He Favored The One That Got Away I Left

Chapter 3

"Erin, take the card back."

Luca stopped two steps away. He held the access card with his thumb pressed over my name.

"You had a server bring this to me in front of everyone. How am I supposed to explain it?"

I looked at him without answering. I'd once hoped he would follow me out and at least ask whether my injuries were bothering me again. But the first thing that mattered to him was still what the people inside would think.

"Tell them the truth."

"That you're cutting me off over a temporary arrangement?"

He loosened his collar, weariness creeping into his voice.

"Sophia's already upset. She just asked me if this meant she wouldn't even be welcome at home anymore."

My fingers slowly tightened around the railing.

"She's upset, so you came to find me?"

Luca paused.

"I'm worried about you too."

The words came a few seconds too late. I couldn't let them in anymore.

A doorman opened a car door. The headlights illuminated the steps and the faint scar along the outside of my calf. Luca's gaze fell on it. At last, his expression changed.

That scar was 2 years old.

Sophia had called late at night to say someone was waiting outside the club where she worked. Luca had taken me with him, only to find a dispute involving drunk customers.

After the guards separated them, one drunk knocked over the glass display stand near the entrance. I was right beside it. As the glass sliced my calf, Sophia screamed from the other side. She wasn't hurt. The crash had frightened her.

But Luca immediately wrapped his coat around her and told the driver to go to the hospital. I hurried after them for two steps, only to watch the car door close in front of me. Blood ran down my heel.

In the end, a cleaner from the club brought a towel and stayed with me until the ambulance arrived.

By the time Luca came, I'd already had stitches. He stood beside the bed with red eyes and said he'd thought another car would bring me. I asked why he hadn't looked before getting into his.

He had no answer.

Afterward, every driver was ordered to confirm where I was before leaving. Yet when the estate caught fire, he still carried Sophia out first. No driver could remember for him that I was upstairs.

"Does your leg still hurt?" he finally asked.

I glanced down at it.

"It stopped hurting a long time ago."

I meant my leg. But Luca visibly relaxed, as though I'd also said that everything in the past was settled. He took out a handkerchief and tried to wipe the tears from my face.

I turned away. His hand stopped.

"You know I've never wanted to marry her."

"Then why does everyone think you will?"

He looked at me with weary resignation.

"Because they don't understand us."

But it wasn't as though they'd never seen me. They'd watched me arrange the seating for his family dinners, stay beside him all night when he was injured, and defend his background against his relatives' criticism the year he became head of the family.

They simply couldn't believe a woman treated this way would still become his wife.

I took the folded speech from my purse. I'd meant to read it to him tonight. One patch of ink had run when I'd knocked over a glass of water while revising it. He'd dried the pages by the fireplace and smiled, saying he wanted to hear it even if only half survived.

That had been just 5 days ago.

I held it out.

"Throw this away for me."

Instead of taking it, Luca caught one corner of the paper.

"Don't punish me like this. Once these 3 days are over, I'll put everything back the way it was."

I looked at his hand. He could order cargo ships in the harbor to change course. He could make an entire club bow their heads with a word. He was used to believing that as long as his next decision was right, the damage from the last one would disappear.

"Some things can't be put back."

He seemed about to say something when his phone rang again. Sophia's name was on the screen. He looked at it, didn't answer, and turned back to me.

Once, that tiny hesitation would have given me enough to find a dozen excuses for him. Now I was only tired.

"Luca."

I drew the paper back and folded it.

"We're not having the wedding next week."