He Chose Childhood Sweetheart, I Married the Don

My mind snapped back to the present.

Luca was rubbing Lila's back, patient and coaxing. There was a time when that kind of gentleness was only ever for me.

He turned to look at me, jaw tight, eyes hard.

"Sofia. You've completely lost it."

I almost laughed. The bitterness rose slowly and settled at the corner of my mouth.

Lila bit her lip and looked at Luca, just once — shy, red-eyed — then started in:

"It's my fault. I'm the reason things went wrong between the two of you. I'll leave today. I won't bother you anymore."

She pulled herself free from Luca's arm and started toward the door.

She made it two steps before he pulled her back.

"And go where, exactly?" he said, low and sharp. "The roads around here are rough. You run into the wrong people out there and they won't stop to ask questions."

It was meant to scare her, and it did. She shrank back like a startled bird.

I stood there watching the two of them wrapped up in each other and felt like I was the one who didn't belong.

I let out a short, quiet laugh and turned to leave.

Then Lila came crawling toward me on her knees and grabbed my wrist.

"Please don't be angry at me anymore."

The pull on my wrist was sharp enough that the pastry flew out of my hand.

"Ah!" She screamed and went down, clutching herself like she was dying.

Luca crossed the room in three strides, shoved me out of the way, and pulled her into his arms to check her over.

The shove sent me stumbling backward. I caught my hip on the edge of the stone table, and the pain hit hard — a deep, wrenching kind I knew well.

I had a serious old injury in my lower back.

Years ago, during a hunting trip with the Ferrara boys in the hill country, Luca had decided for some reason to push his horse at full gallop down a steep slope. He never could ride, even as a kid. The horse panicked and threw him toward the edge of a cliff.

I went after him. In the chaos he grabbed onto me and we both went down together. I hit the ground back-first, and the injury never fully healed.

Every time the weather shifted, the pain came back. The constant damp of the hills had made it worse over the years.

When we first arrived here, he used to rub it for me himself, slowly and carefully, every night.

The pain blazed up my spine now and I couldn't hold back the tears.

"Luca — I'm your—"

What was I? Since Lila arrived, the wedding had been put off once, then again. We still hadn't married. I was nothing.

Luca scooped Lila up into his arms and turned to look at me, his eyes barely holding back rage.

"Sofia. I've been way too easy on you."

I bit back the pain and slapped him across the face.

"Get out."