"Give me four days." Luca says in opening as I settle into the car

He'd come to pick me up from Arun's house. He had simply walked into the tea room Hanifa and I were in and stretched his hand out in search of mine. Why did I keep thinking of the way Michi and Hanifa had said bye to Lucas as if he'd been there all along and not just dropped bye to pick me up? Why did I keep going over the guilty look on Michi's face when she said goodbye to me and the loud absence of Arun? Why did the dead Rikke keep swimming about my head? I'd looked up the name during a bathroom break today, hating myself for doing it, found it to be a short form of Frederikke; Danish, woman, meaning peaceful ruler, possibly the reason he hated Whitlam as much as he did.

"What?" I turn from the road to him,

"I know I said I'd explain everything, and I will, four days from now." he sighs

Luca's face hadn't been right since Arun waltzed into the kitchen talking to me like he knew me from a floor plant. Luca reaches for my hand, bringing it to his lips and kissing the back of it. Arun had been joking, Luca had to know he'd been joking right? As much as I would've loved to I'd had nothing even close to an affair with Arun. Luca must know that, right?

"I just want four days full of you and nothing else. No architecture firm, no deals, no friends or relatives, no tragic backstories, just us." he says his face still dark with concern

"I never slept with him... Arun." I reveal, just to clear the air

It might have for a brief moment seemed like I would climb onto the kitchen counter and let Arun Saleh eat me out like a juicy taco but that was camera tricks, spelling errors, it wasn't real. Appallingly, the earl of Whitlam chokes on laughter, pressing his lips to the back of my hand in an attempt to stop himself from guffawing right in my face. Was this a wonderful improvement from his heavy brooding? Yes, but also no. Someone tell me why my boyfriend thinks I can't sleep with Arun Saleh if I wanted to?!

The rinsed tonk was laughing so hard he was crying, could barely breathe.

"!HA HA!" I hiss at the dickhead dying from laughter, snatching my hand back from his grip and crossing my hands against my chest

He could laugh all he wanted but he was on his own. That's the last time I'm speaking to him, I promise! I lied when I said I'd looked up the name Riike's meaning, I also looked up Riike Rowland, too scared to look at the links that appeared, that all mentioned Whitlam, that showed a young blond woman with smokey eye, 60s style make-up and hair; the original smokey-eye sextuplet. Suddenly the tradition of the smokey-eye sextuplets started making sense as some kind of grief-survival mechanism. Who was she? His wife? Is that what he was going to tell me in four days? I wanted to ask him of of course, but this wasn't the route back to Boyd's place. Where were we going?

"I love you so much." the idiot sighs, laughter still in his voice as he brings the car to stop by a small clearing by a brook. The tree closest to the car had a ladder running on the side of it, illuminated softly by fairy lights so I could see the ladder led to a small bridge lit by fairy lights and tea lights and the bridge let over the brook to an elevated forest cabin. A tree house! A nice cozy tree house!

This was the setting of a mills and boons. I could already picture the heiress whose plane had crashed in the forest, sabotaged by her greedy stepmother who wanted the family business for herself. The heiress is forced to take cover in the tree house, a handsome man with a secret was waiting to ravish her in front of the fireplace and their illicit love would bare a child.

"You like it?" Luca wonders as if he didn't just see me do a dramatic spin like my name was Maria and this was the sound of music

I almost say something when I remember that I was mad at him, and so I twirl away from him, resolutely too. I reach for the ladder, eager to see the cozy little tree house.

"Let me help you there." He offers before grabbing my ass

He'd obviously caught on to the fact that I was airing him and he had chosen violence. I air him as best as I can, climbing quickly away from his grip on my ass, prancing across the small bridge that led into the tiny cozy cabin. Our bags were already here. There was no fireplace, no sheepskin rug on the floor, an interesting deviation from the mills and boons fantasy. There was a comfy warm looking bed, a copper bathtub between ferns and another ladder that led up to a suspended lounge area with exquisite views, the pacific ocean, the cliffs, the setting sun and the forest. I was considering marooning myself here for the rest of the evening when footsteps let me know it was too late. Luca was behind me, my coat flew off my shoulders before his hands settled on either side of mine.

"Dinner's going to be on one of those yachts." He says in that voice he knows does things to me, pointing at the yachts that looked like toy boats on the vast blue sea.

Without my coat, and thanks to the two piece, my midsection was exposed and his finger was running across the waistband of my skirt, rubbing against my skin seductively, deliberately, menacingly even, threatening to pull the skirt down at any moment.

"Might I suggest you give into me Mo ghràdh." He huskily demands, abandoning his nefarious activities at my skirt's waistband in favour of grabbing the skirt into a fist and yanking it up over my ass

"I've been absolutely starving and I'm in no mood to negotiate." He sighs tracing kisses up my neck as I try and remind vagina terrorista that I was mad at him

"I'd rather paint the tree house with your orgasms Funke." he argues, wrapping his hand around my waist and pressing his body into me as if to confirm my suspicion that he was naked.

The devil works hard but Lucas Rowland works harder.

"I won't be too much trouble for now. You can watch the sun set while you sit on my face." he bargains, already carrying me towards one of the lounge seats

I simply had no space to fight him.

You know that part of romcoms where it's a montage of all the romantic dates the couple's gone on? That's what my life has looked like. We'd been to a forest spa, to dinner at the yacht club I didn't know existed, I'd orgasmed all over a forest tree house like the mills and boons heiress I'd read about in my teens, he'd put together a romantic breakfast in the "sky lounge", fragrant baths in the tree house, we'd paintballed, raced quad bikes to this romantic tent setup by a secluded and quiet beach. I was dizzy, from orgasms, kisses, his hands in my tights whenever he got the chance, joy and romance...but still there was a feeling I couldn't quite kick. This felt like the ominous blinding sunshine before the storm.

I mean here I was, naked in a teepee lit by fairy lights and paper lanterns and littered with flowers and foliage watching a sunset on a secluded beach. He wouldn't let me see a sunset without orgasms. There was no sand in my hair because Luca had wrapped it using his shirt and my body was still hot and soft from the orgasms, trapped under the delicious weight of Luca's as we caught our breath, his nose buried into my neck that he was peppering soft kisses all over. I should be in bliss, and I was, but there was a knot in my stomach I just couldn't get rid of. I hold on tighter to Luca, weaving my hand into his hair and kissing the top of his head, trying to find a way to address this, whatever this was.

Was there something wrong with me? Had Luna damaged me so badly that I couldn't simply accept how great Luca was being? Why was the romantic shit filling me with dread, wrenching my heart in ways I couldn't explain, swinging me violently between clinging tighter and running away from him? But what was he doing with me? Despite all my promises I'd not yet learned how to smokey eye and I didn't have a supreme's wig to my name. Where did I fit in all this? How could I even claim to love someone I knew so little about? Why did I stop him from telling me about Riike in Whitlam? How could I bring it up again?

It had been two entire days since we came here, two more days and he'll explain everything to me.

I was trying to tell myself that I knew Lucas Rowland, not who he had been, not who he was, but who he is now in this moment, and that should be enough. It wasn't. No amount of listing all I knew about him was enough, the knot only got tighter each time I tried to ease it. I dread the truth, but I need to know. I was just plucking up the courage to say something when Luca mumbled "You keep sighing" right into my neck.

It was a lazy soft observation as he lifted his head and looked right into my eyes. Unintentionally, I sighed again. His smile is reluctant, maybe even painful as he reads something in my face.

I don't know how to explain this but the thought of Luca married to someone else was actually violent. I don't know why and it wasn't the same as my dislike for Leisel and I wasn't even the jealous or possessive type. I don't know how to explain this fam, I was fine with the sextuplets and ok with Leisel but the idea that Lucas had looked at someone else and thought they should be the one to spend forever with him, had vowed that in a church or whatever...that was different. I was thinking about the witch doctor I'll have to contact so I can fight a ghost...

"She's my mum. She died when I was 12." He coos softly

The way my mind shifted at the soft words was actually embarrassing...and for him to just clear that up in 9 words...

"So you've never been married before?" I selfishly wonder

His mum! My beau was mixed white with caucasian! Look at this beautiful half Danish tonk! As if being Scottish wasn't white enough!

I watch his eyebrows scrunch up as he takes my face in, apparently he found this funny. I can't believe I almost had a seance to fight his first wife and this rinsed tonk is laughing about it!

"Are you thinking about marrying me Funke?" He pries, clearly holding back a chuckle

"That's not the point, answer the question Luca!" I grind out squinting my eyes so I don't have to see him laughing at me

"I've never been married before." he mumbles against my lips

The knot wasn't completely gone, it had eased a bit at the news that Rikke wasn't a dead wife but a dead mother. I remember Hervé had said something about this, about angsty Lucas.

"I'd like to tell you about my mum."

I shift into a cuddle, ready for story time.

"Not right now." He chuckles tenderly, something pained in his eye

I suppose talking about your dead mother wasn't the ideal after-sex activity, but the knot in my stomach wasn't completely gone and I felt a purely selfish urge to push him.

"When?" I mumble, feeling horrible for asking

"Two more days. I'll tell you everything in two more days." He vows rather seriously

You'd think the world was ending in two days the way Luca was talking. The most haunting of looks came over his handsome face, enough to break my resolve to find out about his mother. I didn't have the heart to push him, so I just let it be. I didn't know how much I would come to regret it later.

The next two days were full of things so romantic and beautiful I was actually convinced I would die. I was dizzy from it all and I started to suspect, hear me out, that Lucas was trying to propose to me. I imagined he was bombarding me with so many romantic plans, overtures and sex that I wouldn't be able to guess which of the activities in our itinerary was likely the proposal. That or we'd secretly enrolled for some episode of the bachelor. We'd been wine tasting, hiking, on a private architectural tour of Hollywood, made pottery, attended private concerts, frolicked and orgasmed on private beach fronts, orgasmed on yachts, we'd spent last night drawing nude portraits of each other by fire and fairy light, taking turns like we were in the titanic or something, we'd been to butterfly parks, botanical gardens, astronomy observatories you name it. Each activity more romantic and awe-inspiring than the one before, always with a twist surprise.

I have never...

NEVER

Been more in love than I was with this man.

It was actually frightening. My brain was glitching. The number of times I kept thinking of Luna and how she had cheated me of something this pure, the number of times I looked over at him because I was wounded and surprised by how caring and affectionate he was being. I didn't know it was possible to make these many pleasant memories, to have these many orgasms. It was almost as if he was trying to get me pregnant or something! Which was absurd and impossible of course, maybe he really was just trying to paint everywhere we went with my cum.

It was the evening of the last day before he tells me everything and we'd driven our quad bikes to a little waterfall that was something of a natural spa. Luca had lit a small grill for the seafood dinner and I was in the water trying to explain to him that my google search results had revealed that his name meant white, which was exactly what he was.

"You can pick a random relative of mine that hasn't met you and I promise if I start the story with so I was in the forest with my boyfriend they will immediately know you're white." I argue, dancing lazily in the water

"So you didn't like it?" He pries

"I absolutely loved it, but as a black person forest cabins and tree houses are where horrors are filmed...only white people see off grid shit where dangerous animals and possibly mutant the hills have eyes type forest people live and think...yeah...baecation." I shrug just as what seems to be a black motorcycle appears behind Luca

I'd never seen a motorcycle that looked like that and oddly enough it hadn't made any of the usual motorcycle sounds. The rider pulls to a stop, the flowing black gowns falling neatly around him as he steps out of the bike. Luca had seen him too, seemed to have been expecting him by the look of things. A surprise guest? He pulls out his helmet, my mouth dropping as I recognize my very own Samurai Jack.

"Woo!" I joyfully cry, maybe too enthusiastically for someone who'd only ever heard his voice once

He comes to a stop, casually squatting by the natural pool's edge, a gorgeous smile on his face. He remembers me!

"Did you have lots of fun, Funke?" he affectionately wonders.