Chapter 34

Adrian stared out over the hills leading up to the high moor. The morning’s soft autumn sunlight had faded, leaving a distant threat of storm clouds in its wake. A chill crept over him and he shivered, the sweat on his skin turning to ice. Labour, back breaking, mindless labour, to numb his brain as it numbed his body. It hadn’t worked. Throwing the shovel aside, he stomped across the field towards the farmhouse, head down and shoulders slumped.

“Boss?”

Adrian looked up. In the farmyard, Harry shuffled from foot to foot, crossing and uncrossing his arms, pushing his hands into the hip pockets of his work stained jeans, before pulling them out again.

“What?” Adrian snapped.

“Er…” A deep flush flooded Harry’s face. “I, erm, was wondering…”

Adrian stifled his groan.

“What is it you want, Harry?” If he’d softened his tone, it didn’t show in Harry’s face, but he didn’t have the energy to care.

“Just wondering if everything’s okay? Not being nosy, or anything, but erm, I’ve noticed you’ve not been yourself for the last couple of days or so. Elena’s noticed it too…”

Adrian barked out a rough laugh. Harry looked like he wanted to run and never look back. God, he didn’t blame him. What if he were to do the same? Just walk out, and leave it all behind…

“I’m sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind at the moment. If I’ve been even more of a bad tempered fucker than usual, just keep your head down. Safer for everybody that way.”

“You’re back to how you were before.” Harry blurted the words out, his face turning from red to deepest scarlet.

Adrian narrowed his eyes, but Harry stood his ground. Harry, easy going and eternally sunny, a smile always at the ready, met his gaze. The man had balls, and flushed and fidgety though he was, he wasn’t ready to back down.

“How do you mean, like before?” But Adrian knew, the truth of the young farm worker’s words punching him hard in the chest.

Luca. A hard, cold hand pushed into his heart, twisting and turning. There had been before Luca; there had been Luca; now, there was after Luca. Only if you let it…

“You, you just seem to be closed off. The, er, way you used to be, before…” Harry trailed to a stop as his courage deserted him.

“Like I say, I’ve got a lot on my mind. If I’ve been—” Growling and snarling, like a rabid dog, “—difficult to be around, or more difficult than normal, then I’m sorry.”

“You’re better with him. It’s all I wanted to say. You’re more…” Harry shrugged. “Well, you’re just better.”

Adrian stared at Harry, at his flushed, embarrassed, mortified face, at eyes that screamed he wanted to be anywhere but here, having this awkward, stilted conversation. But Harry’s gaze held his own, and refused to flinch.

“Go home, Harry.”

“But—”

“Just go home.” Adrian turned towards the farmhouse. He blinked hard to clear his wet, wavy vision, slamming the door behind him.

Falling back against the solid, warm wood, his legs buckled beneath him. Sliding to the floor, he covered his face with his hands that were powerless to stop the flood of tears from falling.

* * *

The wood was gloomy, the light penetrating the canopy dull and sunless. Mid afternoon, it felt more like evening. A rumble of thunder split the sky overhead, louder than earlier, when he’d fled the farmhouse. The threatened storm, a long time coming, was rolling in fast.

Pushing through the thick undergrowth, and climbing over fallen trees, Adrian stumbled onwards. His body on auto pilot, responding to muscle memory, he didn’t have to think about where he was going.

Harry’s words echoed in his head. He’d been a better man with Luca in his life. He’d been easier. He’d been brighter, and had laughed more. And it was true, so fucking true.

The ferns and branches had reclaimed the little stone hut, and Adrian pulled them aside, exposing the old, warped wood door. Opening it up, he breathed in the damp, earthy air. Searching in his pocket for a coin, he found a few coppers and dropped them into the well, listening for the faint splash as they hit the underground stream. It felt like he was making an offering to an ancient god, its name long forgotten.

He slumped against the side of the little hut and closed his eyes. What was it he’d said to Luca? That this had been his place where he’d come to think, where the most important decisions of his life were taken. And god knew, this was the most important one he would ever make.

“I am so sorry, Luca, I am so damn sorry.” His whispered words faded into the gathering shadows. His hackles had risen and his back had gone up, his smile little more than an ill-disguised snarl when he’d found Jonathan in the cottage.

Jonathan… Christ, but it had never really been about the man. It’d been the idea of him, of what he represented. Without knowing it, Jonathan was everything Adrian feared.

Fear that what had happened once before would happen again.

Fear he’d have to confront and defeat if he were to have any chance of once again being the better man Harry had told him he’d been.

Fear that he could never be a man deserving of Luca’s love.

God knows, I love you Adrian… The most precious words in the world, said by the man who meant more to him than life itself. Yet what had he done? Turned and fled, too full of fear, to recognise them for the gift they were as he’d retreated like the coward he was.

He pushed his fingers through his hair, screwing his eyes shut as his hands bunched into hard, tight fists, hissing as the pain seared over his scalp. He couldn’t live like this. He couldn’t live with this corrosive fear in his heart, eating away at the one good thing in his life. He couldn’t live under the cloud of terror that what had happened before would, inevitably, happen again. He couldn’t do any of it because?—

“I love you, Luca. I love you so fucking much.”

“Then make me believe it.”

His eyes snapped open and he blinked. Luca, just feet from him, incongruous in his tailored suit, snow white, crisp shirt and silk tie. Adrian blinked again, half expecting the image he’d conjured in his fevered brain to disappear into the darkening wood.

“You’re here,” Adrian whispered, pushing himself to his feet.

Luca shrugged. “I went to the farmhouse, but it was deserted. And then I remembered this place.”

“I tried to call you.”

“Once. You tried to call me once. Doesn’t say much, does it?”

Shame crawled over Adrian’s skin. “I was scared you’d say you didn’t want to see me again. That we were over. I couldn’t face that.”

“Maybe we should be over.”

Adrian gasped as his head jerked up, Luca’s words ramming hard into his chest and knocking the air from his lungs.

“Please… you can’t mean that.” But Luca could, and it would all be his own stupid fault, his own fear driving Luca away.

“I don’t want to mean it, but what choice are you giving me? I can’t live my life with you acting like an attack dog all the time.”

Luca wound his arms tight around his middle. He breathed deep, his shoulders rising and falling as he stared down at the leaf covered woodland floor. Adrian ached to touch him, to hold him, but everything about Luca said Do Not Touch.

“When you came to the cottage, you jumped to conclusions, made connections which simply don’t exist. Have you conveniently forgotten that I went to see him? That I had that excruciating, difficult conversation with him where I made our positions clear? His, mine, yours?”

“No, of course not. But when I saw him there, seeing how he looks at you, I?—”

“For the love of god.” Luca threw his arms in the air. “Just listen to yourself. I chose you. You. Yet all you’ve done is sour everything because you see the world through the prism of your fear and distrust. That’s been the problem all along. You believe those you love will all betray you in the end. You’re waiting for it to happen, bracing yourself against what you’ve made yourself believe is inevitable. You told me you didn’t want to be a hostage to your past. But’s that’s what’s happening. You’re letting everything that happened before define you.”

Luca walked forward, slowly, cautiously, as though approaching a scared dog that was ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. As Luca came closer, Adrian’s heart clenched. The silk tie was askew; mud splatted the fine wool of Luca’s suit; his hair, always so groomed, was messed and dishevelled. But it was nothing to the weary sadness dulling his eyes.

“You’ve let everything cast a shadow over us. Because you discovered you couldn’t trust Sam, you don’t know, deep down, if you can trust me either. You’re scared to death of history repeating itself. Everything you’re carrying around with you, it’s toxic.

“I can’t live like that, Adrian, I can’t and won’t live my life in the shadow all this crap casts over us. I can’t live my life having to double guess you, making me think twice who I should be friends with, who I should allow into my life, all because of the past that’s eating away at you like some grotesque, bloated parasite.”

Adrian began to tremble. Fear gripped at his heart, but not the fear that had bound him to the past, but the fear of losing the only future he wanted.

“I don’t want to be that man. God knows, but I don’t,” Adrian whispered, edging forward, small careful steps, little by little closing the distance between them. “But when I found out what was happening, what had been happening for months, and under my nose, I felt stupid, duped and vulnerable. Exposed. And that scared me, how easily I’d been taken for a fool. A man I believed I had a future with. Another man I’d welcomed into my home. Somebody who’d become a friend, a good friend, somebody I told myself I could trust when I found it hard to trust anybody.”

He closed his eyes for a second, willing himself to say the name that would burn and scar his throat.

“His name was Gregory,” Adrian said, his voice little more than a rasp. “He was a newcomer, like Jonathan. And I mean really like him. The physical resemblance between them…” He shook his head, and pressed a hand to his stomach.

“Sam didn’t find it easy to settle down here. He’d lived all his life in London, so when he made friends with Gregory, when he introduced him into our lives, I was pleased. But his view of a friend wasn’t the same as mine. Fear and distrust… I’ve harboured them, and held them close, because for too long they’ve felt like the only things I’ve had in my life. Until you.”

“You say you don’t want to be that man, riddled with distrust and fear. You don’t have to be him. The past can never be changed, but the future can be whatever you want it to be. Because you have a choice. You just have to make the right one. Just like I have to.”

Luca pulled a sheaf of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket and held it up.

“What—?”

“I got a call earlier, and I was sent this. I’ve got a decision to make. Read it.” Luca thrust it forward, snatching his hand back when Adrian took it.

The paper was folded and creased. Opening it up, glancing at Luca, he smoothed it out and began to read.

All the woodland sounds faded to nothing, overtaken by the pounding of his heart and the deep rush of blood in his veins. His skin flashed hot and cold as a heavy, suffocating weight pressed against his chest. He’d turned to stone, unable to move, as he forced himself, a pure act of willpower, to not only read the words blurring beneath his watery vision, but to understand and fear them more than he’d feared anything in his life.

Career defining… unparalleled opportunity… as soon as possible… Australia…

The paper slipped from Adrian’s fingers, fluttering to the woodland floor.

“The job I rejected, it’s become available again. What do I tell them, Adrian, what the fuck do I tell them?”

“You know what I want you to tell them. Luca, for Christ’s sake, I don’t want you to go, because I want you here, with me, because you’re more than anything I’ve ever wanted. Harry said something. He said I was better when you were around. And he’s right, I am a better man when you’re with me. I want to be that man, but I can only be him if I’m with you. Luca, please. I want us to have a life together. And we can, I know it.” Adrian’s voice broke. He stumbled forward, stopping just scant inches from Luca.

“Then you have to make me believe in that. You have to make me believe that you trust me to be honest and truthful, to not lie to you, not deceive you. You have to make me believe we can have a future together, Adrian. You have to make me believe the past is just that — something that’s gone and is over with.

“I told you I love you, and I meant every word. I’ve never loved anybody the way I love you, and I never will. But without trust, which underpins everything, how can we have that life together?”

Thunder crashed through the sky, a blinding explosion of lightening on its tail, the split second enough to illuminate all the sadness, all the heartbreak in Luca’s eyes. He’d done that to Luca, him, and as the thunder raged above them Adrian made the vow to never, ever make this man look at him with such desolation again.

Another thunder clap, another flash of light, bringing with it hard, driving rain and pummelling wind. Pulling Luca tight into his arms, hugging him so close their bodies melded together, Adrian brought his lips to Luca’s ear.

“I love you, Luca. I love you so fucking much it hurts. I will do anything, be anyone you want me to be, if it means I keep you here with me.”

Luca pulled himself free, his chest rising and falling in rapid breaths. Rain soaked, his hair pushed flat against his head, face flushed, and his eyes no longer dull and flat but bright and vibrant, everything about him charged and challenging. Adrian had never known Luca so beautiful, wild, and alive.

“Then trust me, Adrian. Just fucking trust me.”