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“Shamefully.”
“There’s nothing wrong with safety, Lucas.”
“Oh, it gets worse.” He released her hand and spun his coffee mug. “Emmaline. I saw her as a…status symbol. Pale skin. Prestigious family. Medical background. The problem was, Emmaline only knew the lie of Lucas Saraci, so she was very vocal about what she thought of certain people.”
“And you never corrected her.”
He shook his head. “No. I thought I needed her. I thought that, if I married her, I’d finally feel…accepted. My entire life had been a lot of looking over my shoulder, hoping no one figured out who I really was. I figured that, with Emmaline, I could build on that fake life until it felt real. But it got worse. I had to pretend out there,” he motioned to a window,“andat home. I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t as bad as she was as long as I never chimed in. Then, one day, when we were out, we spotted Osman.”
“Ozzie from the clinic?”
He sighed, his shoulders rising and falling. “Yeah. He noticed me, and he was having chest pains, so he came over. Emmaline saw him first, and with how she talked to him, I turned around expecting to see a rabid raccoon or fox, but it was Ozzie. And, only days before this, Raina, I told him he could come to me if he needed anything. So he did…and I walked away. Then, on the way home, she kept talking about it. Talking about how she’s ‘not free healthcare.’ How skills like mine and hers would be wasted on someone like Ozzie.”
“That’s the woman you lived with?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’m sure it probably only made it worse that she was talking about your father.”
His head jerked back.
“It’s the eyes, Lucas.” She circled her face. “They’re a favorite trait of mine on you, so the minute I spotted Ozzie, I knew.”
“I don’t hate him. I used to until I learned that he was sick, not a selfish bastard.” The corner of his mouth turned up in a smile that lasted less than a second. “Ozzie has trauma. He’s never shared what he’s gone through, but I can tell it’s complex and deep-seated, which leads him to dissociate. He walked away from our family when I was thirteen, but it was never another woman or anything like that. He just wandered off. At first, he’d leave for weeks. Then months. Eventually, my mother put him out, and to deal with it, he turned to alcohol. We stopped seeing him after that, and I didn’t see him from age fifteen to until he showed up at the clinic when I was thirty-five.”
“Does he know you’re his son?”
“Not always. I’ve been seeing signs of alcohol-related dementia for a while now. When he does remember me, he’s always excited to learn about my life. Calls me ‘son’ or Lucas orbabacigim, ba-ba-jih-ihm, which means ‘my dear father.’ In Turkish, it’s what a father would call his child.” He yanked her from her chair onto his lap and kissed her chin. “Thank you for listening to me ramble.”
“I enjoy learning about you.”
“I really missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
She felt him smile against her skin.
“Does our relationship feel strained?” she asked. “Like how it was with Emmaline.”
“Not at all.” He trailed kisses down to her neck and then traced her neck with the tip of his nose. “I think Adam might have knifed me if I didn’t find you. This man had to hear me talk about you, every day, for months before Vegas.”
“What kinds of things did you say about me?”
“How I wanted to choke you.”
“Mmm, sexy.”
“Bathe you in hot oil.”
“I’m so turned on.”
He laughed. “I couldn’t understand my attraction to you. You called me a vampire and basically told me to get the hell away from you. But the entire time you were chewing me out, I was rearranging dinner reservations in my head. With you, Rai, everything feels right. You tell me how you feel. You tell me when I’m wrong. You’re your own person. And you’re okay with me knowing Warren G.”
“Emmaline would’ve clutched her pearls?”
“I don’t care anymore.” He locked his fingers at the base of her spine. “You didn’t have to know who I was to treat me like shit, and I appreciated that.”
She burst out laughing. “Oh, so I’m an equal opportunity offender?”
