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I huff in irritation and cross my arms. “So what do you want?”
That arrogant smile returns and he stares at me thoughtfully. “You reply to every text I send you from now on. If you don’t, I’ll find you myself and there will be a consequence. Also, I want a key to your apartment.”
I stare at him incredulously. “Why? You already break into my apartment whenever you please?”
“Those are my terms, sweetheart.”
I huff out an exasperated sigh as I let the water wash away the suds before standing on tip toes and gently giving him a kiss. “Fine. Now, I have to get ready for work.” I say before exiting the shower. If it costs me that little inch of freedom once again then consider me an idiot as I try to negotiate with the devil reincarnated.
I wrap the towel around myself, my mind a jumble of whatever this is between Luca and me and I try to rein in my cold resolve once again. It’s never been an issue before to simply ‘switch my emotion off’. There’s too little resistance on my behalf now. I’m too accepting of his intrusive ways and in truth and in some way, I expect it.
I collect our clothes from the floor and something shiny slips out of Luca’s trouser pocket. My eyebrows furrow as I pick it up from the floor and my blood runs cold. It’s the same necklace as my mother’s. It can’t be, right?
I twist it, a sharp breath assaulting my lungs as my gaze lands on the small engravings of my initials. This is my mother’s. Why was it in Luca’s pocket?
Realization dawns on me. “Did you steal my mother’s necklace?” I ask as he walks out of the shower in all his glory.
“I stole a necklace. Yes,” he says matter of fact as he wraps a spare towel around his hip.
A wild storm assaults me from the inside and panic starts to take hold. My fingers crumple over the necklace, the cross stabbing and searing my hand. This was all I had left of my mother. The only thing she left behind that my father didn’t dispose of. Because I stole it before everything was thrown out.
Before he erased her entirely from our home and acted as if she never existed. Before he punished me as a child for crying out for her every night with a fierce yearning that had never fully healed. And the band aid’s just been ripped off. I tried everything in my being to balm over these flared up emotions, shoving them back into Pandoras box because, in this state, I didn’t know what I was capable of. I hadn’t even noticed it was missing. I had been so absorbed in my new world that’s all encompassing with Luca Armani that I hadn’t even noticed he’d taken the most important thing from me.
He can’t have her too.
I clutch the necklace to my chest.
He can never have this part of me.
Too attached. Too complacent. I am both of these things and Luca had no issue taking this, so what else would he take? How much of me was he dragging into his world.
Stupid. I fell for him. But this. My mother’s necklace is a harsh reality slap. He can’t have this too; he can’t steal this part of me that only seeks revenge. I couldn’t do anything for my mother then but I sure as hell would do everything in my power now.
He seems to sarcastically ponder. “Well, I can’t remember exactly which time it was when I broke in. I wanted something of yours so I took it.”
He takes a step forward as if to tuck a piece of my hair behind my ear. I jerk back, keeping the necklace close to my chest.
“You can’t have every piece of me, Luca!”
His eyebrows furrow and his gaze hardens, the light diming from them.
“I can own every piece of you,” he corrects.
“No!” I firmly say. It is the only thing I had left of her. The only guidance I had through all those years in what felt like an empty house with a new family growing around me. All I had was this necklace and the remaining photo. And the thought of Luca… taking it so casually just because he can. “You can’t have this too.”
“How is this any different from you trying to break into my mansion, Ara? It just means I make for a better thief and you’re upset because you feel out of control.”
“I’m so fucking done with you.”
“We’re not done until I say we are,” he growls as he steps forward and tips my chin to face him. That threatening wild blue storm rages within them but I refuse to melt into them anymore. To slowly soften and submit.
I yank myself from his grasp. “Get the fuck out of my house.”
A perverted smile crosses his lips. “I like it when you’re mad at me like this.”
“Perhaps your brother would’ve been the better option then,” I say with spite, knowing it was one of few things that would halt him in his tracks. To shift anything from perverted infatuation to hatred.
It works as his smile drops immediately and I’m faced with the predator. Right now, I don’t even care.
