. This was me being nice. If the woman across from me were anyone else—if I hadn’t loved and adored her for the first years of my life—she’d have seen the other side of me by now.
Her gaze shifted to Leila, then back to me. “Is she the one? The reason you called off your wedding?”
I didn’t answer, and she went on.
“I always thought the Moreau girl wasn’t good enough for you. Andwhen I saw the wedding photoshoot, I knew instantly it couldn’t have been love. You didn’t look in love with her, Luca. You didn’t look the way you just did when you glanced at her—” she gestured to Leila “—a moment ago. You looked…caged. Just like I was.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, hating how precisely she read me. “I didn’t agree to this meeting so you could play therapist. You said you had something to tell me. I suggest you get on with it—I don’t have all day.”
“I know you hate me, Luca,” her voice cracked, “and you have every right to. But I didn’t want to leave—I swear to you. I would never just abandon you and your brother. I did it because I didn’t have a choice.”
