Chapter 6 - The Weight of Regret
The crisp Chicago wind whipped down the street, carrying the sharp scent of approaching autumn rain. Luca stood beneath the flickering amber glow of the streetlamp, his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his dark overcoat, his shoulders tense. He looked less like the untouchable titan of Moretti Global and more like a man standing alone in the ruins of a life he had dismantled with his own hands.
"You think an apology fixes four years of silence, Luca?" I asked, my voice barely carrying over the distant hum of traffic on Lake Shore Drive. "You think you can just walk back into our lives, snap your fingers, and pick up the pieces like nothing happened?"
"No," Luca answered instantly, his voice rough and steady. "I don't expect forgiveness. Not today. Not tomorrow. I know what I threw away."
He took half a step forward, stopping when he saw the defensive tilt of my body.
"When you left, I told myself it was for the best," Luca continued, his gaze dropping to the pavement between us. "I convinced myself that my work, my company, and my ambition were enough. I built towers of glass and steel, Nia. I signed acquisitions that made headlines across the country. And every single night, I walked into an empty penthouse that felt colder than a tomb."
"That was your choice," I reminded him bitterly. "You wanted perfection. You wanted a wife who looked right in photographs and never questioned your coldness."
"I wanted a machine," Luca corrected, his dark eyes snapping back up to meet mine with brutal honesty. "I wanted someone who wouldn't demand anything real from me, because I was terrified of being vulnerable. And when you gave me real love—when you stayed by my side through the darkest days of building Moretti Global—I let outside voices poison my mind. I let people convince me that you were holding me back, when the truth was... you were the only real thing keeping me human."
The raw confession hung in the cold night air. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The wind blew a stray leaf across the pavement, and somewhere in the distance, a police siren wailed softly.
"Evelyn came to my apartment today," I said quietly, watching his face change.
Luca’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched along his cheekbone. "I know. When she got back to the townhouse, I saw the look in her eyes. I asked her where she had been. When she admitted she tracked you down, I told her our marriage was over."
I stared at him, startled. "You left her?"
"There was never a real marriage there, Nia. Just an arrangement of convenience, a merger of social circles," Luca said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. "She thought she could threaten the mother of my children and still share my name? She packed her bags tonight. Her attorneys will receive the divorce papers before morning."
"You discard people awfully fast, don't you, Luca?" I asked, a cold edge returning to my tone. "First me, now Evelyn."
"I discarded you because I was a coward," Luca said, stepping closer, ignoring the cold barrier between us. "I am discarding Evelyn because she is everything I am trying to run away from. I don't want a corporate arrangement anymore, Nia. I want my family. I want my children."
"They aren't just yours," I snapped, the protective mother rising instantly to the surface. "They are mine. I raised them, I fed them, I held them through every fever, every nightmare, every sleepless night while you were busy expanding your empire. You don't get to just swoop in and claim them now that it's convenient."
"I know," Luca whispered, his voice dropping into a quiet, defeated register. "I know I wasn't there. I know I missed their first steps, their first words, their first birthdays. That is the punishment I have to live with every single day for the rest of my life. But please... don't shut me out entirely. Let me see them. Just once. Let me look at my children without a glass door between us."
My chest ached. The wall I had spent four years constructing around my heart suddenly felt dangerously thin, battered by the absolute, crushing sincerity in his eyes.
May you like
"I'll think about it," I whispered, turning back toward the building entrance. "Don't call me. Don't show up here again. I'll let you know when—and if—we're ready."
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