Page 54 of On Her Terms

“What is this?” I ask, anger welling up inside me.

Luca stands and his eyes meet mine. “Can we talk?”

“No,” I shoot back. “I’m leaving.”

“Brianna, please. Wait.”

“I don’t want to hear any more of your lies,” I say, and chairs shuffle as Granddad, Tate and Summer all move into Granddad’s study to give us privacy. I turn around, head back to the door, but Luca is right there, so close I can feel his breath on my neck.

He touches my shoulder, and I spin to face him. My heart wobbles when I see the pain in his eyes. Is he hurting as much as I am? Don’t go soft now, Bri. He’s messed with you twice. Don’t let him do it again.

“Where’s your fiancée? She must be missing her duke,” I say, and that’s when I realize he’s wearing his blue Oxford hoodie, which is now two sizes too small. But it does remind me of the sting of his rejection. “Why?” I ask and then touch the cotton, stare at it through watery eyes. “Why are you wearing this?”

“I made a mistake,” he says softly.

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“You made a lot of them,” I shoot back, my stupid voice hitching.

“You remember I once said assumption is the mother of all screwups?”

“I don’t want to do this, Luca. I can’t.” I swallow against the tightness in my throat, the love squeezing my heart. “I just want to go home.”

“Can I walk you?”

A laugh bubbles up in my throat. “Is that why you’re in this hoodie, so you can walk me home and reenact the night I finally got up the nerve to talk to you?”

“Yes.”

I shake my head, hardly able to believe what I’m hearing. “You don’t think I’ve been humiliated enough? Who are you, anyway?”

“I made a mistake back then and I want to rectify it.”

“What—”

“Brianna, you know me. Whether you think you do or not, you know me. Do you think I’m the kind of guy who would go to bed with a girl who had as many drinks as you had that night?”

I blink once, twice, and I consider what he’s asking. From what I learned about him in St. Moritz, he’s not the kind of guy to take advantage of a woman. “No, I guess not.”

“You read the whole situation wrong. You made assumptions that weren’t true.”

Oh God, did I? Was I so insecure about myself that I assumed I was the butt of a joke and hadn’t stopped to think he was just trying to get me home safely. I take in his handsome face, the way he’s gazing at me through eyes that look like they haven’t had rest in weeks. Had he really been taking care of me? I mull that over for a second and shake my head. I really shouldn’t find it so hard to believe now, not after the way he took such care of me during our week in the Alps.

“That week was about more than sex,” he says, and reaches out to touch my cheek, brush his thumb lightly over my jaw.

“You said it was about me trying a relationship on for size.” I frown up at him. “Why? Why would you do that?”

“You’re jaded, for many reasons, but deep down I knew you wanted your own Prince Charming. I wanted you to find him, Brianna. Except it killed me to think about you with any other guy but me.”

“You have a fiancée,” I whisper, my heart breaking a little more.

“I sure as hell hope I do,” he says, and I stumble backward, his words cutting me a little deeper. Catching me by surprise, he gathers me in his arms. “Know this—back at Oxford I wanted to be with you. I wanted you more than I’d ever wanted any other woman. I still do. I left you in your dorm for two reasons—one, you were drinking, and two, I knew if I touched you, made love to you, it would screw me over. You were the one girl, the only girl, who could make me forget my obligations. After my father and brother died, the responsibility of running his million-dollar conglomerates was left to me. I take that very seriously. I want to ensure people stay employed, want to help my peerage, want to make sure my mother stays in her home and see to her well-being. But my father put a stipulation in his will, that I must marry his business partner’s daughter by the time I am thirty, or everything goes to my cousin Marco. I only met her once, Brianna. When we were young. I’ve never even touched her. She can’t want this any more than I do.”

Fighting back the tears pounding against my eyeballs, I nod and recall Marco’s latest antics. No way can he let a guy like that take over the company. He has responsibilities and he needs to live up to them. “Then what are you doing here?” I ask, shocked that I’m not all cried out by now, considering I woke up to a soaked pillow every morning for the last two weeks.

He peels off his hoodie. “I want you to be my girl.”

I shake my head and push it away. “That’s stupid.”

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