Chapter 29

Luca stared at his laptop screen. He’d been staring at it for what seemed like hours, his attention constantly drifting as he went over and over the events of the day before. A day that had begun perfectly, with slow, sensual wake up sex before things got more frantic in the shower. Working with Adrian at the festival, sniggering like two kids at the suggestive shaped vegetables, to taking time to enjoy the day together, hand in hand. Feeling like he was part of a solid couple once again. Until Adrian had bared his teeth and snarled, and it had all tumbled down.

He saved the spreadsheet and powered down the laptop, slamming the top closed. It was Sunday and he hadn’t been due to work, but waking up alone in the cottage, feeling the cold and empty space beside him, where else did he have to go?

Arrival at The New House, he’d toured the hotel, finding fault with everything, his staff quailing under his caustic criticism when there hadn’t been anything to find criticism with. His last stop had been the kitchen. Rhonda hadn’t hidden her initial surprise, but one look at his face and she’d had breakfast plated up for him which he’d had taken to his office. He looked over at the coffee table in front of the sofa. Three hours later it was still there, cold and congealed.

“For god’s sake, Adrian.” He massaged his temples, trying to obliterate the headache three painkillers hadn’t touched.

The knock on his office door was firm, and Luca swore under his breath. Trouble, because what else could it be on a Sunday morning? He closed his eyes for a moment, inhaling deep, before calling for whoever it was to come in.

Adrian hesitated in the doorway. His characteristic confidence, so often tinged with a touch of arrogance, was nowhere to be seen. In a faded navy sweatshirt, worn jeans, and scuffed steel toed boots, he looked every inch the hardworking farmer he was. Luca stomped down on the spike of want that speared him, just as he clenched his fists to stop himself from brushing away the smear of dirt on Adrian’s cheekbone.

Closing the door, Adrian shuffled from foot to foot. Since when did Adrian shuffle? Luca said nothing, waiting for Adrian to fill in the silence.

Adrian’s hand found the back of his neck. “I tried to call you earlier, but the calls went to voicemail.”

“My phone’s been switched off.”

“You never switch it off.”

Luca shrugged.

“Then I went to the cottage and when I got no answer, I knew you’d be here.”

Was he really so predictable? “Didn’t you think I might be avoiding you, that I had no interest in speaking to you after last night?”

“You had every right to not want to. But I didn’t sense you there. It just felt empty.”

Luca swallowed. They were words to make his heart sigh — if he let them.

“I’ve come here to?—”

“To apologise? You’ve already done that. So that just leaves an explanation as to why you reacted?—”

“Like a jealous prick.”

Luca’s eyes widened. “Jealous? Of Alex? Of me and Alex? Jealous of something that happened years ago, long before you and I ever met? For god’s sake, Adrian, do you expect me to tell you about every man I’ve had a relationship with? Every hook up? Every one night stand? If so, let me tell you, but it’ll make one hell of a dull story.” He slumped down on the sofa, his anger, frustration and confusion kicking his legs out from under him.

Coming over, his steps slow and cautious, Adrian sat down next to Luca. A burst of sympathy flared in Luca’s chest. Close up, with dark shadows beneath his dull eyes, Adrian looked as shit as he himself felt.

No…He wouldn’t let himself feel sorry for Adrian. The man had been in the wrong, and he was damned if he was going to throw him a lifeline.

“If you want me to, I’ll grovel on my knees until they’re ripped to shreds and bloody.”

“No.” The image of Adrian, abasing himself like that, it felt all wrong. That wasn’t the man he’d come to know, a man he’d come to… He swallowed as he glanced away, unable for a moment to meet Adrian’s sad and weary eyes. “You’ve apologised already for your behaviour. You don’t have to keep doing it. I need some tea. Do you want some?”

Adrian’s eyes widened in surprise. “Er, yes. Please.”

Luca busied himself, taking the moment to think about what he needed to say next, and how to say it. He sat down next to Adrian, closing his eyes as he sipped the scalding liquid, and breathed in the Earl Grey’s aromatic fragrance. It was calming. Not much, only a little, but he’d take what it gave him. Opening his eyes, he put the cup on the coffee table and turned back to Adrian.

“You want to know about me and Alex, so let me explain. But you need to listen, because I will only ever say this once. Do you understand?”

Adrian nodded, a tiny bob of his head as he clutched his cup in his big, work worn hands.

“Yes, we were together. Years and years ago. Yes, we even believed we had a long term future. But we didn’t. From the lovers we knew we couldn’t remain as, we morphed into a friendship which binds us like brothers. That’ll never change, and I’m not willing to do anything to undermine our relationship.” He met Adrian’s dull gaze, forcing himself to hold it, willing himself to slow the hard, uneven beat of his heart.

“I omitted to tell you, not because I was being secretive, but because that facet of my relationship with Alex ended a long time ago. Years before I met you, years before I even met Bruno. I didn’t tell you because to my mind there was nothing to tell you about. I’ve no more to say about it. You either believe me or you don’t, but only you can decide which side to come down on.”

Adrian put his own cup on the coffee table and scrubbed his hands over his face, smudging the dirt Luca’s fingers itched to wipe away.

“I do believe you, I honestly do. But what he said, dropping it into the conversation the way he did, it threw me. I can’t deny it. How can I, when you saw my reaction? I—I just wished you’d told me, that’s all, rather than hearing it like that… of being the last one to know.” Adrian’s voice broke on the final words as he let his head fall forward.

Luca stared at Adrian, not a muscle moving, barely breathing as a chill crept through his bones.

“This isn’t all about me and Alex, is it?” he said slowly. “This is about you and Sam.”

Adrian looked up, his eyes desolate, and Luca’s heart jolted.

“I was the last one to find out about him,” Adrian whispered. “Everybody knew. Everybody except me. What he did, it was with somebody I believed was a friend. Somebody I invited into my home, somebody I trusted. … And all the time, it was happening right under my nose.”

Sam. The man who when he’d left hadn’t left alone. Secrets and lies. Was that what he believed he and Alex were?

“Adrian. Please. I’m not him. I’m not Sam. I would never?—”

“I know.” Adrian looked up, his eyes narrowed, his brow scrunched, as though he were fighting a searing headache. “I know you’re not him. There’s not the slightest comparison. My reaction… I know it was stupid and irrational. But it brought it all back, everything that happened. I felt like a cornered dog and I did what cornered dogs do. I went for you, and I should never have done that.”

“What happened in the past, to either of us, it can’t be changed. But life moves on. Alex and Ryan will soon be married. You and I are together, but if we’re to remain so…” He paused, taking a breath and a moment to say the words which had to be said, because without them there was no place for the two of them to go. “If we’re going to be together, then you have to trust me.”

He blinked hard to clear his suddenly watery vision. He’d shed tears over Bruno, too many, and had vowed never to shed tears over a man again.

“Luca?”

Adrian’s voice, so quiet and unsure, wrenched at his heart.

“I don’t want to see ghosts and shadows where there are none, I don’t want to let my demons whisper and snap at me, just as I don’t want the past to cast a shadow over the present. And the future.”

Adrian took his hands in his; warm, strong, the skin hard and calloused. So damn familiar and loved, despite it all.

“Because I do want us to have a future. You’ve made me believe I can have what I’d come to believe would always be denied me, but more than that you’ve made me believe I deserve one. Do you still want that with me?”

Did he? Was Adrian the man he wanted, a man who was as different to him as light was to dark, as day was to night? Often bad-tempered, irritable, difficult, a man for whom the world was black and white with no room for any shades of grey, where people and situations could only ever be one thing or another? But the man who gazed at him through eyes that seemed to see into his soul, whose work roughened hands touched him like no other man ever had, was so much more than those absolutes. A man who was thoughtful, softer, and more feeling beneath his hard, outer shell. A man who from the start had made both his body and his heart sing, a man who made him feel more alive than he’d ever felt before.

Was this the man he wanted?

Yes. He knew it with every piece of himself. But it wasn’t that simple. He licked his dry lips, preparing himself to say the words which could not stay unsaid.

“You have to remember and you have to know it in here,” Luca pressed a palm against Adrian’s heart, feeling the heavy beat pulse through him, “that I’m not a liar or a cheat. I’m many things, but I have never been those and never will be.” He sat back on the sofa. “Do you believe me? Because if you have any doubts, then you need to leave now and not look back because I can’t and won’t be with a man who has no trust in me.” His heart raced, his pulse thumped in his neck. He’d stated his conditions, and they were Adrian’s to accept or reject.

Adrian got to his feet and held out his hand. “The only way I’m leaving here is with you.”

Luca’s tightly held breath shuddered out of him. Joining his hand with Adrian’s, he let himself be pulled to standing.

They had stepped away from the precipice, and he prayed they would never again fall towards it.