Chapter 239
-LUCA-
I left the table to find Marco before my mother announced a wedding date over the fruit plate.
The corridor was busy. Staff. Guests. Someone laughing too loudly near the lifts.
I turned the corner and walked into a woman I had not seen in years.
Not one of the women I had slept with.
Paloma Voss.
I had a crush on her before I became famous. Before anyone shouted my name or even knew me.
She had been on every billboard in Milan when I was still nobody with a kart and a bad haircut.
Charlotte used to steal my phone just to find the saved photos. She used to do the voice. Luca, look at me, I am a perfume advertisement. She used to threaten to print my favorite campaign and tape it over my
bed.
I did not feel it now.
The old heat was gone.
She blushed the second she saw me.
Then she recognized me.
“Luca Vescari,” she said, already smiling. “I’m a huge fan.”
“Really?” I asked. “You were famous long before me.”
She smiled wider. “Then you know who I am.”
I nodded. “Paloma Voss. I had a poster. Don’t make me admit which campaign.”
“I know which one,” she admitted, pleased. “Everyone pretends it wasn’t that specific one.”
“I can’t say. I don’t know which one you’re referring to.”
She laughed, soft, professional, a little too interested. “You look better in person than on the podium. I didn’t think that was possible.”
“Thanks? I guess.”
I glanced past her shoulder.
Charlotte could walk out of that restaurant at any second. Looking for me. Looking for drinks I had not brought back the first time.
If she saw this-Paloma standing too close, smiling like that, she would get the wrong idea. The deal was
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new. Exclusive. No one else. I was not about to let a billboard from my teenage years look like I was already breaking it.
“And you’re used to winning.” Paloma’s eyes flicked over my face, then my mouth. “I watched the last race. The crash. Then the win. That was insane. You make it look like a movie.”
“It didn’t feel like a movie.”
“Still. You walked away without a scratch and then you took the race. That’s…attractive.”
She said it the way models said things. Open. Practised. Not shy about wanting a conversation to turn into a drink.
I was not flirting.
Definitely not after the rule I had made with Charlotte.
Leaving mid-sentence felt rude, and my brain was half on. Marco and half on the girl I had just fucked in a bathroom because another man made her laugh. I was not thinking properly.
“You’re in town for work?” I asked, taking half a step back.
She closed the gap anyway.
“Campaign. The hotel booked me for three days. I didn’t know you’d be in the same building. Fate has a sense of humour.”
Fate.
“Hotels have a sense of booking.”
She laughed like I had been charming on purpose.
I had not.
I could smell her perfume. The old crush would have died here. Sixteen year old Luca would have forgotten how to speak. Charlotte would have filmed it and titled the video he malfunctioned upon first meeting.
The current version of me only noticed it was not Charlotte’s shampoo. Not the suite. Not the body I had marked this morning.
“We should catch up,” Paloma said. “Properly. Dinner. No cameras if you hate that. Or cameras if you don’t. I’m flexible.”
Her fingers brushed my sleeve.
I moved my arm.
Fuck no.
I was not losing what I had with Charlotte over a poster and a compliment.
“I’m not free.”
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
“Someone already claimed the winner?”
Something like that.”
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She tipped her head, still smiling. “Lucky someone. She must be very sure of herself, leaving you alone in a hallway for models like me to find.”
I almost said she’s downstairs. I almost said her name.
I almost said if she sees this she’ll think I wanted it and I would hate myself.
I saw Marco over her shoulder instead.
Standing near the café like a man who had been hit by a serious thought. What had him looking so confused?
“I have to go,” I said. “It was nice talking to you.”
“Luca-”
“Good luck with the campaign.”
I left her in the hallway with the unfinished invitation and the kind of smile that used to ruin my sleep.
It did nothing now.
Marco did not even notice me until I was next to him.
He was staring.
At a girl at the counter ordering food like he knew her.
Who was she?
Not Beatrice. A stained shirt. The posture of someone who would fight a waiter over a receipt.
“Why are you just staring at that girl ordering food?” I asked,
Marco did not look away. “I don’t know why. I find her fascinating. She’s weird. She cries if her food spills. She loves food a lot. I don’t know why I can’t get her out of my mind.”
I laughed.
Could not help it.
This from the man who had just been glued to a future doctor at breakfast.
“Do you remember Beatrice?” I said. “The girl currently waiting on you. The one our mother plans on you marrying.”
Marco sighed. Long. Tired.
“I’ve been thinking of ways to get out of this,” he said. “I’m considering entering a contract marriage with a girl who doesn’t like me. That way it would get mother off my back. I’d already be married.”
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I stared at him.
Then I looked at the girl at the counter again.
She took a bag from the barista like it was treasure. Marco watched the bag more carefully than he had, watched Beatrice all morning.
“You’ll really go through all of that trouble instead of telling her you don’t want to marry Beatrice?”
He gave me a look I knew from childhood.
“I know her. I know how persistent she can be. I was never good at telling her no. Not like you.”
He was not wrong.
I told our mother the truth and let the explosion happen. He absorbed it and smiled even when it hurt.
I also knew that look on his face.
“Do whatever you think works for you,” I said.
He nodded once, still watching the girl.
“She doesn’t even know who I am,” he muttered.
The girl buying food?
“That’s why you’re interested in her.”
“Possibly.”
“A contract with a stranger who hates you is a terrible plan.”
“So is Beatrice.”
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I clapped his shoulder. “Come back upstairs before she starts naming grandchildren after medical schools.”
Marco finally turned away from the counter.
Not all the way.
Enough to walk.
I glanced back once.
Paloma Voss was still at the far end of the hall.
She lifted her fingers in a small wave.
I did not wave back.
If Charlotte had come looking, all she would have seen was me walking away.
That was the only version I wanted her to see. I wouldn’t do anything to screw up what we had.
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The Mockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
Dex Morgan
Dex works to elevate each story with clean writing, emotional balance, and thoughtful flow for readers.