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Chapter Fourteen
Luca
Bringing my eyes up from my coffee cup, I stare out of the soft blue window-panes and look onto my yard. It’s perfectly landscaped with an infinity pool that goes to the edge of the hill, overlooking the ocean and a hot tub sits at the front of the pool, giving the perfect view.
I should be happy with everything in life, and yet, I stand here sipping this espresso and contemplate the choices I’ve made over the last three days. I pulled Elena close only to walk out on her, avoided her for days on end to try and put a buffer between what I don’t want to admit is pulling me to her, and invited some of my closest colleagues over to use her like one of the whores from the brothels we have fun with from time to time. Yet, at the end of the night I allowed her to sleep in my bed, holding her close to my body and called her my queen.
To say I’m twenty levels of fucked up is an understatement, but I’ve always been this way. There have been very few things I’ve been sure of in life, but Elena is something that continues to throw me off my game every time I’m around her.
I’m not stupid —I know what my actions last night have done. She will never love me now, and it’s the one thing I’ve tasked her with—to love me. Though, how can I ask this of her when I’ve treated her in such a manner? This is what I do, though. I push the women I want to cherish me, away in some fashion. I did it to Mariana all those years ago and here I am now, doing the same with Elena.
Fuck, when I think about it I’ve always had to constantly compete to be something better than who I am. Even as a young man my mother would constantly compare me to Isaac, telling me how I was too much like my father. Isaac was the perfect gentleman, the gold-hearted one, essentially everything I could never be. I only wonder if his death has caused our mother to love me more, or if she weeps for my weakling brother who couldn’t even have the courage to inform our parents he was gay and live the life he should’ve been living. Instead, he chose to live a lie. What for? The Clans? For pleasing our parents? If Isaac had only told them . . . then things could’ve been so different. He’d still be alive.
The clicking sounds of shoes against the tile floor forces me to turn and see who’s entered the kitchen. I shouldn’t be surprised. Migual is standing on the other side of the island with his hands behind his back, like the perfect household staff member should be posed, “Is there anything I can do for you, Luca?”
Placing my hand up in the air, I brush him off. “No, I’m fine. Thank you, Migual.” Out of any staff member I have in the house, Migual is the only one I can stand to be around. He knows my quirks and what sets me off. He’s the diamond in the rough of butlers, so to speak.
Migual stands in my kitchen, not moving an inch. “Luca, I know you better than that. You cannot simply brush me off. Something is on your mind.”
I nod, take a sip of my espresso and look to someone who I view as a friend. “What is wrong with me?”
Migual narrows his brows, sucking in a deep breath. “Well, there is nothing wrong with you. There are only things wrong with the world we live in.”
A haze comes over me when I decide to inquire more, “But there must be something wrong with me, to continue doing this . . . to find a woman who could replace the love I’ve always had for Mariana. Why do I do this Migual? Why do I treat them this way?”
Migual ventures closer to me and I see his eyes scanning over the counters. He purses his lips together for a moment after his eyes fall on something I didn’t want him to see, but I knew he’d figure it out after some point. “Nothing is wrong with you, Luca. You have a . . . misconstrued viewpoint on love, but it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. If anything, your childhood and the issues you had with the tough love your family made you endure molded you in this way —to show your darkness before you allow others to see the real you. It doesn’t make something wrong with you. It simply makes you unique. Now . . . how many pills did you take?”
I know he spotted the old prescription painkiller bottle I had on the counter. I should’ve been smarter and put it up, but like every time I do this, I didn’t think that far ahead. “I just wanted the pain to go away, for just a while.” I tell my friend, reaching out for him, but as I reach to Migual my body plummets forward and slams against the floor.
The last thing I remember is Migual screaming for Elena.
Elena, my queen, the woman I want so desperately to care about me.
But . . . can she, when I’m so terrified for her to love me?
