Chapter 11 #2
“Oh, we have plenty to talk about,” he said, closing the door behind him as if this were his house. As if my space and my boundaries meant nothing. He moved with the kind of arrogant ownership only he possessed.
I crossed my arms tightly across my chest, trying—and failing—to hide how threatening his presence felt inside my home.
“If you’re here to talk about the project, unless you have a decent offer, you’re wasting your time,” I said. “Everything I had to say was said in that meeting.”
He lifted one brow and came closer, his gaze relentless.
“Don’t play innocent with me, Valentina,” he said. “We both know what you really want out of all of this, and it’s time we settle it once and for all.”
My pulse spiked. A cold shiver traced my spine as I forced myself to hold his stare.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He laughed quietly—a dry, cruel sound—and stepped closer until his face was only inches from mine.
“Of course you don’t,” he said, clicking his tongue. “Playing dumb. Another one of your specialties, isn’t it? You have so many, I can’t even keep track.”
I clenched my teeth.
“Not more than you do,” I shot back. “Like pointing fingers. Maybe if you’d learned to listen before you judged, things wouldn’t have gotten to this point.”
He took another step, closing the distance, his voice dropping into something dangerously intimate.
“You want to talk about jumping to conclusions?” he murmured. “About listening before deciding something?” His eyes locked onto mine like a trap. “You had five years, Valentina. Five years to come find me and explain whatever you claimed needed explaining. And you never did. Why?”
My breath caught in my throat.
How dare he?
“Come find you?” I repeated, disbelief making my voice shake. “Come find you?” Anger surged. “I didn’t owe you anything!” The words tasted like blood. “After what you did to me—”
“You deserved it,” he said simply.
The certainty in his voice made me step back again, sick with the memory of how much I had once loved this man. How much power I had handed him.
“You see?” I said, bitter, shaking my head. “I didn’t owe you anything, Enrico. And even if I had tried to explain myself, you wouldn’t have believed me. Not no matter what I said.” My voice cracked. “You never wanted to hear me. You only wanted to destroy me.”
For a moment, something—something strange—crossed his face. A shadow.
Then it was gone. Replaced by pure cold.
“I still do.”
The words struck straight through my chest. I reacted harder than I meant to, hands curling into fists. I closed my eyes briefly, turned my face away, and dragged in a breath.
“Get out of my house,” I said, forcing myself to look at him again. “You don’t have the right to be here. You don’t have the right to accuse me under my own roof after everything you put me through. You have no idea what I survived.”
“You think I don’t?” His voice snapped instantly, anger flashing sharp in his eyes. “You think I don’t know exactly who you are and what you’re capable of, Valentina?”
My eyes burned with tears I refused to let fall.
“You never knew who I was,” I said, steady through sheer will. “If you did…” I shook my head, refusing to finish. “You’re not welcome here. If you have something to say, say it fast. I have things to do.”
He stepped closer again, gray eyes narrowing.
“Don’t worry,” he said, voice low. “I’ll be brief. Your little game is over, Valentina. Like I said—both of us know what your real objective is.” He tilted his head. “So let’s get to the only question that matters.”
His mouth curved, just slightly.
“How much do you want?”
My blood turned cold.
“How much… I want?” I repeated, the words echoing like something obscene.
He arched a brow, wearing that familiar superiority like it was stitched into his skin—like I was a stubborn child refusing to accept reality.
“Exactly. Money is what you always wanted from me, isn’t it?
” His voice sharpened, cruelly confident.
“You couldn’t get it through a marriage.
You couldn’t get it by inventing a pregnancy, so you decided interfering in my business would get you paid.
” His gaze raked over me like a verdict.
“I’ll give you this—you’re persistent. So spare me the performance and name your price. ”
I took a step back until my spine met the cold kitchen counter.
Pain sliced through me as I stared at him—trying to understand how he could truly believe that about me after everything.
But the bitter truth was… I wasn’t surprised.
Not really.
What he did in that church had made it clear: this was all he had ever believed I was. A manipulator. A gold-digger. A liar.
“You really haven’t changed at all, have you?” I whispered, my tone sharper than I intended. “You—”
I couldn’t finish.
He moved closer again, reducing the distance between us to less than a foot. Thirty centimeters. My breath shortened.
“Don’t pretend you don’t like this,” he said softly, poison disguised as intimacy. “You’ve spent a long time perfecting the art of looking innocent while negotiating a good deal. I’m just saving you time and offering you what you’ve been after since the beginning.”
The hurt inside me started to vibrate—turning into anger, spilling over, rising so fast it took my breath.
My hands trembled.
“How dare you?” My voice rose despite myself, indignation ripping through control.
“Who do you think you are, coming into my house and insulting me like this?” I pointed at him like he was the contamination.
“Money is all you understand, Enrico—not me. If anyone here is trying to solve everything with money, it’s you! ”
His eyes flashed as he leaned in, close enough that I felt his warm breath against my skin. His cologne was absurdly expensive, sharp and familiar in a way that made my stomach turn.
“Stop playing the victim,” he murmured. “You know exactly what you did to deserve every word I’m saying.” His voice hardened. “And I’m here offering you an easy way out. Take the money and disappear from my life. Don’t make this harder than you already have.”
“The only hard thing here is listening to you!” I snapped. “If you think you can buy my dignity, you’re wasting your time.” My voice broke with fury. “I don’t want your dirty money, Enrico. I didn’t want it then, and I sure as hell don’t want it now!”
His fists clenched at his sides. He took a firm step forward, forcing me back against the counter, trapping me with sheer size and dominance.
“Dirty?” he bit out. “My money is dirty?” His eyes cut into me. “Then what does that make you?”
Something inside me cracked.
I couldn’t hold the tears back anymore.
The sound of my palm striking his cheek snapped through the kitchen like a gunshot.
My whole body shook. Cold tears slid down my face as my breath came out ragged and loud.
“You don’t know anything about what I wanted, Enrico,” I choked out. “Nothing.”
He smiled—veins standing out in his neck, his face still turned from the slap.
“You disappeared,” he accused. “You ran like a coward.”
I stared at him through tears, the man I once believed I would build a life with.
“I ran?” I shouted, finally losing what little control I had left. “You threw me out of your life like I was trash! You didn’t give me a single chance to defend myself!”
“Because you didn’t deserve one!” he roared, emotion flashing raw in his gray eyes—rage I rarely saw in him.
“Didn’t deserve one?” I threw it back, voice loud enough to echo through the house. I shoved his chest, but he didn’t move an inch. “I gave you everything, Enrico! My heart, my trust, my whole life—and you tossed it away like it meant nothing!”
We were face to face now, eyes locked, both of us consumed by rage and pain we’d carried for years. The bitterness exploded between us, turning my kitchen into a battlefield.
“You don’t know the meaning of trust,” he snapped. “All you know how to do is lie, manipulate, pretend—”
And before I could answer, a small, frightened voice cut through the air like a blade.
“Mommy…?”
I turned instantly.
My heart clenched so hard it felt like it might tear.
Clara stood at the entrance to the kitchen, clutching her stuffed bear to her chest, eyes wide with fear.
I wiped my face quickly, uselessly, and rushed to her.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I whispered, pulling her against my trembling body. I shot Enrico a furious look over her head. “It’s okay. Go back to bed, alright? Mommy just needs to say goodbye to our… visitor, and I’ll come right in.”
Clara nodded timidly. Her eyes flicked to Enrico for a brief, terrified second—then she turned and disappeared down the hallway, silent as a shadow.
The moment she was gone, I faced him again, anger turning darker, deeper.
“Satisfied?” I hissed, my whisper shaking with fury and grief. “Is this what you wanted? For me to lose control in front of her?”
Enrico didn’t answer at once.
For the first time that night, the arrogance seemed to drain out of him.
His entire body went rigid. Shoulders tense. His eyes stayed fixed on the place Clara had stood seconds before.
His usually unreadable face looked… shocked.
Pale beneath his perfectly trimmed beard. Jaw locked. Pupils blown wide by something intense and unexpected.
My heart started pounding out of control.
Fear spread through me like icy hands.
The possibility that Enrico could hurt my child—reject her the way he had rejected me—hit so hard I moved instinctively.
I lifted my chin, stepped into a protective stance, and placed myself directly between him and the hallway.
“Who’s the father of that girl, Valentina?” he asked.
Each word came out low, cold, almost threatening—gray eyes now filled with a storm he couldn’t hide.
A bitter, disbelieving laugh escaped me.
“Who do you think, genius?” I snapped, fury renewing like fire. I stepped forward. “And don’t you dare think about hurting my daughter, Enrico. You’ll have to kill me first.”
He recoiled half a step, startled by the violence in my voice—then his expression shifted.
Fury.
Deep. Visceral. Something that made his eyes flash, his face go rigid, his fists tremble slightly at his sides as he stared at me like he could barely breathe.
“She’s my daughter?”
“Now you want to know?”
“I have a right to know!”
“And she had a right to grow up without being hated by a man who never wanted her!”
“So you hid her from me for five years?” His voice was controlled, but it shook with the effort. “You had my child and decided I didn’t have the right to know?” He stepped toward me. “How dare you, Valentina?”
“How dare I?” I shot back, voice rising, my face burning with outrage.
“You abandoned me, Enrico.” The words came out like knives.
“You rejected me—without even looking back.” I lowered my voice, but it cut just as deep.
“And now you think you get to demand anything from me?” I pointed at him, shaking.
“You lost every right you might’ve had the second you called me a whore in front of a packed church! ”
He stared at me for several endless seconds, hatred in his eyes mixing with something I didn’t want to understand.
Then he spoke, voice low and deadly.
“This isn’t over, Valentina. You stole five years of my daughter’s life.” His gaze burned. “If you think I’m going to let that go, you have no idea who I really am.”
My breathing came fast, sharp.
But I wasn’t going to keep this going with Clara awake in the next room.
I had made my daughter a promise.
She was my priority.
“Enough, Enrico,” I said firmly, pointing to the door behind him. “I didn’t steal anything. You wasted it.” My voice didn’t shake this time. “Now get out of my house. I have nothing else to say to you tonight.”
He stood still for a moment, like he was considering defying me.
Then he gave me one last look—one that felt like a thousand promises—and turned away. His footsteps were heavy down the hallway. The front door opened.
Then shut.
I rushed to lock it, pressing my back against it afterward with too much force, trembling against the cold wood.
I closed my eyes, trying to stop the tears that came again—silent, painful, unstoppable.
This had to be a nightmare.
Please, God—let it be a nightmare.
But deep in my heart, what hurt the most was the certainty that it wasn’t.