New Beginnings

The house wasn’t home. Not to Emilia.

And judging by the look Luca Vale gave her when she stepped through the doorway with her suitcase, it wasn’t going to be.

He stood against the kitchen counter like he owned the oxygen in the room — tall, inked forearms crossed, jaw clenched around a piece of gum he chewed like it offended him. His eyes flicked over her and her mother before darting away, bored and irritated all at once.

Grace introduced them with a hopeful smile.

“Luca, this is Emilia.”

He didn’t shake her hand. Didn’t say hello.

Just a slow, disdainful drag of his gaze from her shoes, to the books pressed against her chest, to the soft pink gloss on her mouth.

“Fashion school,” he muttered, like it was an insult.

Emilia lifted her chin. “Yes. And?”

His lip curled, amused. “Nothing. Just didn’t expect my father to bring home someone who collects degrees like hobbies.”

Grace’s smile fell. David cleared his throat.

Emilia? She didn’t shrink. She never had.

But something in Luca’s stare… it burned. Not hot. Cold. Like he’d already decided she didn’t belong here.

He pushed past them without another word. The scent of gasoline and wind followed him — harsh, wild, impossible to ignore.

The next morning at campus, she saw him again.

Same inked arms. Same unreadable stare. Same refusal to acknowledge her presence.

He slid into the seat behind hers in their shared art elective and immediately dropped his helmet onto her chair, forcing her to move it before sitting. His boots thudded onto the empty chair beside him.

He didn’t look at her.

But he knew she was there.

The air said so — tight, tense, stretched thin between them.

Her pencil snapped in her hand halfway through the lecture, thanks to him subtly tapping his boot against her chair leg every few minutes. Just enough to jolt her. Just enough to annoy her. Just enough to make her aware he was there.

When class ended, she spun around.

“Do you have a problem with me?”

He blinked once. Slowly.

Then leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes on her like he was dissecting her soul.

“I have a problem with people pretending they’re something they’re not.”

Her breath hitched. “And what am I pretending to be?”

“A good girl.” His voice dropped to something dangerous. “You shouldn’t be in my house. Or my class. Or my life.”

“And yet,” she shot back, “here I am.”

His gaze flicked to her lips. Only for a second. But she felt it.

That second was enough to make her heart stutter.

Enough to make him stand abruptly, jaw ticking, as if he didn’t understand why he’d looked.

He left without another word.

That night, she heard raised voices downstairs.

David’s. Luca’s.

And then the sound of something tearing.

When Emilia peeked down the staircase, she saw David holding a ripped letter — torn in half, crumpled, thrown to the ground.

Luca’s voice cracked with fury.

“Don’t you ever touch her things again!”

Her things.

His mother’s.

David said something Emilia couldn’t hear. Something that made Luca flinch — not out of fear, but something worse: hurt.

A deep, old hurt.

Then Luca stormed out, slamming the door so hard the walls shook.

The engine of his motorcycle roared to life like an animal breaking free.

Emilia waited until the house fell silent.

Only then did she quietly descend the stairs, gather the torn pieces of the letter from the floor, and tuck them carefully into her pocket. She didn’t know why.

Maybe because she’d seen something in him — a shadow shaped like loneliness.

Maybe because no matter how dark Luca tried to seem…

…she could tell darkness wasn’t what he truly feared.

It was being seen.

As she walked back to her room, the echo of his bike still thundering in her ears, she whispered the truth she already sensed:

Luca Rossi wasn’t going to like her.

But he wasn’t going to ignore her either.

And that might be even more dangerous.