Luca's Bad Girl - By Amy Andrews Page 0,54

too deeply both by her mother and by her own refusal to have anything to do with him over the years.

‘I did. But it was too late … the damage had been done. And he had three little children who adored him. Frankly, I was a painful memory that he’d put away in a box somewhere.’

The rawness in her voice caught him somewhere right in the middle. His solar plexus. His heart? His family’s abandonment of him seemed to pale in comparison. At least he’d been older, more emotionally equipped to deal with it. ‘I’m sorry. That can’t have been a good time in your life. Especially when you were in the middle of your studies.’

Mia gave a little laugh. ‘You could say I went off the rails for a while there. A lot of booze and partying. A lot of hooking up with men who I always thought wanted more but were only out for casual sex. Which led to more drinking.’

Ah, so that’s what she’d been referring to when she’d told him she’d once liked alcohol a little too much. And maybe it also explained her reluctance to get involved in anything more than a one-nighter. Mia had taken firm control of her life.

‘You did well to stop the spiral,’ he commented. Mia nodded. Luca had chosen a good word. She had been spiralling. Into self-doubt and self-loathing. Each new man, each drink, had made her feel more and more sullied.

‘I failed a major exam. Had to resit it. It scared me silly. I suddenly realised that there was no point throwing away my future over a past I couldn’t change.’

Luca nodded. ‘Yes.’ It was a lesson he’d had to learn too. ‘It seems you and I have a lot in common.’

‘Oh?’ Mia quirked an eyebrow as she looked at him again. ‘You got all boozy and floozy too?’

Luca chuckled. ‘No. Well, no more than any other angry young man, I suppose. It took a while to realise that I couldn’t change what had happened. To accept that my family were never going to take me back. But once I did, it sort of freed me a little.’

Mia studied his face. ‘So that’s it, you’re totally Zen with the whole thing?’

Luca smiled. ‘No, not totally. Let’s just say I’m a work in progress.’

Mia’s heart filled her chest as she smiled back. ‘Guess that makes two of us.’

They smiled at each other for a moment then Brian groaned. Mia checked his pulses as Luca administered another small dose of morphine. And when they sat back down again they settled into a companionable silence, each caught in their own thoughts.

Mia yawned. ‘We should get some sleep,’ Luca suggested.

She nodded. She wasn’t sure if it was the confession or the hour but she was suddenly bone-deep tired. And it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to shut her eyes as the man she loved shut his.

Mia wasn’t sure what time it was when she woke. Or even what had woken her. But watery daylight lit the inside of the chopper and there was a strange buzzing, crackling noise that she didn’t think was coming from the rustling of the space blanket.

She came fully awake as Luca leapt up, muttering, ‘The radio.’

And then it was all stations go. No time to feel embarrassed about spilling all their private, closely held secrets in the dark or to analyse what opening up to each other meant. To work out where they stood. Or even to retract them.

No time at all.

The weather had settled and the rescue chopper was fifteen minutes out.

Forty-five minutes later, Mia was harnessed to a rescue officer, dangling over the drizzly treetops, looking down at a wrecked helicopter and a calm, solid Luca. Her eyes filled with tears as her heart swelled so large and full it felt like it was going to burst from her chest.

He was everything she’d ever realised she needed. But he’d only ever loved one woman. And maybe he still did. He certainly thought that all relationships had the potential to go toxic.

Just her luck that when she finally fell in love it would be with someone as damaged as herself.

Luca awoke with a start, vaulting upright. It was dark and he was momentarily disorientated. He’d been dreaming about Mia dangling over a dark, swirling, freezing mist. About her screaming his name as her hand slid from his and she fell.

His heart pounded like a freight train as he realised he was in