“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me,” I tell him, sitting down and placing my purse next to me. I pick up the menu, my hands shaking just slightly, trying to busy myself.
But when I glance at him, he’s staring at my hands. He meets my eyes, brows lowered, gaze hard.
I force a smile. “This looks like a nice place.”
Okay, that’s three things I’ve said in a row, and he hasn’t said anything yet. This is probably going to go worse than I thought.
“Hey,” I tell him, placing my menu back down, staring him right in his dark brown eyes.
Fuck. I can’t even believe I’m looking at him.
“You don’t want to do this,” I tell him. “I know. Marco talked you into it. You couldn’t object too much, could you? You couldn’t because he’d wonder why the fuck you hate me so much.”
Luciano frowns. “I don’t hate you,” he says quietly.
I blink at him. “You don’t? Then what is this?” I gesture rapidly between us.
He raises a brow, a look I knew so well. “You have to ask?”
I close my eyes, trying to gather up my nerves before they scatter. “Look, Luciano.”
I’d forgotten how much I loved saying his name.
I breathe in deep, staring down at the menu without seeing it. Wondering how to navigate this. “We don’t have to do this interview. I can leave. I can go back to Helsinki.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Another swipe.
God, I want to tell him.
I want to tell him what his stepfather did.
I want to tell him that I had to make an impossible choice, and that I chose wrong.
I want to tell him everything.
Just then the waiter comes by and takes our drink order. Luciano gets a beer, I get a glass of sangria.
“I deserve that,” I say quietly, after the waiter leaves.
“You didn’t even contact me,” he says, his voice sounding broken, the pieces sharp and cutting. “Seven years and you didn’t even…”
“I should have. I know I should have. I wanted to so much, you don’t understand. But I couldn’t.”
He gives me an exasperated look, shaking his head. “You couldn’t? Really? You couldn’t? That’s all you’ve got?”
“All I have is the truth.”
“The truth? I know your truth, Ruby. That you got scared. I came on too strong and you got scared and you ran away like you said you always did.”
“All wrong.”
“How the fuck is that wrong?”
“I wasn’t scared of you.”
He stares at me, his eyes searching mine, and I know if I’m not careful it’s all going to come out and it’s going to change everything.
“What were you scared of?” he asks. “Yourself?”
I don’t answer.
“You left in the middle of my fucking game, Ruby. I noticed. I looked up and you were gone. What had you so scared that you decided that you just couldn’t deal anymore with me? Was it because I was losing? Was that it?”
I put my elbows on the table, my face in my hands, let my hair fall over me. God, that’s what he thinks? He thinks I left him because he lost? Like he wasn’t good enough anymore?
“Why are you here, Ruby?” he asks. “Why now?”
“Believe it or not, I came to cover Real Madrid for my network. I would have gone to Istanbul to cover the final but…well, if I went, I’d never be allowed back in the EU.”
“Jesus Cristo,” he swears. “You’re still here illegally.”
I look up at him through my hair, giving him a deadly look. “Please don’t announce that.”
“Why the hell haven’t you gone home?”
“You know why.”
“You’ve been gone for nine years.” I hear the disbelief in his voice. He doesn’t understand. I thought he would have.
“I can’t ever go back,” I tell him. “I made my choice. I had my chance.”
“What about your parents? Your mom?”
“She’s dead.”
He stills, eyes soften. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “It’s okay. I…I, uh, I know I couldn’t have done anything. She overdosed again and…yeah, the prison system just doesn’t care. They want you out. You die, you make room.”
Luciano reaches out and puts his hand on top of mine, giving it a squeeze.
The feel of his warm skin against mine pulls me back in time. It brings me back to when touching him was second nature, when we used our bodies to communicate.
God, I miss him.
I miss so much.
“I’m really sorry. I know how hard that must have been.” He gives my hand another squeeze and then pulls it away.
I feel hollow already.
I nod. “It was. And it was my fault that I didn’t see her before she died.”
He doesn’t say anything to that. There isn’t anything to say. Because it’s true.
If I had been deported when Tomás threatened me with it, I could have seen my mother before she died. Perhaps I could have prevented it somehow. Seeing her was always so hard, especially when she didn’t look or act like my mother, but sometimes I think that maybe she kept doing drugs because she missed her daughter. Maybe that’s what killed her.
It kills me to think about it.
I take in a ragged breath. “What about you? Marco told me about your mother. That sounded so rough.”
He nods, scratching his beard. “It was.”
“But she beat it. And you and Marco seem so much closer now.”
The waiter comes by and gives us our drinks. Luciano has a sip of his beer before he says, “We are closer.” He pauses, licking his lips, meeting my eyes. “Why are you with him, Ruby?”
I open my mouth. Close it. Shrug. “Safer bet.”
“Than?”
“Than you.”
He stares at me for a moment.
I shouldn’t have said that.
There’s so much torment and frustration in his gaze, it gives off heat. “Do you know how this feels?” he finally asks, his voice breaking. “Do you? Do you ever think about anyone other than yourself, do you ever put yourself in their shoes? Are you even capable of that?”
That does it.
Tears rush to the back of my throat, my lungs growing tight.
I
