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“If she’s pregnant, I don’t think it’s my baby,” I told her. “I wore protection, and it didn’t break. There was nothing wrong with the condom, I swear.”
“That doesn’t mean shit,” Dad snapped. “You could still be the father.”
“We don’t even know if this girl is pregnant or not,” Mom tried to cut in. “I remember this Megan girl. She’s a leech. I knew she was going to be trouble the minute I saw her.”
“Who the mother is doesn’t matter right now,” Dad growled. “The boy had sex with her. He can’t turn his back on his responsibility to this kid if it is his.”
“I won’t,” I promised him. “If she is pregnant, and by some chance it is mine, I’ll do my part. I won’t abandon my kid.”
“Good,” Mom said, her voice soothing. “And if she is and you are, then we will do all we can to gain custody of the baby.”
“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it,” Aunt Emmie told her. “For now, I need all the information you have on this girl, Luca. The more I know about her, the better.”
“I don’t know anything about her,” I said with frustration. “I don’t even like this chick. I was drunk and pissed and hurt, and I did something stupid and I lost—” I broke off, needing a moment to collect myself before I burst out crying. “I lost the only good thing in the world because of it.”
“Violet knows?” All three of them exclaimed at the same time.
“Not about the baby thing, but yeah,” I admitted.
“And Shane hasn’t killed you yet?” Dad laughed dryly. “That girl is unbelievable. Violet loves your dumb ass so much—even though you must have torn her apart with this shit, she’s still protecting you.”
He didn’t have to tell me that. She didn’t have to protect me. She could have told her dad and mine the instant she got back to California after finding out about Megan. I would have had a price on my head the second the words left her mouth. But she hadn’t.
Her protecting me had given me hope. A hope that burned to ashes the moment Megan showed up outside my dorm, telling me she was pregnant.
Now, as I looked up at Violet from where I was on my knees on the wet sand while the cold waves pushed against me unrelentingly, I knew I’d been deluding myself. Telling Mom and Dad had not been the hardest thing I’d ever had to do.
This was.
Watching the love I’d always seen in Violet’s beautiful purple eyes turn to hate as the sun began to fade over the ocean. Seeing her pain, her disgust and loathing of me. It made it hard to breathe. I’d ruined everything, but worse than that, I had broken the only girl in the world who would ever own my soul.
“I love you,” I choked out, needing her to know that my heart still belonged to her.
“Liar.” She shoved at my shoulders, but I was frozen in place, unable to move. “If you loved me, you never would have touched Megan. If you loved me, you would have listened to me when I tried to tell you about Cannon. If you loved me, you never would have hurt me like this.” She shoved me again. “You are nothing but a selfish little boy living in a man’s body. I don’t know how I never saw it before or how I could overlook it. At this point, I can’t even remember what I ever loved about you, Luca.”
Each word that left her lips lashed across my flesh like a steel-tipped whip, ripping away my flesh.
“I would have given you everything. Every fucking part of myself. And I never once asked for anything in return except that you love me just as much as I loved you. But you couldn’t even do that.” She pushed at me a third time, and when I was still unmovable, she clenched her hands into fists and started pounding them against my chest. I welcomed the blows. They didn’t hurt. No physical pain could ever hurt as badly as it did to hear the words leaving her mouth. “You are fucking pathetic.”
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed, catching her around the hips and burying my face against her waist. “Baby, I’m so sorry.”
“Your sorry is worthles
s to me. I hate you!” She punched me again, trying to get me to release her as she struggled and screamed at me. “I hate you and I hate myself, because I still love you.”
“Baby, please.” I would beg her a million times if she would only give me one more chance. I wouldn’t hurt her ever again. I would spend the rest of my life making up for all the shit I’d put her through. If she wanted, I would give up everything, including football. I’d find another way to support the life she deserved without having to touch either of our trust funds. The only thing that mattered to me was her.
Without her, I was less than nothing. Just an empty shell walking around as I had been for the past few months.
“Let me go, Luca,” she commanded, but my arms only tightened around her, knowing if I released her, I was never going to get her back. “I said, let me go!” she screamed.
“Luca!”
I pressed my face against her harder, trying to drown out my brother’s voice. “I love you. I’ll give you anything you want. Give up anything you ask me to. Please, baby.”
She was fighting against me, her nails scratching over the sides of my face, my neck, my shoulders, and arms. Any skin she could reach, she sliced with her nails in an attempt to get me to release her. “Let me go,” she sobbed. “You’re no better than Cannon. Let me go!”
Being compared to the guy who physically harmed her had me jerking back, but I still held on to her, unable to relinquish the chance to touch her. “I would never hurt you like he did,” I vowed.
