Artie touched his face with her fingers, her love for him taking up all the room in her chest so she could barely take a breath. ‘I never thought I’d meet someone like you. And not just because I was locked away in the castello. But because I didn’t think people as wonderful as you existed.’
Luca took her by the upper arms in a firm grip, his expression clouding. ‘Look, don’t go making me out to be a hero, Artie. I’m hardly that. You’re confusing good chemistry with…other feelings.’ Even the way he hesitated over the rest of his sentence showed how reluctant he was to the notion of love, but Artie pressed on regardless.
‘Luca…’ She took a deep breath and plunged in. ‘I don’t want our relationship to be temporary. I want more, and deep down I think you do too.’
His hands fell away from her arms and he sprang off the sofa to put some distance between them. ‘You’re wrong, Artie. That’s not what I want. I’ve never wanted that. We made an agreement—’
Artie jumped off the sofa as well and stood in front of him. ‘We made an agreement and then we changed it to what it is now—a physical relationship that works on every level but the one that means the most to me. I can’t make love with you and keep my feelings to one side. They are the reason I want to make love with you. The only reason. I love you.’
Luca drew in a harsh-sounding breath and released it in a stuttered stream. He placed his hands on his hips, his shoulders hunched forward. ‘You’re young and inexperienced, of course, you’re going to think the first person who makes love to you is the love of your life. But believe me, I am not that person.’ His expression was like a walled fortress. Closed. Locked.
Keep out or face the consequences.
‘You are that person.’ Artie choked over the words as emotion welled in her throat. ‘You’ve been that person from the moment we kissed at our wedding. Something happened that day—I knew it on a cellular level. And—’
‘Will you listen to yourself?’ His tone had a cutting edge that sliced at her self-esteem like a switchblade. ‘You’re spouting forth a fairy-tale fantasy. It’s not real, Artie. You’ve fashioned me into some sort of romantic hero who ticks all the boxes for you. You need more life experience. You need to date other men so you can gain more perspective. You’ll thank me in the end. Tying yourself to me indefinitely would be a mistake. A mistake you’ll regret for the rest of your life.’ He turned away from her, drawing in another ragged breath, his tone softening. ‘Let’s leave this for now. I don’t want to upset you.’
Artie swallowed a tight restriction in her throat, tears stinging at the backs of her eyes. ‘But you’ve already upset me by not accepting that I love you. You’ve dismissed it as if I don’t know my own mind. I know what I feel.’ She banged her fist against her chest for emphasis. ‘I can’t deny my feelings or ignore them as you seem to do. They’re here with me all the time.’
Luca turned back around and opened and closed his eyes in a slow, God-give-me-strength blink. ‘Look, you’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, cara. You have so much to offer and I want you to be happy. I really do. But I’m not the person to make you happy. It’s not in my skill set. I don’t want the same things as you.’
Artie pressed her lips together for a moment to stop them from trembling. ‘I think you do want the same things but you don’t feel you deserve them because of what happened to your father and brother. I understand that more than most people, because I’ve experienced the same guilt for the last ten years. It completely imprisoned me, kept me from having a life of my own. But meeting you changed that. You freed me from my prison of fear and showed me I could have more than I ever thought possible.’ She came up to him and placed her hand on his forearm. ‘I know you have deep feelings locked away inside you. I feel it every time you kiss me. I feel it every time you make love to me.’
Luca brushed off her arm as if it was soiling his sleeve, his gaze hard, his mouth tight, his firewall still up. ‘You’re mistaking good sex for something else. It’s an easy mistake to make, especially when you’re not very experienced. But in time, you’ll gain experience and realise this is just a crush, an infatuation that can’t last.’
‘I don’t have to be experienced to know how I feel,’ Artie said. ‘They’re my feelings. I feel them. I own them.’
‘And I know how I feel and it doesn’t include the sort of love you’re talking about.’ He ran a hand over his face and continued, ‘I care about you, of course. I enjoy being with you but that’s all it is—companionship and mutual desire that has an end point, as per our agreement.’
Artie’s heart gave a painful spasm, and for a moment she couldn’t locate her voice. He cared about her and enjoyed being with her but that was all it was? How could she have got it so wrong? She was sure he was developing feelings for her—sure enough to reveal her own. He thought her young and gauche, a girl in the throes of her first crush. How could she get through to him? How could she prove she loved him? Or was it pointless? Was she fooling herself that he would one day change? Didn’t so many deluded women fall for that fantasy? The vain hope that in time, enough love would change their difficult men to the man of their dreams?
But what if Luca never changed?
What if he was incapable of it?
‘Luca, I took
