Sienna POV
The image of Adrian draping his jacket over my shoulders flashed through my head.
Damn it.
I’d forgotten to deal with that coat.
I stood in the living room with the glass in my hands, my eyes on the black card in Luca’s fingers.
The last scrap of luck I’d been clinging to was gone.
All I could do was steady him first.
“You told me the first time you met Adrian was in Los Angeles. Correct?”
Luca stood in the middle of the room, the card pinched between his fingers, his voice so flat it barely moved.
I set the glass on the table and tried to make the motion look natural.
“It was the first time.”
His eyes came to my face with none of the warmth I knew from him, and that excessive calm made me more nervous.
After a few seconds he started toward me, his shoes sounding on the old floorboards.
I watched him come, and my body tightened on its own.
“I’ll give you one more chance.” He stopped in front of me, still even.
“Tell me the truth.”
I met his eyes.
“What I told you is the truth.”
”Is it?”
Luca’s mouth pulled at one corner, and then he threw the dark green jacket and the card onto the floor at my feet.
“Then how do you explain this?”
My chest clenched, but I kept my face steady.
I bent, picked up the card, and stared at it two seconds before speaking, as if I’d only just recognized it.
“This is Adrian’s?”
Luca didn’t answer.
He only watched me.
So I went on.
“I found that jacket in the hallway. The fabric looked good, and I assumed one of the neighbors had dropped it, so I brought it back with me. I meant to wait for the owner to come looking, and then I never got around to dealing with it. I had no idea his card was in the pocket.”
”Do you take me for a fool?”
His tone was light, and it landed on me like a weight.
Luca took the card out of my hand, glanced down at it, and when he looked up again there was open contempt in his eyes.
“New York is a big city, Sienna. You pick a coat up off the street, and it happens to have Adrian Moretti’s private card in it?”
His chest was rising harder now.
“What is it — five years apart and your appetite’s grown? You’ve only just come back to me and you’ve already found your way to Adrian?”
”I haven’t.”
I tried to pull free, and he clamped down on my wrist hard enough to hurt.
“Luca, can you be reasonable for once?”
“You’re wearing his jacket, you have his private number in your hand, and you tell me there’s nothing between you. How exactly am I supposed to be reasonable?”
”I told you — I found it in the hallway.”
He looked at me coldly.
“Liar. It’s always like this with you. Is there a single true word in your mouth?”
Luca released my wrist but didn’t step back.
His gaze moved from my face to the jacket on the floor, and his voice dropped lower.
“You really think Adrian’s interest in you comes from admiring that cleverness of yours? You have no idea what kind of man he is.”
I didn’t answer.
“That man has never lacked for women. And as for how far he’ll go when he’s actually working — the little you’ve seen doesn’t even register. You hand yourself over to him, and by the time he decides to keep you, you may not have the luxury of standing here arguing with me.”
”I told you, there’s nothing between us.” My voice rose in spite of me.
“A jacket and a card. What does that prove?”
”It proves you have no fear and no sense.”
I opened my mouth, and every explanation I’d prepared stuck fast in my throat.
Luca looked at me for a moment, then withdrew his gaze and turned toward the door.
“Starting tomorrow, you don’t come to the office. I’ll have Theo handle your termination.”
The words came from the doorway, calm almost to the point of cruelty.
My heart sank hard.
I knew better than anyone what leaving Hawthorne meant.
I’d spent so much care getting back into his life.
If Luca threw me out now, everything I’d done would count for nothing.
I couldn’t let that door close.
“You’re afraid, aren’t you?”
Luca’s hand stopped on the handle.
I stared at his back.
I should have been looking for a way to stop him leaving; instead, what came into my head was something else.
I took a step forward.
“It isn’t Adrian you’re afraid of. It’s yourself.”
The air seemed to solidify.
I watched the tension in his shoulders, my heart beating faster and faster.
Whether that line had been a probe or an attempt to hold him there, I could no longer tell.
“You’re afraid of losing control.” I kept my eyes on his back and said it quietly.
“And more than that, you’re afraid you’ll fall for me again, the way you did five years ago.”
Luca stopped.
But he didn’t turn around, and he gave me no answer; he only stood there in silence. This story is hosted at g.com.
Those few seconds lasted longer than a century.
Then the door slammed shut.
The bang rang through the narrow stairwell.
He was gone.
I stayed where I was, staring at the closed door.
Only when a car engine started outside did I walk slowly to the window.
The car pulled out of the dim street, its taillights shrinking into the dark until they disappeared.
I kept standing there.
The mission had gone wrong, and Luca had cut off the one thing that let me stay inside Hawthorne — that was what I should have been thinking about.
All I needed was to stay calm, to calculate, to finish the job.
But this unfamiliar sting was getting under my skin.
There was no place for a feeling like this in the plan.
I pulled open the drawer of the nightstand and took out the pack of cigarettes inside.
I’d smoked occasionally over the years to get through certain occasions, but I’d never picked up the habit.
This time I didn’t think about it.
I took one out and lit it, drew deep, and the harsh smoke hit my throat and set me coughing.
I leaned against the edge of the bed and looked down at the glowing tip, and in my head was still Luca’s back, stopped in the doorway.
I didn’t want to admit why this hurt so much, and I didn’t have the time to work it out.
I opened my chat with Evelyn and let my fingertip rest on the screen for a moment.
Then I deleted the explanation I’d prepared, word by word, and left only the simplest result.
“Miss Moretti, the mission may have failed. It looks like your fiancé has pushed me away for good.”