She looks caught off-guard, and I take a shaky breath, fearing her answer. “No,” she tells me, her tone firm. “I don’t.”
I stare at her, trying my best to figure out if she’s being honest or not. “Then what did you mean? Give me the truth. We promised each other that we’d communicate, didn’t we? This is important to me. I need to know.”
She looks into my eyes, her gaze turning more and more vulnerable by the second. I hate that someone other than me can make her look that way. “It’s complicated, Luca,” she says, exhaling shakily. “Ben is… to me, he’s proof that men like you will never stay with women like me. He’s a reminder that I sorely needed, that’s all.”
I run a hand through my hair and take a deep breath. “Valentina, what the fuck does that even mean?”
She looks away, her eyes falling closed for a moment. “It doesn’t matter. You and I have been very clear on what we are and what we aren’t from the very start. Why are we even talking about this?”
She still won’t let me in. Each time I think we’ve made progress, we end up taking ten steps back. I should be grateful that she keeps the boundaries between us in place so well, but I fucking hate it. That damn contract we signed will be my downfall.
I grit my teeth for a moment. “It matters to me. From the moment he’s shown up, it’s been driving me crazy. You once told me that thoughts of me being with Natalia tormented you, didn’t you?” She nods, and I tear my gaze off her as I empty my wine glass. “That’s what it’s like for me. I keep wondering what kind of hold he must have over you, and it worries me. It’s really fucking hard for me to admit that, baby, but I’m trying. He fucking bothers me. Maybe I have no right to feel the way I do, but I can’t help myself. I hate it when you so much as mention his name, and I can’t stop thinking about what you told me. Why is he the reason you won’t love me? The way I see it, it can only mean that you’re still in love with him.”
She stares at her plate, her gaze unfocused for a moment before she lifts her head. I’ve never seen her look at me with quite this much uncertainty in her eyes. “Will you snap out of the funk you’re in if I tell you what happened between Ben and me?”
I nod at her, my heart heavy. I don’t know what she’s done to me, but I’m not myself. It looks like she’s noticed it too.
Valentina sighs and looks away. “I told you about my parents, right? Growing up, my mother always told me to never trust rich men, and to always remember my station in life. I had no intention of falling in love at all, let alone with the exact kind of guy my mother had always warned me against, but Ben was relentless. We met in college, and he’d find every excuse to be around me, whether it was joining the same elective classes or showing up at my part-time job at the coffeeshop on campus. He was just everywhere, and all he’d ever ask was to take me on a date. He seemed harmless, and he really took his time to charm me. Eventually, I gave in, and we started dating. I really thought I’d found true happiness of my own, and for a couple of months, it felt like I escaped my mother’s shadow. It’s funny, looking back at it. How could I truly have believed that I could be happy?” She laughs humorlessly, and the mere sight of her breaks my heart. No one deserves to be loved more than she does.
“But then my mother was in an accident, and I had to drop out to take care of my grandmother and her. Ben assured me that we’d be able to do long-distance and that nothing would change, and I believed him. He made it easy. He called me every day, and he texted me all the time, too. I truly believed that I was the only one for him, and that our relationship was strong enough to survive anything. So on his birthday, I saved up enough money to go see him. I thought I’d surprise him, and that he’d be happy to see me…”
She inhales shakily and lowers her gaze. “I walked into his bedroom to find him on top of one of our mutual friends. It devastated me, but it was more than simple betrayal. It was proof of everything my mother had warned me about. I thought my life would be different, that what happened to her would never happen to me, yet the first relationship I was ever in ended the exact way she’d told me it would. I think that might have been when I truly stopped believing in love.”
She looks out the window and sighs. “There truly is nothing for you to worry about. I don’t have any feelings for him, Luca. Perhaps some lingering resentment, but that’s it.”
“I see,” I murmur, unsure how to feel about her story. I thought it was difficult enough to compete with the beliefs her mother drilled into her mind, but to know she once rebelled against those constraints, only to be proven wrong? It’ll be near impossible for me to make her see that I’m nothing like him. The betrayal she experienced runs deeper than the surface, and the heart I so desperately want may not have any room for me in it.
“What did you two talk about two weeks ago, when he first came to the office?” I wish she hadn’t given him any of her time at all. Guilt flashes through her eyes, and I tense.
“He said he wants me back,” she says, her voice soft.
My stomach fucking drops, thoughts of her with him filling my mind. The two of them might be competing for the same role, but because of that, they’re seeing each other a whole lot more often than I’d like. What if a late work night turns into a conversation, forgiveness… a stolen kiss?
Would she moan his name in the same way? Would her lips part for him the way they do for me? Does he know her body better than I do? It’s clear that he was her first love, but that’s most likely not the only first he took. They say a woman never forgets her first love, and I’m starting to worry that it’s true.
“Luca,” she says, her tone gentle. I look up, keeping my face perfectly expressionless. “I told him he was crazy, and we argued. It isn’t something to worry about, but I didn’t want to lie to you about it.”
“Does he know you’re married?”
Her eyes widen a fraction, and she shakes her head. Of course he doesn’t. She’s been adamant that no one could ever find out. Was he one of the reasons why? She might tell me that all she feels for him is resentment, but there’s a thin line between love and hate. The fact that she still feels anything at all when she looks at him worries me.
Our server clears the table, and we’re both quiet as I get the bill. This isn’t how I saw tonight going. My fingers brush against hers as we walk toward the exit, and she pulls away before I can even grab her hand, frustrating me even further. My own fucking wife won’t even hold my hand in public, and it pisses me off endlessly. She might say that she doesn’t have any feelings for Ben, but he affected her enough to make her withdraw from me.
“Luca Windsor?”
Valentina tenses, her body going rigid, and I look back to find Miguel Garcia standing in front of the restaurant, his eyes moving from Valentina to me. He extends his hand, and I shake it hesitantly, confused as to why the CEO of the country's largest insurance firm is looking at my wife with such hostility. Does he not value those eyeballs of his?
“You’re a hard man to track down, Luca,” he tells me, before glancing back at Valentina. He raises a brow and smiles. “I’ve called your office several times and emailed your secretary, but for some reason, I’m always told your schedule is fully packed, no matter how much I offer to invest.”