Chapter 6
The next morning, Luca was waiting beside the car when Sophia came downstairs for her appointment. He did not open her door immediately. He simply looked at her and asked, “Do you still want me to come?”
Sophia paused. Two weeks ago, Luca would never have asked. He would have assumed. The difference was small enough that another woman might not have noticed it. Sophia noticed everything now.
“Yes,” she said. “You’re her father.”
Luca nodded and opened the passenger door.
At the clinic, he sat beside her while the technician moved the ultrasound wand across Sophia’s belly. Their daughter appeared on the screen. A tiny profile. A hand near her face. Then a heartbeat filled the room. Strong. Fast. Alive.
Beside her, Luca became completely still. The feared Luca Dantis, who had negotiated with men twice his age and stared down guns without blinking, reached carefully for Sophia’s hand. Then he stopped halfway.
“Can I?” he asked.
The question nearly broke her. Sophia looked at his hand, then placed hers in it — only for the ultrasound, she told herself twice. Their daughter’s heartbeat continued filling the room. Luca’s thumb moved once across Sophia’s knuckles.
When the technician left to print photographs, he whispered, “Thank you.”
She turned toward him. “For what?”
“For letting me be here.”
Something in his voice made her chest ache. She pulled her hand away gently. “This is not punishment, Luca. I would never use our daughter to punish you.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because you keep looking at me like if you say the right thing, maybe I’ll come back to our bedroom tonight.”
“I don’t think that.”
“You hope it.”
Luca did not deny it. Of course, he did not.
They drove home without speaking, but instead of turning toward the estate, Luca told the driver to stop beside a quiet park overlooking the Hudson.
“What are we doing?”
“Talking.”
She sat on a bench beneath an old maple tree. For several moments, Luca stared at the river. Then he spoke.
“Your father saved my life five years ago.”
“I know that part.”
“You don’t know all of it.”
She waited. Luca’s jaw tightened.
“The bombing wasn’t random. Your father’s company had been subcontracting transportation for a group he believed was legitimate. He discovered they were moving weapons through his trucks. When Antonio discovered it, he came to me. He had copies of manifests, names, routes. Enough information to prove someone inside my organization was feeding information to an outside crew.”
Sophia stared at him. “My father?”
“He didn’t know until he did. When he realized what was happening, he warned me the route had been compromised. That’s why I survived.”
She looked toward the river. She remembered her father complaining about paperwork, falling asleep in his recliner, burning pancakes every Sunday. How many pieces of his life had she never known?
“The people behind it realized someone had warned me,” Luca continued. “They suspected your father. And Antonio was already sick by then. He knew he didn’t have much time.”
Sophia turned sharply. “Sick?”
“He had been diagnosed before the bombing.”
She stared at him. “My father told me his heart problems weren’t serious.”
“He lied.”
Pain rose in her throat. Apparently, deception had surrounded her long before Luca.
“Why?”
“Because he knew you would stop your life to take care of him.”
“That should have been my choice.”
“I know.”
The answer came instantly. No defense. No explanation. Just acknowledgment. It somehow hurt more.
Luca leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. “Before Antonio died, he asked me to make sure no one used you to find whatever evidence he had kept.”
“So you put guards on me.”
“Yes.”
“And followed me.”
“Yes.”
“Then arranged our first meeting.”
Luca hesitated. “Yes.”
Sophia laughed once, bitterly. “So romantic.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“No, Luca. I don’t think you do.”
She forced herself to ask the question that had been poisoning every memory. “When you walked into that bookstore — what was I to you?”
“A responsibility.”
The honesty struck harder than a lie would have. Sophia looked away quickly.
“At first,” he said.
She closed her eyes. “At first.” Men always seemed to believe those two words could repair whatever came before them.
“You watched me for weeks,” she said.
“Months.”
“Months.” She looked back at him. “When did it change?”
“When did I stop being a responsibility?”
“Yes.”
He looked at her for a long time. “The day you threw coffee on me.”
“I did not throw it. You were standing too close.”
“You told me my suit needed personality.”
Sophia remembered laughing until she cried. Luca had stared at her as if nobody had ever laughed at him before.
“I went home that night and told Carlo to replace me on your security detail.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to see you again. And I knew wanting that meant I was no longer protecting you only because I had promised your father.”
She stared at him. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because by the time I realized I loved you, I was already terrified that the truth would make you leave.”
“So you chose for me.”
“Yes.”
That single word landed between them. Luca did not soften it. He did not excuse it.
“And I was wrong.”
Sophia looked at the man she loved for the first time since hearing the truth. She believed he understood at least one part of what he had broken.
But before she could answer, Luca’s phone vibrated. He read the message. All warmth vanished from his face.
May you like
“What is it?”
“The man who ordered that bombing five years ago. We thought he was dead.” He looked directly at her. “We were wrong.”
