Chapter 209
HARLOTTE-
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I walked out of the bedroom the next morning and found Luca passed out on the couch with bottles all around him.
I could not believe he had drunk that much.
Glass on the coffee table. An empty bottle on its side near his hand. The smell of last night still sitting in the suite like it had nowhere else to go.
I cleaned up the mess first. Glass. The smell. Whatever dirt I could see. I sprayed air freshener until the room stopped smelling like regret.
Then I took a cloth, wet it, wrung it out, and knelt next to him.
I was used to taking care of him. That would not change just because I was upset. Because he had kissed me like I was the only woman alive and then run like kissing me was the worst thing he could have done.
I cleaned his forehead first. Slow. Careful. Then his neck, where the pulse still jumped under my fingers. Then I went around his eyes, his nose, his cheeks.
He looked younger like this. Softer. Nothing like the man who had lifted me against a wall and groaned into my mouth like he was starving.
I stopped at his lips.
Luca had the prettiest mouth I had ever seen on a man. If I had the chance, I would kiss it all day. I would kiss it until he stopped running.
I inwardly groaned. Even while taking care of him, my thoughts did not want to behave.
He grabbed my wrist while I was cleaning his lips.
I gasped.
His eyes opened.
There was so much emotion in them I felt like I could not breathe. He gave me this tortured look that kicked the air right out of me.
The kind of look that tore at my heart before I could put a wall up.
What was he doing to me? Why was he looking at me like that after walking out? Why could I not stay angry?
His fingers tightened around my wrist. Not hard. Just enough that I felt every point of contact.
“I don’t want to lose you.”
He swallowed hard. I watched his throat work. The muscle in his jaw. His eyes searched my face like he was trying not to say the wrong thing and still saying the only true thing he had left.
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I was not expecting that.
pulse sped up so fast I was sure he could feel it under his thumb.
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“So when I say things arè complicated, and I’m not giving you what you’re asking for, it’s not that I don’t want to.” His voice was wrecked. Morning rough. Honest in a way that hurt more than last night. “It’s that I don’t want to do something that could lead to me lusing you.”
I could not breathe.
Him saying it like that made my heart race for a different reason. I had been so busy being/rejected I had not sat still long enough to see it from his side.
Why he kept refusing the sex I kept asking for. Why he had torn his mouth off mine when we were already halfway gone.
“You’re the most important person in my life.”
He had never said that to me before.
I felt like I was somewhere up in the clouds and falling at the same time.
The most important person in his life.
I did not realize how much I meant to him until the words were sitting between us in the quiet, with some bottles still on the floor and my cloth still damp in my other hand.
“So please, Charlotte.” His thumb moved once against the inside of my wrist.
A small, unconscious stroke that made my stomach drop. “Do not be angry with me over this. Let’s go back to how it was and pretend none of it happened. Please. For me. I think that would be best for both of us.”
How could I say no when he was asking me like this?
I sat on the edge of the couch. His fingers stayed loose around my wrist. Morning light on the glass window cut across both of our faces.
His hair was a mess. The man who had pinned me to the wall last night looked wrecked and honest in a way that hurt more than the rejection.
I could still feel last night on my skin if I let myself. His mouth. His groan. The hard press of him. How he had said my name like it cost him something.
I made myself look at him anyway.
“Okay,” I whispered.
It came out small. Like I wasn’t sure I had another option.
“Okay?” he asked, like he needed it twice. Like he needed to make sure I was truly all right and not just giving him the answer that would let him breathe.
His eyes did not leave mine. I watched his chest rise. Fall. Rise again, too fast for a man who had just gotten what he wanted.
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“We can pretend.” I pulled my hand back gently.
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he loss of his fingers felt louder than it should have. “I’ll be the woman by your side making sure you are okay. You be the idiot who wins races. We don’t talk about what happened at your parents’ house, Or last night. Or anything that came from that night.”
He shut his eyes.
Relief first.
Then something else. Something that looked like grief if I stared too long.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.” I wrung out the cloth because I needed something to do with my hands. “I’m doing it because you clearly need this. Not because it didn’t happen.”
I kept my voice even. I did not know how. “It happened. And you still upset me. But maybe you’re right. Maybe we should keep things normal between us.”
“Char-”
“Go shower. You smell bad.” I stood before I could lean down and kiss the mouth I was supposed to forget. The urge was so sharp it made my hands shake. “And drink water that isn’t in a bottle with a label. I’ll order food. You eat it. We go to the track later like professionals. You need to practice. Especially since you haven’t been doing that recently.”
He sat up slowly. Winced. One hand went to his temple. The other stayed on the cushion where my wrist had been, like he had not noticed he was still reaching.
He nodded.
I went to the kitchen with my pulse still racing.
Most important person in his life.
Pretend none of it happened.
I could do that with my face.
I was not sure I could do it with the rest of me.
I ordered food I would not taste. I poured water. I wiped the counter that did not need wiping. Every
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sound from the bathroom made my shoulders tighten. The shower running. Then a draw opening. Then his footsteps.
When he came out he looked more like himself and less like the man who had fallen asleep in his clothes. Damp hair. Clean shirt. Eyes that still found me too fast.
We did not speak.
Someone knocked.
Luca opened the door.
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Marco shouted something about breakfast like the world was back to normal. Then he peered past his brother and found me.
“You two fixed the problem?”
“We’re fine,” I said.
The word fine sat on my tongue like a lie I had agreed to live in.
Luca looked at me across the suite.
I felt it. The weight of it. The way his gaze dragged over my mouth before he forced it away.
I looked at the ground instead.
Friends.
I would wear it until it fit again.
Even if last night’s kiss still lived in my mouth and would not leave.
Even if he had told me I was the most important person in his life and then asked me to pretend that meant nothing.
Even if my body begged to have him at least once.
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128 Fri, Sep 25 J1
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
Dex Morgan
Dex works to elevate each story with clean writing, emotional balance, and thoughtful flow for readers.