I’d made the decision to tackle my house the day before. Going there hadn’t been on the top of my list of things to do any time soon because I knew it would be difficult. The therapist I’d been seeing most days suggested it would be another step in the healing process, and I should confront it sooner rather than later. I had to see the destruction with my own eyes, see what Lucca had saved me from. My therapist also thought I perhaps had some hero worship going on with Lucca and I couldn’t answer her honestly when she asked. I’d thought about it since she’d said it, maybe she’d been right. But if that had been the case then I’d feel the same about Ryder too, yet I didn’t. It wasn’t any hero worship with Lucca. No, it was something far more removed, something more all-encompassing that warmed my heart and gave me courage to be the woman I strived to be.

Being in bed with Lucca that morning had been another hurdle I’d craved to get over. He’d been patient and kind, his stiff erection poking into me each morning a reminder I wasn’t scared of him. Quite the opposite. I demanded the connection of our bodies being joined and I knew I had to make the first move, Lucca was too much of a gentleman to suggest intimacy.

The fear lay in where my head would end up. Would I be in the moment with Lucca or drown in the oppression of memories? I refused to think about it and went all in, knowing Lucca would rescue me if I started to sink, if Adam crept into my most intimate thoughts. A place he’d never belong.

Once I had Lucca under my hands and saw the effect I had on him - nothing apart from pleasing him entered my mind. I wanted him in my mouth, to taste him, wanted an orgasm so fiercely. I wasn’t ready for sex, but that morning had gone a long way to getting there.

Now, though, we were driving through Beaufort and my nerves were climbing, getting the better of me. Even Lucca’s flirty banter couldn’t haul me from the dark place I’d plunged to. I’d loved my house, I was scared to see the aftermath. Taking it in was going to be painful, there was no getting away from that fact. When Lucca pulled into my street, there was no way I could miss the charred remains of the house I’d held dear. Not quite all gone, not much left either.

We sat in the car a long time after pulling up. Lucca didn’t push when I stared at the blackened husk before me. Yeah, lucky was not the word I’d use to describe how Lucca and Ryder had managed to drag me out of there. My heart was sore, my loss written on my face for anyone that cared to look closely enough. I could see the water at the back of the garden from where we sat in the car, the big house no longer obscuring the beautiful serenity of the sea. Proof that Adam had almost taken everything, lay in ashen clumps on my lawn and the burnt out remains of the walls.

Heaving a sigh of resignation, I hauled myself from the car without a word to Lucca. We’d brought some boxes for anything we could salvage; those boxes would remain empty, there was nothing left. Nothing to take. All of it destroyed. Lucca’s hand slipped into mine as we walked toward the ruin. I was thankful for his presence.

Yellow police tape ran the width of the house, wrapped around burnt timber. We couldn’t go in, it was unsafe and still an active crime scene. Now that I was here, and seeing the devastation for myself I guessed my therapist had been right. I felt emotionless. No tears fell, no sad laments crossed my mind. I couldn’t wrap my head around the numbness. The place I’d loved lay in ruins, yet I had no tears to shed. A man had died here, albeit a wicked one, he was still a man. I knew I’d never return. I wanted to say my goodbyes and be done with the past. Wanted to go home with the man I loved.

Lucca and I didn’t hang around, without words he knew what I needed and here wasn’t it. We took a last walk around the house, for what reason I didn’t know, until my foot stumbled on rubble embedded in the grass. Like it lay waiting to be discovered. Lucca bent to pick it up and looked at me in confusion when I laughed. I took the half-melted clock from him and ran my finger over the smooth plastic of the pig’s butt.

I missed my sister. I hadn’t seen her since she’d left the hospital that day. We’d talked plenty on the phone, it simply wasn’t the same. She needed me, I knew it with certainty, yet she refused to ask. The burnt clock was a sign. Perhaps it was my time to save her?

“Taylor’s joke.” I handed the clock to Lucca and he grinned.

“I noticed you had a thing for pigs. Like the pork, huh?”

I burst out laughing at Lucca’s innuendo, then remembered fondly when Taylor had gifted me the stupid clock, well - novelty item. “She found it in a tourist shop somewhere, cost her four quid, said it would make me smile.” And it had. When she’d thrown the cheap plastic at me I’d giggled uncontrollably when the pig’s tail wiggled, and the snort went off when the alarm sounded. “It’s got no tail now, though.”

He handed me the melted plastic back. “We can get it fixed.” He sounded more hopeful than he looked.

“No. It’s perfect.”

Of all the things I’d lost, the little pig with no tail seemed to make it better, its survival telling me it was okay to shut the door on my past, once and for all. “Can I put it in your kitchen?”

That’s where the clock had always lived, this little piggy had seen more kitchen windows in its life span than was healthy. Lucca’s would be his last.

He hugged me close. “Yeah. Now, let’s get out of here.”

* * *

We drove along the coast looking for somewhere to eat. I’d only realised how hungry I was after we got back into the car. Eventually stopping at an old sea side restaurant that had seen better days, I was ready to stuff my face. Ordering greasy fish and chips, we tucked ourselves away into a cosy corner that had the most beautiful view out across the sea. The weather had held steady the last few days, indicating spring was finally creeping in to thaw the chill.

“I never asked.” I wiped my hand on the napkin beside me. “You’re from down here?”

Lucca stiffened in his chair looking uncomfortable which surprised me. “Uh, yeah. Ryder and I left when Ayden was about two.”

“You’d have been, what, twenty? Twenty-one?”

“Twenty.” He studied his plate of food, prodding his fish with the fork.

I sensed a sore subject so didn’t pry anymore. His history wasn’t any of my business. He’d share, or he wouldn’t, it made no odds to me, nothing he said was going to impact on our future together. I hated I’d brought an air of tension to the table though so when he looked at me, I poked my tongue out at him and gave him the biggest smile I had.

“Oh, we’re playing that game, are we?”

I continued to tuck into my food. The flaky white cod wrapped in bubbly beer batter was delicious. I made a mental note to return and bring Taylor, she’d love the fish. Lucca apparently enjoyed his too, finishing way before I did. He sat back and rubbed at his belly, picking his coffee up and motioning to the waitress. I touched my fingertips to the edge of his hand as I ate, I didn’t even feel ridiculous, I had a fierce need to touch him all the time.

Lucca leaned forward in his seat once he had a fresh coffee and eyed me. “My father was not a moral man, Laura.”

Okay, we were going there. He’d obviously eaten and stewed on what I’d asked. Maybe his food wasn’t as enjoyable as he made it look after all.

“He died when I was seventeen and I was left with his businesses. Only one was legal. The Queen’s in Brighton, you heard of it?”

I had, in passing. Knew it was one of the older, grander hotels along the Brighton promenade, with a long history. It didn’t surprise me he owned it. From what I’d seen, Lucca and Ryder owned some of the grandest and most beautiful hotels across the country.

“I parted with the illegal ones, took me three years to get rid of them all. People were eager to take my father’s empire; some more eager I should claim it. I didn’t. I took the money and left. I’m not ashamed, the money helped Ryder and I become who we are today. I kept The Q out of some misguided sense of loyalty, I guess.” He looked wistfully out the window, clearly remembering when he was younger. “He left enough money that my mother didn’t struggle right up until the day she died. I was grateful for that, at least.”

“How long has she been gone?”

He scrubbed at his jaw then took another drink of his coffee. I pushed my plate away from me, satisfied I’d had my fill. “About six years now, Ayden was about fifteen, I think. He took it hard, loved his Nonno.” He smiled warmly at me and it dawned then that Ryder and Ayden were all Lucca had; the sum of his family. I understood why he kept them both so close. “I found a letter in her things when we were clearing out the house. From my father, before he died.” He snorted humourlessly. “Atoning for his sins, I guess.”

“Were they in love?”

“I don’t know.” He reached out for me and I moved my chair closer, so he could slide his arm around my shoulder. “My mother loved him, I think. She never spoke of him after he died.”

Naturally curious, I asked. “What did the letter say?”

“It explained why Stella came into my life and why she did what she did.”

There was an air of resignation about him and I wondered if I was enough for him to put Stella behind him. I was damned well going to try, there was no way I was letting him stew on Stella for eternity. He deserved to live a life out from under her clutches.

Lucca took his time to continue and I waited with baited breath. I didn’t understand where the story was going, I was betting it was nowhere good if she had been involved.

“My father had a mistress. He thought the child she’d had was his. I remember him being away a lot when I was younger, my mother always telling me he was working. I don’t know if she knew at the time.”

“A long-term mistress?” I was joining those dots and not liking the picture in the least.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“What happened?”

“You sure I’m not boring you?” He leaned over and pecked a coffee flavoured kiss at my lips. Lucca’s memories were painful, but I had to know the end. It somehow felt important.

“Not at all, you’ve piqued my interest now. You can’t stop there.” I tried to make the atmosphere around us less heavy with my tone. I wasn’t sure it worked.

Blowing out a breath, he shifted in his seat before carrying on. “For years he thought the child was his. Would have been my step-sister, you know. I got excited about the prospect until I read further.” He tugged at the collar of his shirt. “Turned out she wasn’t his after all. The letter confessed the murder of her mother, how he’d shot the woman in a fit of rage when he found out.”

I was stunned. Whatever I imagined Lucca was going to say, that was not it. I had no words, I didn’t know how to respond to his revelation.

“The child was Stella.”

My heart ground to a halt, a slow beat of disbelief. Things made so much more sense to me. Revenge, Adam had said. “Revenge.” I croaked the word out while Lucca sat far too quiet next to me.

“Yeah...”

We sat holding one another for a while, huddled in the corner of the restaurant. My dinner churned in my stomach and the coffee tasted sour on my lips, I couldn’t bring myself to drink any more.

“When did you know it was Stella?”

Lucca rubbed at his temple. “Uh...about a year later. Ryder and I wanted to track the child down to...hell, I don’t even know why. I felt a responsibility, you know?”

Yes, I did know. Lucca was a worthy man; Lucca’s heart was pure and unselfish, he wore it on his sleeve. “Does Ayden know?” Because essentially his grandfather had killed his grandmother and I wouldn’t have put it past Stella to have hurt Lucca by using it against him.

He shook his head and I sighed in relief. “Just me, Ryder and Stella.”

“And now me.”

“And now you.”

“So, what? She tracked you down and made you fall in love with her, so she could make your life a misery and avenge her mother?”

It sounded so far-fetched, a convoluted movie plot, yet I knew that’s exactly what happened without him telling me. It didn’t matter that he didn’t answer when the proof was in the scars she’d left behind, the misery that tainted Lucca.

The atmosphere was oppressive, heavy with pasts rather forgotten. The day had been emotionally taxing all round. What I was about to say wasn’t going to go down well, I knew there was no point putting it off, now was as good a time as any. I cleared my throat and asked for some forgiveness for what I was about to do.

“I need to leave for a while.”

Lucca didn’t look at me, kept staring out toward the horizon. “Yeah, I know.”

“I think Taylor needs me more than you right now.”

Leaving would be temporary. We’d begun to scratch out a future for ourselves, a half decent life and I wasn’t turning my back on him. I couldn’t abandon my sister though, whether she said it or not, I had to go home to her, to support her the way she had me for so many years, no matter what.

“You’ll come back?”

I hated he had to ask. His vulnerability was my doing. I hadn’t shown him how much I needed him, how much I wanted him. That he was my beginning and my end and all the broken pieces in between. I loved him, yet I’d never uttered those words once.

“When it’s time.”

“Then you need to be vigilant for a little longer. You know Stella has vanished into thin air. I can’t find her, Laura, and that worries me. I need you to trust your gut and call me if anything feels off.” Worry washed over his features.

The thought of Stella lurking around corners, plotting more mayhem, broke me out in a sweat but I had no reservations over Lucca. It was true I still had parts of me to heal and maybe time apart would go a long way to making the raw pieces more bearable to live with. Lucca had held me up these last few weeks. He was my glue, yet...yet, I had to prove to myself that I could stand on my own two feet. He would always be my hero, I refused to let him be my crutch.

* * *

I was leaving in the morning and had packed a bag of what little belongings I had and rested the travel suitcase against the wall by the bedroom door. Lucca was downstairs on the phone to Ryder making plans for the opening of the restaurant in a few short weeks. The place was almost finished. I hadn’t been down there knowing Ryder spent most of his waking hours getting the place ready. I think it hurt to see me, I stayed away. I had no answers for him which made me feel worse.

Pulling off my underwear and Lucca’s t-shirt, I discarded them on the chair by the window, then crawled under the covers of the bed. Pulling out a paperback from the drawer of the bedside table I got myself comfy. I wasn’t ready to sleep, I never was until Lucca’s body was next to mine. How I was going to manage being away from him?

Half an hour later the bedroom door opened, and Lucca came in. He hovered by the door a minute while I continued to read. Switching off the overhead light he began getting undressed, tossing clothes to the floor as he moved toward the bed. I rolled my eyes, typical messy man. He still kept his boxers on, why I had no idea.

In the dim light of the room I couldn’t quite make out his tattoo but could see the outline of his physique clear enough. He took my breath away, I’d never tire looking at him. He kept in shape, didn’t over-do it so he wasn’t all ripped and hard. He had good definition, was pliable around the edges, I had more than mere muscle to hang on to. Exactly the way I liked it.

“You’re ogling, Laura.”

I snapped my eyes to his. I wondered what he was waiting for standing there at the side of the bed.

“So I am.” No point in denying a truth there was nothing to be embarrassed about. “Take those off.” I pointed to his boxers that I suddenly found extremely offensive.

His smirk was damned sinful as he obeyed and tucked his fingers into the waistband and bent over, removing his shorts. When he stood up I threw my book on the floor and bit my lip. Lord, I liked what I saw. Did I ever. He was long and hard and pointed in my direction. I sat up in the bed, the duvet falling to my waist.

“You’re ogling, Lucca.” It was his turn to gawp.

“Touche.” He climbed onto the bed on all fours, his fists at the side of my leg. “So I am.”

He leaned over and kissed me, whipping the duvet back and wrestling it from under his legs. I giggled as the simple task almost had Lucca beat. I flung myself back on the bed when he finally tossed the duvet to the floor. Lucca crawled over, taking a moment to look at me. I appreciated the concern for my comfort and I gave a short nod of my head, an assurance we were fine.

Trailing a finger down my chest, he watched his hand move. His next kiss was attentive, passionate - full of hunger. His cock rubbed against my belly and his hands cupped around my breasts. Hard fingers pressed into my flesh, arousing me more than I already was, wetness pooling at the very core of me. When he pulled away his face was full of love and reverence.

This man would never hurt me, he wasn’t capable of it.

“Beautiful, Laura...” I was still shy with his plentiful compliments, I wasn’t used to them no matter how they made my heart sing and my body hum.

He sucked my nipple into his mouth, his tongue doing magnificent things to my body. I didn’t want him to stop. He sucked at me harder, fingers digging deeper, getting under my skin as I bowed my back and arched up to him. We hadn’t been intimate until I’d initiated the blow job and it felt like it’d been forever since. I needed the care and attention I knew Lucca could give me.

“Laura...”

My muffled name from his mouth was strained, like he was holding back. I couldn’t have that, I wanted his wild abandon, the slow dance of his hips to come faster as he smeared fluid across my stomach.

I twined my arms around his neck and whispered in his ear. “Make love to me, Lucca.”

His groan was quiet around my nipple as he moved his legs down from their kneeling position and moseyed in between my legs, nudging my thighs outwards. I was so wet, I wanted him to slip home. No fanfare. I didn’t need the build-up, the foreplay - just Lucca loving me from the inside out.

Lucca pulled his weight up on his elbows, sucked harder then let go of my nipple with a loud pop and came up to kiss me. Plump lips devoured me; long, slow strokes of his tongue against mine had me moaning with anticipation. When the pressure increased against my mouth, Lucca entered me, his thick length filling and stretching. My sigh of pleasure matched his as he sank further inside. I clenched around him as he bumped his forehead to mine, the kiss forgotten, the moment, never.

Lucca took his time, sweeping strokes in and out as he loved me so completely. The heady height he took me to seemed to last for an eternity, a slow orgasm winding up with each stroke. He was loving me like only Lucca could; with everything he had.

It became too much, and I ground my hips upward, the emotion of the moment heightening my need. Lucca picked up his pace, the deep thrusts came quicker, and the friction intensified. Hooking my legs around his waist, his hands grabbed mine for purchase, our fingers knotted together as his chest pushed against me.

“I need you to come, Laura. You feel too fucking good. I can’t take any more.” His mouth latched onto the sweet spot behind my ear.

I was almost there, his low, gravelly words pushing me closer to bliss. He shifted his hips and came at me faster, the rhythm setting me off. I hummed and buzzed with a sensation so intense I found it difficult to breathe. Tight coils of pleasure raced through me when I came hard underneath him. I squeezed my walls around his cock that kept moving. A long, low rumble and a jerk of Lucca’s hips had me moaning as he filled me. He pushed so deep, and stayed as he chased his high and I danced along to mine.

Collapsed and spent, we tangled together in a moment of bliss that brought tears to my eyes. This was where I belonged. Who I belonged with. There was nowhere else to be.