but he didn’t look happy about it. He looked grim.
Max stood up, rising with athletic grace. ‘My flight leaves in a couple of hours. I have to go.’
Serena stood up too. ‘Thank you so much. This means...a lot.’
Max inclined his head before sending an enigmatic look to his brother. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
Luca nodded. They didn’t embrace or shake hands before Max left, striding out with that same confident grace as his brother.
When he was gone, Serena sank down onto the chair, her head in a spin. She looked at Luca, barely taking in that he looked a little pale, his face all lean lines. ‘How...? Why did you ask him to do this?’
He sighed heavily. ‘Because I owed it to you to find out the truth. After all, you’ve been nothing but honest with me. The fact is that I think I suspected you were innocent in the jungle. This just proves that you were as much a victim as I was. You deserve to have your life back, Serena. And you deserve to have the slate cleared too. My lawyers and my PR team will make sure this is in all the papers.’
Serena felt an almost overwhelming surge of emotion to think that Luca was going out of his way to clear her name too. Perhaps now people wouldn’t always associate her with feckless debauchery.
Treacherously, this made her hope for too much, even when The End was written into every tense line of Luca’s body. Clearly he just wanted to move on now.
It made her want to push him away again, for making her feel too much. For making her fall in love. Damn him.
‘And if Max hadn’t found the culprit so easily? Would you have believed me anyway?’
Luca stood up and paced behind his desk, his white shirt pulled across his chest, trousers hugging slim hips. Just like that, heat flared in Serena’s solar plexus.
He stopped and looked at her. ‘Yes.’
Serena cursed herself for pushing him. She hated herself for the doubt, for thinking that he was lying. And then she had to concede that Luca didn’t lie. He was too moral. Too damn good.
She stood up again, her legs wobbly. ‘Well, thank you for finding out.’
Luca looked at her for a long moment, and then he said, ‘Serena—’
She put up her hand, because she couldn’t bear for him to say it. ‘Wait. I have something I need to tell you first.’
His mouth closed and he folded his arms across his chest. Serena knew she couldn’t be anything else other than completely honest. She had been through too much soul-searching to ever want to hide away from pain again. She might never see him again. The urge to tell him how she felt was rising like an unstoppable wave.
‘I’ve fallen in love with you, Luca.’
He looked at her, and as she watched, the colour leached from his face. She broke apart inside, but was determined not to show it.
‘I know it’s the last thing you want to hear. We were only ever about...’ she stalled ‘...not that...and I know it’s over.’
She gestured with a hand to where Max had been sitting.
‘After this...we owe each other nothing. And I’m sorry again that your association with me made things bad for you.’
Luca unfolded his arms and slashed a hand in the air, looking angry. ‘You don’t have to apologise—if I hadn’t been so caught up in blaming you, I would have ensured a proper investigation was carried out years ago. You had to suffer the stigma of those accusations too.’
Serena smiled bitterly. ‘I was used to it, though. I had no reputation to defend.’
‘No—your father took care of that.’
Responsibility weighed heavily on her shoulders. ‘I have to go home... I have to tell people about my father—see that he’s brought to justice finally.’
‘If there’s anything you need help with, please let me know.’
Her heart twisted. So polite. So courteous. A million miles from their first meeting in this office. And even though she knew her own family would be there to back her up, she felt an awful quiver of vulnerability—because, really, the only person she wanted by her side the day she faced her father again was Luca.
But that scenario was not to be part of her future.
She hitched up her chin and tried to block out the fact that she’d told Luca she loved him and had received no similar declaration in return. That fantasy belonged deep where she harboured dreams of the kind of fulfilment and happiness she saw her sister experiencing with her family. But at least she could take one good thing with her.
‘Are you still going to give me a job?’
‘Of course—wherever you want,’ Luca said quickly, making another piece of Serena’s heart shatter. He was obviously that eager to see her go.
‘I’d like to go back to Athens today.’
Luca said tightly, ‘Laura will arrange it for you.’
‘Thank you.’
So clipped, so polite.
Before anger could rise at Luca’s non-reaction to her baring her soul to him, she turned to leave.
She was at the door before she heard a broken-sounding, ‘Serena...’
Heart thumping, hope spiralling, Serena turned around. Luca looked tortured.
But he said only two words. ‘I’m sorry.’
Her heart sank like a stone. She knew he didn’t love her, but she marvelled that the human spirit was such an irrepressibly optimistic thing even in the face of certain disappointment.
She forced a smile. ‘Don’t be. You’ve given me the gift of discovering how strong I am.’
* * *
You’ve given me the gift of discovering how strong I am.
Luca was stuck in a state of paralysis for so long after Serena left that he had to blink and focus to realise that Laura was in his office and speaking to him, looking worried.
‘Senhor Fonseca? Are you all right?’
And as if he’d been holding something at bay, it ripped through him then, stunning and painful in its intensity, like warmth seeping into frozen limbs. Burning.
‘No,’ he issued curtly, going over to his drinks cabinet and helping himself to a shot of whisky.
When he turned around, Laura’s eyes were huge and she was pale. And Luca knew he was coming apart at the seams.
He forced himself not to snarl at the girl, but the pain inside him was almost crippling. ‘What is it?’
Laura stuttered, making him feel even worse. ‘It’s—it’s Miss DePiero. I just thought you’d want to know she’s on her way to the airport. She’s booked first class on a flight to Athens this afternoon.’
‘Thank you,’ Luca bit out. ‘I’m going to be unavailable for the rest of the day. Please cancel all my appointments. Go home early if you want.’
Laura blinked and said faintly, ‘Yes, sir.’ And then backed away as if he might explode.
He waited until Laura had left and then left himself, knowing nothing more than that he needed to get out—get away. Because he felt like a wounded animal that might lash out and cause serious harm.
He was aware of one or two people approaching him as he walked out of the building, but they quickly diverted when they saw his face. He walked and walked without even knowing where he was going until he realised he was at Ipanema Beach. Where he’d taken Serena just a few days ago.
The