Lucas gare fixed on Amber, studying her as though bracing himself for the storm. Her mouth was pressed into a tight line, teeth clenched in barely contained anger. She was holding back, every part of her taut and omering, a volcano on the brink. He knew it, and he knew h deserved it. For once, he wasn’t going to look away.
“Say it,” he murmured quietly, almost as it daring her. “Just say it.”
A flash of anger crossed her face, and she bit down harder, her fists clenched. “You conceited, arrogant bastard!” she finally burst out, her voice cutting through the heavy silence of the room like a blade. Her words were raw, each syllable saturated with the pain of years, a deep wound finally given words.
He didn’t reply.
“Oh! You still don’t know the half of it!” He looked away again, his face a painful pink in the dim night light.
Luca’s voice trembled as he spoke, the weight of years of regret pressing down on each word. “You didn’t react,” he murmured, looking into Amber’s eyes as if searching for something that had been lost long ago. “Not a message, not a call. Just… silence. And then, there was that cold letter from your lawyer, setting the divorce proceedings in motion. I tried to read between the lines, hoping for a sign that you didn’t want this either, that you might still care. But there was nothing.”
His laugh was hollow, a pained sound that escaped as if he’d held it in for years. “That silence–every day, it made my belief stronger that you wanted nothing more to do with me. It built up, reinforced my fears, twisted everything in my head. I… I didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how to make things right.” His gaze dropped to his hands, clenched tightly on his lap. “I thought about coming to you, begging for a second chance. So many times, I imagined it.”
He paused, swallowing hard, his gaze dropping. “But the thought of facing you–seeing those empty eyes looking back at me, finding nothing there for me anymore… it terrified me. The thought of looking at you, my redhead lover, and seeing not a trace of love left in those beautiful eyes… I think that would’ve broken me completely.”
He took a shaky breath, voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t think I could survive that.”
“So, I let the divorce go through.” Luca’s voice cracked, rough and raw as if the words themselves had to be forced from some locked–up part of him. “With that one decision, it felt like my whole life slipped away. My family. My son. My wife. All of it… gone.” He let out a breath, the sound empty and brittle, and Amber could see the shadows of that pain settling over him like it had never left.
He looked past her, eyes vacant as he spoke, almost as if he were back in that terrible time, reliving each decision he hadn’t known how to undo. “After that, everything felt… hollow. I tried to go on, but there was this darkness, this ache in me. It followed me everywhere.” He paused, and Amber noticed how his hands tightened into fists. “And then there was Carlotta. She was there, always steady, always gentle. She wasn’t angry with me, didn’t throw things or call me every name in the book.“He laughed, a sad, thin sound. “She didn’t make me feel like a complete bastard just by being around her.”
“unlike me?” Amber chuckled bitterly.
And Luca nodded. “unlike you.”
He shrugged, shoulders sagging as if under a great weight. “But she didn’t set my heart on fire either. With Carlotta, everything was calm, almost too calm. My heart was too beaten up to handle anything intense, and… maybe I thought that was all I deserved. Maybe I just didn’t want my heart to race anymore, didn’t want to feel anything at all.”
1/2
09:24 Wed Feb 11
Chapter 136
30%
I thought, why not? Why not just settle with hier! She cared about He paused, taking a shaky breath as his eyes returned to bees, haunted. ”
, and our families approved. It would’ve; maybe they’d all t made everyone happy” By then, the divores had been finalized, and I’d resigned sell to the fact that I’d lost you forever. Trying to recreate any piece of the life I had with you felt impossible, so I told myself Carlotta was
good enough
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Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
