“Friends don’t offer help with a price tag.”
She thought of Marshall. “Some don’t offer to help at all.”
“We call those acquaintances.”
“Ha! Or exes.”
Luca looked over his shoulder, changed lanes. “The boyfriend.”
“Ex-boyfriend, thank you.”
“He didn’t help you?”
Brooke cautioned herself about opening up about an ex. “You don’t really want to hear about Marshall.”
“Actually, I do.”
Was he serious?
“Why?”
Luca shrugged. “I want to know about the man who held your heart.”
“Who said he held my heart?”
“You didn’t love him?”
Wow, talk about right to the personal questions. “Did you love Antonia?”
Luca did a quick look her way, then back out the windshield. “Who told you about Antonia?”
“Chloe. But only that she was Francesca’s mother. She didn’t give a single detail.”
He grinned. “But you asked.”
“Guilty.”
“Hmm . . .”
They were quiet for a moment.
Brooke sipped her coffee.
Luca reached for his.
“Tell you what,” Brooke said. “We answer question for question, Marshall for Antonia. If it gets uncomfortable, we change the subject.”
She wasn’t sure Luca was going to agree.
“It’s a long drive. We could just listen to the radio,” Brooke suggested as she reached for the sound system.
“Fine.”
She sat back. Yeah, he wasn’t fine. She’d give him the first question. “You go first.”
“Did you love him?”
Brooke had thought about that a lot since they broke it off. Was it love? Infatuation? Settling? “I convinced myself I did. I cared for him. He didn’t throw the word love around often and neither did I. I just figured we were the kind of couple that didn’t talk like that. You know?”
“No, cara, I don’t. Unless the feeling wasn’t there.”
Yeah, that was the conclusion she’d come up with in his absence. “What about you? Did you love Antonia?”
“Yes.”
The answer was quick and direct.
No hesitation whatsoever.
And it hurt Brooke to hear. But the next question was the real risk. “Do you still love her?”
“No.”
Just as quick and decisive.
He sighed. “I’m not so cold. I love that she gave me my daughter. I will always be grateful for that. And if she were a mother as well, truly a mother, I might bring myself to care.”
“How long has she been gone?”
He grinned. “That’s three questions to one of mine.”
“Okay. Shoot. Your turn.”
“How long were you with him?” Him had a name, but Luca wasn’t using it. Brooke found that intriguing.
“Three years.”
“Why? If you didn’t love him, why stay?”
“We were in a committed relationship.”
“You weren’t married.”
“No.”
“How committed could it have been?”
She narrowed her gaze. “Now who is jumping ahead with the questions?”
He paused.
“How long has Antonia been—” Brooke didn’t finish her question before Luca interrupted.
“Francesca was three.”
“She just left? Abandoned you? Her daughter?” Sadly, Brooke understood how that felt growing up. But she didn’t remember her father since her parents had split before she was two.
“She wanted a different life. Divorcing me and abandoning Francesca was her way of achieving that.” Luca’s jaw twitched as he spoke, tight emotion crossing his face.
“That sucks. I can’t imagine walking away from a child. If things were bad between the two of you, that’s one thing . . . but your kid? No. I’ve been on the other end of that, there is simply no excuse.”
Luca’s lips lifted, slightly. His eyes drifted her way. “Yet you take care of the man who abandoned you.”
Brooke rubbed some of the sleep that lingered in the corners of her eyes. “A fight that Marshall and I had a lot. He didn’t agree and therefore didn’t support my efforts.”
“Not even when your father had his stroke?”
“No.” Brooke twisted a finger around a lock of her hair and stared out the window.
“I’m sorry. A partner should support your decisions.”
“After three years, I figured that out.” I’m a slow-ass learner.
“I suppose if a child was involved, you’d have had a harder time leaving him. You can be thankful that wasn’t the case.”
His words were a punch to the gut. Brooke closed her eyes and tried to pull back any and all emotion. She let her hair go, drank her coffee. How many times had she thought the very same thing?
And with those thoughts . . . guilt.
“Bella?”
Brooke reached for the radio. “Let’s listen to some music.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
They’d been getting somewhere. As uncomfortable as it was having Antonia brought up in conversation, it was nice to have that out in the open. Luca liked to think Brooke felt the same way about her past.
And then she had shut down.
They listened to music, talked about his family . . . Chloe and Giovanni. Franny and how excited she was to be Brooke’s Italian teacher.
By the time they pulled into the driveway of the duplex-style condominium, the tension of the early conversation was gone, and Brooke was back to quirky remarks and teasing.
“Fair warning, the place smells like old man and fresh paint. The combination is disturbing. No matter how much I’ve scrubbed, I can’t seem to get the smell of my father out of the place.”
He laughed. “I can handle it.”
She twisted the key in the lock and opened the door.
Tile floors greeted him with the smell of lemon-scented cleaner, paint . . . and yes, an underlying odor that he couldn’t identify.
“See, it smells like my dad.”
“I haven’t met your dad.”
“When you do, you’ll agree,” Brooke announced.
He stepped farther in, closed the door behind him. “My father smelled like basil, oregano, and garlic. With a hint of rosemary.”
Brooke glanced over her shoulder. “He smelled like you.”
“Is that what I smell like, cara?”
She started to blush and turned away. “Okay, then. Let’s open the doors and let some fresh air in before it gets too hot. My dad was a machinist, not a cook, his pores were filled with oil and dust.”
Luca watched Brooke buzz around the space as he poked his head into the rooms.
It was a two-bedroom condo with a small kitchen and attached garage. It was void of furniture apart from a desk that should have been put out of its misery in the eighties, an overstuffed chair, and a small dining set with four chairs, which looked newer but were stained and probably a reason for the offending smell. The floors were tile and most of the walls had a fresh coat of paint.
“The electrician should be here between nine and noon. And the air conditioner people said around ten. Let’s hope they show up.”