Luca sat in silence.
The penthouse was dark, the only light coming from the soft glow beneath the bar. The city beyond the glass buzzed like a million lives were happening just outside his reach.
He didn't move.
Didn't breathe fully.
The only sound in the room was the slow melt of a single cube of ice in a crystal glass.
She's gone.
And it wasn't that Sienna had walked out of his bedroom.
It was that she'd walked into a place he didn't know how to protect.
His heart.
That word tasted foreign. Weak. He'd carved his world with dominance—built from silence, sex, control, and distance. Business was sharp. Women were simple. He gave pleasure in the way a composer played an instrument—masterful, detached.
Until her.
Until Sienna sat on her knees before him with eyes full of fire and obedience at the same time. Until she came on his mouth like he'd been made for it. Until she whispered you have me and looked at him like he was more than muscle and money.
She saw me.
And that's what scared him most.
Because the last woman who saw him used what she found to tear him apart.
He remembered the way she screamed.
Not Sienna.
The other one.
The one who called him a monster after begging him for more.
The one who used the safe word as a weapon. Who said he'd violated her because he took her deeper than she'd ever gone and she liked it.
She couldn't live with the version of herself she discovered with him.
So she made him the villain.
That was five years ago.
No charges. No names. Just whispers. Just scars.
Just enough for Luca to lock every vulnerable part of himself behind doors with no handles.
He told himself he'd never let a woman back in. He could dominate. He could fuck. He could bind wrists and command orgasms and still keep himself untouched.
But then… Sienna.
She made it impossible to stay detached.
Not because she needed him.
But because she wanted him.
Not his power. Not his wealth.
Him.
And when she laid her head on his chest in that villa and said I don't want to come back, he believed her.
That scared him more than anything he'd felt in years.
Because what if she got too close?
What if she saw the pieces of him that weren't polished? The guilt. The damage. The soft underbelly of a man used to wearing leather and iron in his soul?
What if she turned him into a man he didn't know how to be?
Worse…
What if she already had?
Luca stood.
Paced.
Ran a hand through his hair.
His fingers twitched to call her.
Text her.
Beg.
But he wouldn't do that.
He couldn't.
What he could do… was write.
He opened a drawer, pulled out a thick sheet of stationery, uncapped a fountain pen, and let something bleed that he'd never let bleed before.
His truth.
In strokes of ink and silence, he wrote her a letter.
Not an apology.
Not a plea.
Just the words he hadn't known how to say while she was in his bed:
I've never trusted softness. But you made it feel strong. You made me feel real. And I'm terrified of that. But I want it anyway. Not just your body. You.
If you never forgive me for pulling away, I'll understand.
But if you're willing to try again… this time, I won't flinch.
— L
When he sealed the envelope, his hands were shaking.
He was Luca Hayes—CEO, Dominant, the man who made others obey.
And for the first time, he didn't want to command.
He wanted to ask.