Page 50 of Trouble in Love
My brave, strong girl shook her head then buried it into my chest.
“No. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have been there.”
With my arms wrapped around her trembling body, I let her cry against me, and only when her sobs subsided did I ask, “I say this not to blame or shame you, but why didn’t you tell Evie or anyone what really happened? It could have changed everything for you.”
“Because I deserved it. I’d wanted positive attention my whole life and finally … I was finally getting it. I didn’t care if itwas good or bad, or made me out to be a total slut. I just wanted someone—anyone—to see me.” Her voice cracked and again, her body crumpled in on itself. It was a palpable, physical reaction. Like the pressure valve holding in the air of truth for so many for years was finally giving way.
“And I was just so angry and jealous of her. I knew if I had fought him … If I had been a little louder and stronger like she was, it wouldn’t have happened. But for seventeen-year-old me it was easier to blame Evie than the boy I had loved since I was twelve. I just kept thinking, if Evie hadn’t said no … If she had let him ... and I don’t know if you’ve ever found this, but to me, the more you lie to yourself, the easier it becomes to believe. Then one day, you can hardly remember what really happened. The lie has become your truth. That’s why I can’t trust anyone, because I don’t trust myself to know fact from fiction.”
Though I’d never experienced anything like it, and many without an empathetic bone in their bodies might still disagree, Polly’s reasoning was understandable. I thought of Clara. I thought of what I’d have been willing to forgive if she’d had finally looked at me the way I did her. I would have given anything. I would have walked through fire to get just a glimmer of want.Wouldbeing the operative word.
Now, there was only one person I wanted to look at me like that—and she was sitting on my lap. A beautiful, flawed, tower of strength I had to help. I had to make mine.
Polly
Nate Myers once drunkenly lay on his timber porch and asked me to fix him. I could do nothing of the sort because there was nothing to fix. For thirteen years, no one—not a single soul apart from Luke of course—knew my secret. But there I was, bad girl Polly and my broken shell of a body that was promised to another man, silently begging Luca to do the same for me.
To fix me. To forgive and heal me.
Unlike Nate, Iwasdamaged goods—and now Luca knew it.
Revealing the filthy little pieces that littered my rotten core—my unforgivable crimes, the crap with Mum, the childhood weight problems and the lingering body insecurities, all those juicy little nuggets—were supposed to scare him away. But the more he listened, the closer I got to a truth I’d long tried to forget. The more I confessed, the more desperate I became for him to stay. Then, in a secondunforgivablesin, I fell asleep atop Luca in my father’s greenhouse.
Hours later I woke up in my room … in my bed … alone. Naturally, I presumed the worst, that Luca had carried me in, orhad my father do it, then run. But after crying till I made myself sick, and rushing to the bathroom to do just that, I found him sitting beside my precious free-standing bathtub on a step stool he must have taken from the kitchen, as it filled with steaming-hot water and glistening bubbles.
“Good morning, Princess,” he smiled, as he looked up from the newspaper.
“What? What are you doing here? What do you mean good morning?”
Whatever bullshit the Murdoch press was feeding the world crumpled at Luca’s feet as he stood, leaned over the bath, and turned off the faucet, watching me over his shoulder the whole time. “You slept all day and night, Pol. It’s 7 a.m. Sunday.” Once upright, his huge hands found me, circling my wrist and pulling me into his chest. On impulse, I inhaled deeply.Soap. Hair gel. Sweat..Damn, why did he have to smell so good? “I was going to wake you after I filled the bath. In truth, I wanted to yesterday when your mom came home, but she said something about your cousin flying in from Greece and it being a miracle sent by God for you to sleep that long.”
What. The. Fuck.
Something, perhaps my cold, cold heart, stirred in my chest. “You ran me a bath? You met my mum?”
“I did, and I have.” He smiled. “She’s quite something. I always thought facing a girl’s dad would be the most daunting thing, but she went and proved me wrong.”
Seriously.What. The. Fuck.
“I can’t believe you talked to her. And that you’re still here … and breathing.”
“I did. And I am. And I’m probably … definitely … not supposed to be. I snuck back in about ten seconds after I waved your parents goodbye. Took me a while to find you, though. There’s an awful lot of doors in this house, Pol.”
On a huffed laugh, he pressed a kiss to my forehead, lingering a beat or two before pulling away with a groan that implied it was the last thing he wanted to do. “Now, I’m going to leave you in peace. The bath is ready, and loaded with bubbles and crystals, and lots of girly junk, and when your mum and dad left about thirty minutes ago, I snuck downstairs, got you some juice and made you vegemite toast.” He pointed to a tray I hadn’t noticed sitting on the vanity and screwed his face in disgust. “How they hell you guys can eat that … stuff is beyond me, but hey, I would eat SPAM straight from the can. Who the hell am I to judge?”
As I stood there, feeling like an idiot and shifting my gaze between Luca and the breakfast he had so thoughtfully prepared, I noticed one more thing. “There are flowers on the tray. Who … who got the flowers?”
“Me. And they’re still purple, obviously, but they’re not weeds this time. I checked.”
“Hyacinths,” I whispered, “I love them, Luca. Thank you.” The giant, sweet man who had really, annoyingly burrowed further beneath my skin—who’d witnessed the darkness within me and stayed despite it—and who Ihadto say goodbye to, nodded in agreement and began to move away. It wouldn’t do. Desperate to keep him with me for just a little while longer, I fisted the hem of his shirt and lunged. “Stay. Please. Everything is going to change after today. Please just stay with me.”
His eyes roamed my face as he towered over me. “Nothing is going to change unless you want it to. I’m not leaving. Not yet anyway.”
I let my head fall against his chest, breathing him in before meeting his gaze again. “Hop in with me?” A stupid, useless tear spilled free, and Luca looked almost pained as he whipped it away with his thumb.
“Princess, I can’t.”
“Please, Luca. I know you might be disgusted by me now—.”
