He Never Noticed Me Until I Loved Someone Else novel Chapter 317

Stella gasped. What was Lucca doing there?

"Stella, something just came up. I'll call you tomorrow," Summer said before abruptly ending the call.

Stella was worried, but she knew Lucca would find out sooner or later, and the situation had to be dealt with eventually. Summer could handle it.

Meanwhile, Lucca had already marched right up to Summer, staring at her with blatant suspicion. "What flight did you book? Where are you going?"

Summer calmly tucked her phone away, her face entirely devoid of emotion. "Abroad."

Lucca's brows knit together, his voice laced with an undeniable, tense edge. "What are you doing going abroad? When did you decide this? Why didn't I know anything about it?"

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Summer raised her eyes to look at him, answering his questions with one of her own. "What are you doing back here at this hour?"

Her question immediately reminded Lucca of the mess in Ashford. Guilt washed over his face, smoothing out his furrowed brow, and he sat down right next to her on the bed.

"Summer, I handled everything with Aria. She got discharged from the hospital, I gave her a sum of money, and she promised she would never show her face in front of us again."

Lucca adopted his most groveling, apologetic posture. "I swear I didn't purposely hide the Ashford trip from you. She just utterly refused to get the abortion, and after hours of arguing, she finally agreed—but only if I gave her one last trip. I just wanted to get rid of the problem as fast as possible, so I..."

"I swear I will never contact her again, and I won't give any other woman the chance to even get close to me. Please, babe, be the bigger person and forgive me this once, okay?"

Listening to Lucca's half-joking, casually pleading tone, a deep, bone-chilling sorrow settled in Summer's heart.

From start to finish, Lucca had never truly understood the magnitude of what he had done, nor did he grasp the sheer devastation his actions had wrought on both women.

Summer was leaving the country in two days; she had absolutely zero energy left to scream at him.

She also had no desire to keep dragging out this agonizing charade.

He glanced at the caller ID, a flicker of panic crossing his face before he quickly rejected the call.

Summer instantly knew exactly who it was, and a bitter, mocking smirk touched her lips.

Noticing her stare, Lucca shoved the phone toward her. "It was just a spam call. If you don't believe me, check it yourself."

Summer had always been deeply respectful of his privacy and had never snooped through his phone. Lucca was banking on the fact that she wouldn't start now.

After all these years together, how could Summer not see exactly what game he was playing? She didn't even have the energy to call him out. "Get out. The sheets in the guest room are clean."

The phone buzzed again. Lucca rejected it a second time, flashed her a sickeningly sweet smile, whispered "Goodnight," and hurried out the door.

A few minutes later, the muffled, hushed tones of Lucca frantically whispering into his phone drifted out from the guest room.