Chapter 8
“Nico went to bed early today. He’ll be up by six, and I’ll bring him down to have breakfast with you before you leave for work.” Amber’s voice trembled slightly as she tried to keep the conversation light, but the weight in her chest betrayed her. She couldn’t bear looking at Luc, not with the tears threatening to spill. She turned away, hoping to escape the conversation before it unraveled any further.
But Luc wasn’t done.
"Just a second," he growled, grabbing her arm, his grip firm and unrelenting. He spun her around to face him, his dark eyes boring into her. “We’re not finished here.”
Amber froze, her pulse quickening. The confrontation she was trying to avoid was coming, and she knew it was about more than just breakfast with Nico. Luc’s face was tense, suspicion hardening his features. "I still don’t understand why you’re really in Italy," he said, his voice cold and biting. "Why now?"
Amber blinked in confusion. “I told you—it was—”
But before she could finish, the realization dawned on her. She knew exactly where this was coming from. “Don’t tell me…” she began, her voice laced with bitterness. “Your mother objected to me and Nico being here, didn’t she?”
Luc's face flushed crimson, the telltale sign that Amber’s instincts were right. His silence only confirmed it. Of course his mother had something to say about Amber's return, filling Luc's head with venomous suspicions, as she always did. “She thinks I’m here to cause trouble, doesn’t she?” Amber’s voice was sharp now, her words cutting through the tension like a blade.
Luc’s jaw clenched. “Leave my mother out of this,” he hissed, stepping closer. “Tell me the truth—are you here because I’m getting married to Carlotta? Is that it? Are you trying to sabotage me? To ruin what I have with her?”
The accusation hit Amber like a slap. Her heart raced, the air between them thick with anger and misunderstanding. “That’s not true!” she cried, her voice cracking under the weight of his unfounded accusations.
But Luc wasn’t listening. His grip tightened around her arm, his face inches from hers. “Listen carefully,” he growled. “I broke Carlotta’s heart once. I won’t do it again. She’s fragile. She’s innocent. And I love her. If I find out you’ve come here to use Nico to get in the way of my marriage—Amber, I swear—you can’t even imagine what I’ll do to you.”
Amber yanked her arm from his iron grip, rubbing the spot where his fingers had dug into her skin. She could feel the anger rising in her throat, the retorts she longed to hurl back at him. How dare he? The nerve of him to think she’d use their son like a pawn! There were a thousand things she could say to hurt him back, to make him feel the way she did—small, dismissed, undeserving of even the basic courtesy of trust. But in that moment, something else overpowered her anger.
“I’m not here to break you and Carlotta up,” Amber said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’m not that woman, Luc. I never was. Carlotta is a good person, and I wish you both nothing but happiness.” She paused, swallowing the lump in her throat. “All I want is for Nico to have his father in his life. He needs you, Luc. He needs to know his dad.”
Her words were soft, but they landed like stones in the silence between them. She didn’t wait for a response. Instead, she turned and walked out of the room, her footsteps echoing up the grand staircase as she retreated to her bedroom.
As she closed the door behind her, Amber collapsed onto the bed, tears finally spilling down her cheeks. Carlotta. It hurt to even say her name, but it was the truth. Carlotta had always been kind, always so polished and perfect—everything Amber was not. Amber had known from the beginning that she was just a brief moment in Luc’s life. She was sand, and he was water. They were never meant to mix.
But there was one thing she would never regret. One thing that had come out of her ill-fated relationship with Luc Desantis: her little boy. Nico.
Amber could still remember the exact moment she realized she was pregnant with Luca's baby. The rush of emotions had hit her all at once—a dizzying mix of elation and fear that she could never have prepared for. Elation, because she was carrying the child of the man she had fallen for so irrevocably, so deeply, that it consumed her. But fear… because that same man had never given her any promise of a future, not a single word that hinted he saw her as anything more than a fleeting passion.
They had spent every night together, wrapped in a cocoon of stolen time, where the outside world ceased to exist. In that large, lavish bed on the top floor of his office building, in the penthouse Luca reserved for himself, they had shared hours of intoxicating desire. Hours that stretched into the night, filled with the kind of passion that left her breathless, that made her believe for just a moment that this could be real. That maybe, just maybe, this man who was an impenetrable tycoon by day, became something more than just a lover by night.
They didn’t just use the bed. The bathtub, the kitchen counter, even the dining table had become places where their bodies came together, desperate and fevered. As a 21-year-old virgin, Amber had been completely unprepared for what Luca showed her—what sex could be like. How it could consume every part of you, blur every line, make you forget everything except the feel of his skin on yours. She had been hopelessly in love with him, completely intoxicated by him. And in that haze of passion, she had convinced herself she was happy.
Happy, because in those moments, it felt real. But the reality had always been much crueler.
Their relationship had been a secret from the start, something forbidden and hidden away. They had barely been together for a month, sneaking around behind the backs of his family, his employees. And every day it became harder to hide. Luca wasn’t ready for anyone to know. He wasn’t ready for it to be more than what it was.
And then, she found out she was pregnant.
The moment she told him, Amber’s entire world shattered. She had expected shock, maybe even confusion, but nothing could have prepared her for the cold, devastating truth that followed.
Because in that split second, everything changed.
She wasn’t just Luca’s secret lover anymore. No, she was something far worse—his secret mistress. She was the affair, the woman he had hidden while his fiancée, the woman he was supposed to marry, was away. The other woman.
The realization hit her like a freight train. She had been the other woman the entire time.