House Of Memories [CEO!Luke]

Chapter 9

"Y/N, look at me," Luke pleaded, slightly bending down to catch your eyes. "You know I wouldn't do this. You know I wouldn't hurt you. You know that, right?" His voice was so soft and pleading, it almost sounded like a lullaby to your aching body. But you'd simply shake your head, stepping around him and reaching for the door handle.

"I believe I asked you to leave."

Luke watched you from his position for a moment, slowly stepping closer, while still attempting to make you hear him out. His arm reached out for you, but you'd instantly move away, like it was your instinct to run away from him. Like you knew Luke was here to inject his poisonous teeth into your skin and make your heart and lungs give out, while he held you wrapped in his strong embrace, making you believe it was all done out of love.

"Please tell me you know," he almost begged, his whole body itching to get hold of yours, his soul in need of your soft reassurance. "I swear I'm not involved. It's all Liz, I promise you. I would never..." you could swear it almost sounded like he choked. You hoped it was on his own lies.

"You know I would never do that to you," Luke continued softly, his eyes turning glassy in the glim light of your hotel room. But you never saw that. You never saw the tears that blurred his vision and never realised that the thing making him choke was a lump in his throat he tried so hard to swallow, but that was only growing bigger at the sight of your emotionless expression.

Both of you stayed silent, you standing by the door, holding them open and staring straight ahead; and Luke swallowing his pride and gulping down his heightened emotions, eyes pleading to get at least a single look from you.

"Say something," his words were quick and swam throw the heavy atmosphere, barely reaching your ears at the end.

Finally, you looked at him. But it wasn't the look he wanted, it wasn't the look he craved. It was a look that killed, that sliced his skin open and cut through his flesh; a look he'd never seen on anyone, because it signalled pain, it radiated anger, it meant betrayal.

"Talk to my lawyer," you blurted out. Luke had no idea about the emptiness that spread through your chest, when Luke started moving out of the room at your words. But you had to keep your ground, you had to fight; you had to stand for yourself, because for the first time in almost a decade, no one else was there to stand for you.

"Y/N, just tell me you know. Tell me you trust me—" Luke's voice was pleading, his face expressing merely a tenth of the heaviness he held in his whole body.

"Oh, the same way you trusted me all those times I told you about her?" Suddenly, you heard yourself speak. Maybe it was frustration, maybe it was riled up emotions – at least that's what you told yourself, when you wanted nothing more than to supress the aching feeling in your heart only Luke's close presence next to you could ease.

Luke shifted on his feet, a hope that tingled in his eyes not slipping missed by you; his heart leaped at the sound of your voice, at the fact you were finally talking. He didn't care that your words were meant to bite, he didn't care that he was one step away from being completely shut away from you.

But he'd take time considering what to say, swallowing before he spoke up again. "She's doing this to us. I need you to trust me. Just this once, I need you with me. I can't do this alone," the last of his words came out just above a whisper. You tried to convince yourself it didn't hurt seeing him so broken, so fragile. It was to no avail, as your heart clenched painfully, watching Luke's eyes glisten, watching his dried up lips hang slightly open in desperation.

"Maybe you'll get a glimpse of what it means to be me in this marriage."

He didn't expect it; not the door suddenly being shut in his face, not the words that made a new wave of guilt crash over him, and definitely not the fiery determination to fight for you that unexpectedly filled his whole body.

You stood staring at the door for a while. You thought you'd feel relieved with him out of your sight, maybe feel slightly happy, sad, and angry even; but you didn't feel a single thing, your mind and body numb from exhaustion. You didn't feel the tears come and you didn't feel them stop, your mind playing reruns of Luke's broken expression, as if the numbness in your heart wasn't enough torture.

Equally, Luke could barely close his eyes for a minute that night. His mind sped about a hundred miles an hour, trying to think of different ways to stop this insanity his mother had started, and get you back.

You and him, you were always there for each other. Ready to fight, ready to win. But after you ran off on him, after you mailed him divorce papers, cowardly choosing not to show your face and demand for them, after he realised you left him for good, he never thought he'd ever want to fight for you again. He loved you, he'd be stupid to deny that; he loved you with his whole being and so signing the divorce papers ripped him into shreds; the betrayal ripped him into shreds. But at least he felt that he was in control. It wasn't his fault; none of what had happened was his fault, right? And so he always just put the blame on you, knowing that the power scale of your relationship – if you can even call it that anymore – was tipping to his side. He had the right to hate you, he said; he had the right to call you names and burn your clothes, he said; he had the right to rip all photos of you and break your entire decor in the house. And he did, most of the things. Or at least he'd imagined doing them. But one thing that never even crossed his mind was getting revenge, suing you, breaking you down and ruining you. And the fact that you were thinking he was doing just that, made his heart shake and his blood boil and his eyes burn. You had the right to hate him and call him names and burn his clothes now; you held the power now.

And he hated that. Not because he wanted you to stay powerless; on the contrary rather, he always wanted you to be in power. He hated that because it was his fault now. He was the only one to blame for not believing a single nasty word you ever spoke of his mother; he was to blame for turning a blind eye on all the little deals his mother was making with (or, rather, for) you; he was to blame he didn't go after you the second you left. His coward, ignorant ass was to blame you were being sued for everything you own, for everything you have. His proud, narcissistic self was to blame he was laying in his bed cold and alone, dreaming of you.

And so he was determined to fight this time round. He was ready to fight to bring himself up, ready to fight for you. He was determined to fight.

How stupid, he thought. How stupid that he only wants you when you're gone; how stupid that he wants to fight for you, when he can't reach you; how stupid of him to realise he loves you, when you're doing everything to convince yourself you don't.