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