Heartless Savage

by Terri Anne Browning

  “You’re right,” she said with her back still to me. “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “Vi,” I groaned, taking a step closer to her, but she started for the door.

  “If the offer still stands, I would like to leave in the morning.” She paused at the door but didn’t look at me. “That is, if Krush can come with us?”

  “Of course he can. I meant for him to come with us anyway.”

  She bowed her head. “I’ll let the pilot know to get the plane ready.”

  Chapter 49

  Violet

  Luca’s house was about five miles from the Nialls’s farm. It was a large, two-story house on ten acres of land with a huge wraparound porch. A separate four-car garage was a short distance from the house with an apartment over it where Jenner was able to stay.

  Since I was on vacation but not really planning on going anywhere other than the property, I wanted him to relax as much as possible too, and giving him his own space seemed like the best idea when he refused to stay behind in California after I told him I was going to Tennessee for an indefinite period.

  Luca must have had a cleaning service come in frequently because the house was spotless when we arrived. There wasn’t anything out of place and not a single speck of dust in the entire house. Some of the bedrooms were empty, though, except for the master and one guest room. But the rest of the room was furnished stylishly.

  “Arella had a little time off last month and decided she needed to do me a favor by decorating this place for me.” He glanced around the living room with a shrug. We were sitting on the couch after dinner with the television on, but it was mostly background noise because we’d been talking more than watching what was on the screen. “I told her if she ever gives up acting, she can start her own interior design business.”

  “She did a great job,” I agreed. “But it suits you. She put a lot of your personality into the place.”

  “She was a pain in the ass the whole time she was here,” he grumbled. “I guess something happened while she was filming, and she was more or less hiding out. Every time I asked her what was really going on with her, she would either cry or snap at me to mind my own business.”

  “I haven’t talked to her in a while, so I wouldn’t know.” I felt bad that I hadn’t kept up with what was going on in my cousins’ lives, but I’d had a lot on my mind the past several months to keep me distracted.

  “Have you seen the latest pictures of Isaac and Ian?” he asked. I shook my head, and he grabbed his phone before scooting closer. Grinning, he swiped his thumb over the screen and then turned it to show me the Insta picture.

  Mila was sitting on the floor with her dark hair pulled up into a sleek ponytail. She had zero makeup on, but she still looked beautiful as she held one of her sons in each arm. They were huge and getting bigger by the day, and she had the brightest smile on her face as she looked at the camera.

  “Look at those chunkers,” Luca said with a laugh. “They aren’t identical, but they might as well be, don’t you think?”

  “I can’t really tell them apart,” I said with a smile as I traced my finger over one of the baby’s cheeks. “They look a lot like you and Lyric. And their eyes are already dark.”

  “Ric is already talking about more babies.” Luca shook his head. “Mila heard him telling me the other day, and she told him if he wanted more kids right away, he was the one who needed to be pregnant this time.”

  A picture of Lyric with a stomach as big as Mila’s had been at Christmas filled my head, and I couldn’t hold back the giggle that erupted from me.

  Luca’s eyes lit up. “That’s the prettiest sound I’ve ever heard,” he murmured, touching my cheek.

  His touch felt so good, I leaned into it. My lashes started to lower, savoring the contact.

  Only to remember it had felt just as good when Remington would touch me so randomly like that. Guilt hit me like a ton of bricks, and I jerked back before getting to my feet. “I think I’m going to go to bed early,” I told him. “Thanks for dinner. S-see you in the morning.”

  “Vi,” he called after me. “Wait. Let’s talk—”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” I snapped and turned away before he could see my tears. “I…I can’t do this, Luca.”

  “Do what?” he demanded. “Live?”

  “Cheat on my husband,” I whispered. Because that was what it felt like. Every time I started to let down my guard and enjoy just being beside Luca, it felt like I was cheating. Like I was being disrespectful to Remington’s memory. I shouldn’t want Luca to comfort me. I shouldn’t crave his smile or the way his eyes lit up when he looked at me, when the man who had healed my heart the last time Luca broke it hadn’t been gone more than a month.

  “Baby, it’s okay to let me comfort you,” Luca said from right behind me. “I won’t kiss you or do anything you’re not ready for. I just want to touch you, laugh with you. Fucking live life with you beside me.”

  I turned around and glared up at him. “Why do you and I get to live when he didn’t?” I yelled.

  “Stop asking why!” he shouted back. “I don’t know the answer, okay? I don’t know anything except that he entrusted you to me. No one else but me. Because he knew I would love you and that baby just as much if not more than he would have.”

  “No,” I denied, angrily scrubbing away the tears that dared to fall. “He might have wanted you to take care of me until I snapped out of it after his death, but there is no way he would want me to actually be with you, Luca.”

  Jaw clenched, he breathed in deeply and let it out like it weighed him down. “I don’t want to argue with you, Vi. I hate it when you’re mad at me. We’re both tired. Go to bed, and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Thankful for the reprieve but already dreading what would happen the next day, I went to the guest room and dropped down on the bed. Krush gave an unhappy grunt from where he’d been sleeping with his head on the pillows. Groaning, I buried my face in my hands.

  This was such a bad idea. I should have known being completely alone with Luca would cause trouble. Yet the thought of coming to West Bridge with him for a little while had been too much to resist.

  It wasn’t as if this was the first time I’d caught myself enjoying being beside Luca so much. In the weeks since he’d walked back into my life, I’d been stumbling left and right. My brain knew it was wrong, but my heart kept wanting to know why it was such a bad thing. I felt better when he was beside me. My chest didn’t hurt as badly when he was there, and even my love bug seemed to want him to be near.

  But it was wrong on so many levels. The baby couldn’t possibly want to be around him. That was just my head playing with me, making me imagine how she became even more active whenever he was near or he was talking to her, telling her stories like her daddy used to do.

  In my distress over losing Remington, I’d latched on to the first thing that felt good and held on. What I was feeling wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. It was just muddled because of all the other shit messing with my emotions and hormones.

  I got that Remington wanted me to be taken care of following his death, but there was no way in hell he would want me to move on with someone. Especially not Luca, when he knew how much my ex had broken my heart in the past. I just couldn’t wrap my head around that, and it pissed me off that Luca would even try to make me think it.

  The longer I sat there thinking about it, the angrier I got, and I began to wonder what all Remington had actually told Luca. What he’d asked of him and instructed him to do following his death. I was upset over it, so I began to pace, and the next time I looked at the clock, it was after one in the morning.

  Figuring Luca was asleep by now, I snuck out of my room and down to the home office he’d shown me when he gave me a full tour of the house earlier. I flipped on a small desk lamp to see by as I turned on the computer and waited. Of course, there was a password on it, but that didn’t even give me pa
use.

  Luca was bad about remembering his passwords, so they were always the same thing with a few variations if it required a number or something else. But even then, it was always a form of the same thing.

  VioletsEyes.

  I typed it in and almost smiled when I was taken straight to the home screen. His email was the same one he’d had since we were kids, and he still had the same password for it as well. I shook my head as I easily got into his mail, wondering how the hell he’d gone so long without getting hacked over the years.

  Luca never kept many physical things unless they meant something to him, but his email was different. He kept everything that wasn’t spam and put it in its own folders so he could easily filter through messages. I wasn’t surprised to find a folder that was marked For Vi and clicked on it.

  As the older emails popped up, I gasped when I realized there were over a hundred of them. I scrolled down to the earliest message. It was Remington telling Luca not to say anything when Luca saw us at Christmas, and I remembered the strange staredown the two of them had while they shook hands. I’d assumed it was for the first time, but of course, I was wrong.

  Luca hadn’t replied to the email or the next few that followed, but after New Year’s there was continuous correspondence back and forth between the two of them. There was even a copy of our ultrasound picture in one of Remington’s responses from when we found out we were having a girl.

  My heart clenched as I read the message that went with the black-and-white photo.

  Look at how beautiful she is already! And she was sucking her thumb. She kicked so hard while we were doing this, and I got to watch her. She’s going to kick some serious ass one day. Make sure no one ever hurts her, or I’ll haunt you until you lose your damn mind.

  I could almost hear Remington’s voice as I read each word, and I found myself smiling at his threat.

  But it was Luca’s reply that brought tears to my eyes.

  If anyone even looks at Love Bug wrong or makes that cute little chin tremble, They. Are. Dead. Stop worrying! Your girls are going to be safe in my hands. I won’t stop loving either one of them for as long as I live.

  “Stop it,” I scolded myself as I blinked back the tears. “You’re just a hormonal pregnant woman who is reading too much into this shit.”

  I had to repeat that to myself a few more times until I got to a message three weeks before Remington’s death.

  She’s so stubborn, she drives me crazy. How did you handle that in the past? Make sure you work some magic on her when I die, or she’s never going to fall for you again.

  “What the hell, Remi?” I growled and folded my arms over my chest. “Did you really tell him that? Fuck, you are such an asshole.”

  Realizing I was talking to myself, I angrily scrolled through a few more messages.

  Apparently my husband was keeping more than just his conversations with Luca from me. There were emails that were only a few lines long.

  Had another seizure today. These headaches are getting unmanageable. I could barely even see straight afterward. She was out with Shaw looking at nursery furniture, so I didn’t have to worry her.

  I swallowed a small sob and read the reply.

  Feel better, man. Take it easy. You need to stick around as long as you can. Love Bug needs to meet you before you go.

  Right under it was a reply that was time-stamped only minutes after Luca’s had been sent.

  We both know that won’t happen. No matter how much I want to be here to hold my daughter, my time is almost up. You’ll have to give her a kiss for me. Tell her how beautiful she is every day. Never let her think she CAN’T do something. Make her understand how much I loved her and her mother, and turn her into a strong woman who can rule the world with just a glare.

  It was suddenly hard to catch my breath until I read the two simple words that appeared only ten minutes after the last email had.

  I promise.

  That was all it said. Two words. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just a vow that I felt all the way to my heart and touched the deepest, darkest part of my soul that had been buried for years.

  How could two words make me want to smack the hell out of Luca and then hug him until the pain in my heart eased?

  Frustrated because I didn’t have the answer, I finished reading through the rest of the messages and realized Luca had been right. Remington did expect Luca and me to be together. Eventually. There were emails telling Luca what to say to me when I started feeling guilty about moving on, what Luca should tell me when he asked me to marry him. One said he knew I was going to cry on my wedding day, but to just tell me how much Remington loved me and was happy that I was happy again.

  It was as if he could foresee every major event that was going to pop up between now and the rest of my forever, and he wanted me to know it was okay.

  Even though it was right there in front of me, I couldn’t let myself believe that my husband was telling me it was okay to move on without him. To take time to grieve him, but to let myself be happy with someone else.

  And not just any someone.

  My ex. He’d approached Luca, planned for another man to be there for me and our baby girl when he died.

  To take his fucking place.

  Why?

  I’d never made him question my feelings for him…had I? Had I done something to make him wonder if I was still in love with Luca? No, I’d told him that I wasn’t in love with Luca anymore, and it was the truth. How could I possibly love another man when I was so in love with Remington?

  All right, so it was Luca—but I’d given up on the two of us a long, long time ago. There shouldn’t have been any reason why Remington would seek out Luca to set all of this up. I didn’t love Luca.

  I didn’t.

  So what that he was the only one who’d been able to make my heart the least little bit happy since Remington’s death? It wasn’t like it meant anything. He was just my friend, not the guy I’d once imagined spending my entire life with.

  In a house like the one I was in right at that moment.

  Having a baby he would love just as much as I did.

  “I can’t do this,” I whisper-shouted as I turned off the computer and practically ran back to my room.

  Krush didn’t even lift his head when I dropped back down onto the bed and curled up behind him. It was after three in the morning at this point, and I still couldn’t sleep. All I could do was see all those emails and question every reply between the two men.

  None of this was right. It couldn’t be. Remington was gone, and I understood he wasn’t coming back. But what I couldn’t understand was how he could think it was okay for me to move on. How he thought Luca would be the perfect one to do that with.

  Didn’t he worry that Luca would hurt me again?

  What if Luca broke my heart again? There would be no Remington there to make it better this time. There would be no way I could move on after that. Not when it was more than just my heart that would be on the line. I had my baby girl to think about, and I couldn’t risk Luca breaking her heart too.

  The sun was coming up when I angrily got dressed and went downstairs. I felt suffocated, so I walked out onto the porch, but that didn’t help, so I started walking. Krush followed me, exploring along the way and barking every now and then.

  I didn’t know how long we walked, but eventually I had to stop because the exhaustion from not sleeping caught up with me. Cursing myself for being so careless, I sat down on the cold ground and watched Krush chase a squirrel up a tree. It was chilly out, but I’d put on my coat before leaving the house.

  “Violet!”

  I lifted my head at the sound of Luca’s shout and found him jogging toward me. I was too tired to stand, so I just stayed where I was and waited for him to reach me. Sweat was pouring off him as he dropped down beside me on his knees and cupped my face.

  “Don’t you ever do that to me again,” he groaned, pres
sing his forehead to mine. “I couldn’t find you or Krush anywhere. I thought…” He swallowed hard and whispered, “I thought you left me.”

  Pulling back, I glanced over at Krush still messing around with the squirrel so I didn’t have to look at Luca. “I just needed some air.”

  “What’s wrong?” He grasped my chin between his thumb and index finger and turned my head so I had to look at him. “Baby, talk to me. Tell me what you need me to do. Last night… I know you need time. I’m not trying to rush you. I just want to be near you.”

  “Why?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  His eyes darkened. “With the ‘why’ again, babe?”

  “I need to know,” I whispered. “Do you need to be near me because you promised Remington or because you can’t stand to be away from me?”

  “You already know the answer to that, Violet. You’re just too scared to let yourself believe it.” Standing, he bent and lifted me into his arms. “Have you even slept? Huh? You looked like a ghost sitting there.”

  “Stop yelling at me,” I mumbled. But the lack of sleep and the long walk were already catching up with me. Holding on to his shoulders as he walked back toward his house, I laid my head on his chest and closed my eyes.

  Sometime later, I felt him laying me on the bed, but when he started to straighten, I tightened my arms around his neck. “Don’t go,” I whispered sleepily. “I can’t sleep without you.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” he scolded gently. “I slept like shit without you last night, Vi.” He kicked off his shoes and crawled beneath the covers with me. “All you have to do is tell me what you want, and I’ll make it happen, babe.”

  Now that I felt safe and warm with him wrapped around me, sleep started to consume me once again. “I don’t know what I want anymore,” I whispered. “I’m so confused.”

  “I know, baby. But we have all the time in the world for you to figure it out.” I felt him kiss the back of my head and let my eyes drift closed. “I’m not going anywhere. Not without you.”