Page 62 of Sparring Partners
“What happened in the past, to either of us, it can’t be changed. But life moves on. Alex and Ryan will soon be married. You and I are together, but if we’re to remain so…” He paused, taking a breath and a moment to say the words which had to be said, because without them there was no place for the two of them to go. “If we’re going to be together, then you have to trust me.”
He blinked hard to clear his suddenly watery vision. He’d shed tears over Bruno, too many, and had vowed never to shed tears over a man again.
“Luca?”
Adrian’s voice, so quiet and unsure, wrenched at his heart.
“I don’t want to see ghosts and shadows where there are none, I don’t want to let my demons whisper and snap at me, just as I don’t want the past to cast a shadow over the present. And the future.”
Adrian took his hands in his; warm, strong, the skin hard and calloused. So damn familiar and loved, despite it all.
“Because I do want us to have a future. You’ve made me believe I can have what I’d come to believe would always be denied me, but more than that you’ve made me believe I deserve one. Do you still want that with me?”
Did he? Was Adrian the man he wanted, a man who was as different to him as light was to dark, as day was to night? Often bad-tempered, irritable, difficult, a man for whom the world was black and white with no room for any shades of grey, where people and situations could only ever be one thing or another? But the man who gazed at him through eyes that seemed to see into his soul, whose work roughened hands touched him like no other man ever had, was so much more than those absolutes. A man who was thoughtful, softer, and more feeling beneath his hard, outer shell. A man who from the start had made both his body and his heart sing, a man who made him feel more alive than he’d ever felt before.
Was this the man he wanted?
Yes. He knew it with every piece of himself. But it wasn’t that simple. He licked his dry lips, preparing himself to say the words which could not stay unsaid.
“You have to remember and you have to know it in here,” Luca pressed a palm against Adrian’s heart, feeling the heavy beat pulse through him, “that I’m not a liar or a cheat. I’m many things, but I have never been those and never will be.” He sat back on the sofa. “Do you believe me? Because if you have any doubts, then you need to leave now and not look back because I can’t and won’t be with a man who has no trust in me.” His heart raced, his pulse thumped in his neck. He’d stated his conditions, and they were Adrian’s to accept or reject.
Adrian got to his feet and held out his hand. “The only way I’m leaving here is with you.”
Luca’s tightly held breath shuddered out of him. Joining his hand with Adrian’s, he let himself be pulled to standing.
They had stepped away from the precipice, and he prayed they would never again fall towards it.
CHAPTERTHIRTY
“I told you we could go over everything on video call. There was no need to come out in this weather.” Luca took Alex’s soaked raincoat from him and hung it on the hook on the back of the door, just as a rumble of thunder rolled in from the sea. The last vestiges of summer had given way to autumn, which had crashed in with a vengeance.
“Rather speak face to face.” Alex sat down on the sofa and helped himself to the coffee Luca had ready.
Luca glanced at Alex as he placed his laptop on the small table for their meeting. Their impromptu meeting, and one that wasn’t even remotely necessary. Opening up the spreadsheets and documents which told the hotel’s very happy and profitable story, Luca threw his friend another quick glance. Alex was uncomfortable beneath his exterior calm coolness. Small signs, which would be invisible to most, were to Luca as clear and bold as black paint sprayed on a white wall.
It took no time to go through it all, and they were done before they’d finished their second cup of coffee. Luca closed everything down, sat back and waited for Alex to make the first move. He didn’t have to wait long.
“I wanted to check in with you. See that everything’s okay. I’d have done it sooner, but I had to go to Edinburgh. That bloody development has been a pain in the backside,” Alex grumbled. “It’s been taking every waking hour?—”
“Alex. Just cut the BS and tell me why you feel the need to ‘check in’ with me?” Luca smiled. No doubt it looked as forced and strained as it felt; Alex could read him as much as he could read Alex.
“Okay. Coming here was a ruse. Should have realised you’d see through it.” He angled his body towards Luca. “Adrian. He’s the reason I’m here. Being blunt about it, I want to know if you’re all right.”
Blunt. Hadn’t he had enough of the men in his life beingbluntwith him?
“I’m fine. And really, there was no need for you to come and check on me. He was mortified, and he’s sorry about his reaction to?—”
“His reaction to what, exactly? All we were talking about was a long weekend away. Him jumping down your throat the way he did wasn’t quite what I was expecting from the suggestion of sun, sea, and sangria.”
Luca sighed. He knew Alex well enough to know he wouldn’t let this go.
“You told him about us. Our history.”
“So? History’s the right word. What we were then isn’t what we are now. And he knows that.” Alex’s eyes narrowed. “Doesn’t he?”
Luca slumped back into the sofa’s soft cushions, and groaned. “Well, he does now. And it came of something of a surprise.”
“For fuck’s sake, Lu. You hadn’t told him? Why not?” Alex stared at him as though Luca had lost his mind.
