Chapter 7
Mark dropped to his knees on the Persian rug of the library, the medical documents fluttering around him like dead leaves. His attorneys looked at each other in absolute embarrassment, quickly closing their briefcases and taking two steps away from their disgraced client.
"You... you knew?" Mark gasped, looking up at me with tears of humiliation welling in his eyes. "All this time... you knew I couldn't have children?!"
"My father knew," I corrected him coldly. "He arranged the IVF treatment through his trusted physician before he died. He made sure that Maya carried his bloodline, his genetic key, and the protection of the Moretti family—while you were left completely in the dark."
Luka leaned down, catching Mark by his jacket lapels and hauling him up off the floor as if he weighed nothing.
"You have no legal standing, Mark," Luka said, his baritone voice shaking the heavy wooden shelves around us. "You are not her biological father. You are not her legal father—I signed that line. And if you ever show your pathetic face near my wife or my daughter again, I won't send lawyers. I'll send Marco."
Luka shoved Mark toward his attorneys. "Get him out of my sight."
The lawyers practically dragged the sobbing, broken Mark out of the library, leaving the heavy oak doors to slam shut behind them.
Silence descended upon the library, thick, peaceful, and absolute.
I stood near the window, watching Mark being escorted off the estate grounds by security guards, his shoulders slumped in utter defeat. The man who had abandoned me on the cold floor of the hospital was now left with nothing—no money, no status, no wife, and no legacy.
"It's over," I whispered softly, feeling a sudden, overwhelming wave of emotion wash over me.
Luka walked up behind me, resting his broad hands gently on my shoulders. The warmth of his body flushed away the last remnants of cold fear that had plagued me for years.
"It's over, Clara," Luka agreed, looking down at Maya, who was resting her tiny head against my collarbone. "He can never touch you again."
I turned around in his arms, looking up into those stormy gray eyes that had once frightened me, but now felt like the safest place in the world.
"Why did you really do all this, Luka?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "I know about the promise to my father. I know about protecting the patent. But signing your name on her birth certificate... taking us into your home... treating Maya like your own daughter... why?"
Luka raised his hand, his tattooed fingers gently cupping my cheek. His eyes softened with a deep, fierce tenderness that took my breath away.
"Because six months ago, I saw a picture of you in your father's desk drawer," Luka confessed, his voice dropping into a raspy, intimate murmur. "Arthur talked about you every day. He showed me your letters, your drawings, your smiles. Before I even met you, Clara... I was already in love with you."
May you like
My heart skipped a beat, my breath catching in my throat.
"And when I saw that bastard leave you in that hospital hallway," Luka continued, his thumb softly tracing my lower lip, "I swore to God that I would spend the rest of my life making sure you never felt abandoned again."
