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“And what, Amber?” Luc’s voice cut through the room like a knife, his frustration boiling to the surface. “And make me fall in love with him all over again just so you can take him away from me and disappear halfway across the world? So I can only see him three or four times a year?”
The bitterness in his voice was palpable. Amber felt it like a physical blow, and tears pricked the corners of her eyes. She hadn’t
anticipated just how deep Luc’s pain went. “That’s not what I intended,” she said quietly, her voice trembling. “You could’ve come to see
him anytime. I’ve never kept him from you, Luc. But you keep blaming me for everything. Please, don’t put this on me too. You only
visited him three times last year. Three times! And I know for a fact that you were in the States more than a dozen times during that
period. Even on his birthday…” Her voice broke, but she forced herself to continue. “He waited for you, Luc. For hours. He wouldn’t cut his
cake because he thought you’d show up. But you didn’t.”
Her voice was thick with emotion now, the tears spilling over despite her best efforts to hold them back. “Sometimes it feels like you’re
punishing him for being my son,” she whispered. “I know you hate me, but I never thought you’d hold that against him.”
Luc slammed the decanter onto the table with a force that made Amber jump. He turned to face her, and the look in his eyes sent a chill
down her spine. His jaw was tight, his knuckles white as he gripped the edge of the bar.
“Enough,” he growled, his voice low and dangerous. In a few quick strides, he closed the distance between them, gripping her arms tightly, pulling her close until their faces were inches apart. His eyes burned with a fierce intensity that made Amber’s breath catch in her throat. “Never suggest I don’t love my son again,” he spat, his voice trembling with anger and something deeper–something raw and painful. “I
love Nico more than anything in this world.”
Amber’s breath hitched as Luc’s grip tightened, his fingers digging into her skin. “Do you want to know why I didn’t visit him more often?” he asked, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Why I didn’t knock on your door every weekend? Because it hurts too damn much, Amber. Every time I see him, it tears me apart to leave him behind. I can barely function for days afterward. Do you know what that’s like? To watch your child’s face crumble as you walk away? And you expect me to do that every weekend?”
His words hung in the air between them, heavy and suffocating. Amber’s self–righteous tears turned to a painful lump in her throat as the weight of Luc’s confession hit her. She had never considered how much it hurt him to leave Nico behind, how much he had suffered in his own way. And now, with the reality of her own situation pressing down on her, she realized with bitter irony that she finally understood Luc’s pain. Because soon, she would be the one to leave Nico behind. And it would break her.
Luc had no idea what she was going through–what she would soon face. But the thought of it weighed on her like a stone, crushing her
from the inside out.
In that moment, Amber saw Luc differently. Not as the man she had once loved, not as the father of her child, but as a man drowning in
the same pain she was trying so hard to hide.
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.
