Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
VALENTINA FERRARA
I was in one of the random rooms of the house, sorting through boxes—something that should’ve been simple, until I realized the weight of everything I touched.
Old photos. Folded notes. Crayon drawings with colors faded by time. Every piece of paper had a memory stuck to it. And I didn’t have the time—or the stomach—to relive them all.
I separated things slowly: what I needed close, what could disappear into a storage room or the back of a drawer. What I could bear to keep. What I couldn’t.
I heard his footsteps before I smelled him.
He always arrived like that—quiet, as if he had no guilt at all for entering places I hadn’t offered.
“Do you have a built-in radar?” I asked without looking up, pretending to focus on a stack of photos. “Like a chip tracking where I am in this house?”
“Coincidence,” he replied, voice low and far too casual to be honest.
“Sure.”
I kept sorting, but heat crept into my face anyway—betraying how aware I was of him. Or maybe it wasn’t just awareness.
Maybe it was something I refused to name.
Enrico moved closer without hurry, stopped behind me for a moment, then sat down beside me without asking permission.
Because he never asked.
“What is all this?” he asked calmly, picking up a sheet from the floor and studying it with quiet curiosity.
“None of your business,” I said coldly, still not meeting his eyes.
He gave a short laugh, sarcasm contained, and started flipping through the papers like he owned them too.
“You’re funny, Valentina.”
I ignored him.
Or I tried.
But from the corner of my eye I registered everything anyway: the way his gray shirt fit over broad shoulders, the dark pants slightly wrinkled, his hair messier than usual, falling forward like he’d stopped pretending to be perfectly composed.
And his cologne.
That cursed cologne that filled the room with memories I fought to bury.
Enrico handled Clara’s drawings with an infuriating kind of reverence—as if he were reading contracts, not crayon flowers and crooked stick figures.
Sunlight slipped through half-open curtains, turning the papers on the floor into gold. He picked up one drawing, then another.
We sat in silence for a long time.
Not comfortable silence.
The kind that hangs in the air like a secret no one wants to admit.
I watched his hands move over the pages carefully, touching them like they were fragile, priceless things.
Maybe to him, they were.
Then he stopped.
His fingers went still on a folded sheet in the corner. His whole body went rigid. His eyes fixed too hard.
Too sharp.
“She drew me without a face,” he said, voice so low it was almost a whisper.
But there was something in it that cut through me.
Pain.
Shock.
Guilt.
I lifted my eyes slowly, my heart beating faster as I stared at the drawing in his hands.
Clara had drawn herself holding my hand. Me holding hers.
And beside us, a tall male shape with no eyes. No mouth. No features at all.
A faceless shadow.
Underneath, in crooked child handwriting—spelling wrong, letters uneven—it read:
INVISIBLE DADDY.
My chest tightened with a pain so sharp I couldn’t breathe for a second.
Enrico didn’t move.
He looked like stone. Shoulders tense. Jaw locked. His stare fixed on the emptiness where a face should have been—on the void he had helped create.
“Because you didn’t have one,” I said, voice low and steady and lethal.
He swallowed, unable to look at me.
“I swear I never wanted this,” he whispered, and the near-pleading edge in it made something inside me react in a way I hated. I wanted to scream. I wanted to—
No. Not that. Not ever.
“But you did it anyway,” I said.
A verdict.
Silence fell again—heavy, crushing.
I looked down and pretended to return to sorting, but something had shifted.
In me.
In him.
For the first time since Enrico returned to my life, he didn’t have an answer.
And maybe that absence—those missing words, that lack of justification—was what hurt the most.
***
I grabbed my purse from the side table and slid the strap over my shoulder, checking my reflection in the mirror.
Nude lipstick. Minimal. Safe. Even that felt like a decision that could be questioned now.
My heels clicked softly on marble as I headed for the front door. The house held that same suffocating stillness—until a page turned.
Literally.
Enrico was sitting on the living room sofa, a tablet balanced on one crossed leg. He looked bored, like nothing in the world could touch him.
But the second I neared the door, his eyes lifted—slowly.
He didn’t say anything at first.
He just looked at me.
Too long.
Then he glanced back down at the tablet like he couldn’t care less.
It didn’t fool anyone.
Especially not me.
“Where are you going?” he asked casually, like he was talking about the weather.
I stopped and let out a heavy sigh I hadn’t meant to release.
“Out.”
“Out where?”
I crossed my arms, my patience fraying.
“Since when do you police my schedule, Enrico?”
He set the tablet down with exaggerated calm and shifted like he was settling in for a fight.
Or a flirtation.
With him, I could never tell the difference.
“Since my wife started parading around the house like she has a secret date,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and met his stare with deliberate boredom.
“And if I do?”
The question hung in the air one second too long.
Enrico’s eyebrow rose. The corner of his mouth lifted into a half-smile that wasn’t remotely friendly.
“Then I’d be forced to politely instruct our security to stop you.”
“You’re predictable,” I muttered. “Do you really think that gives you control over me?”
“Control?” He stood slowly, like he had all the time in the world. Like he already considered himself the winner. “No. I simply like knowing where the people are who claim they don’t owe me answers… while dressed like they’re starring in a sensual music video at two in the afternoon.”
I snorted and took two steps toward the door.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“And you’re avoiding the question.”
I turned back, slow.
“What if I’m going to meet someone?” I said, voice sharpened on purpose. “A man, maybe. Someone who makes me laugh. Someone who respects my space. Someone who doesn’t act like he owns everything that breathes around him.”
Enrico’s eyes tightened for a fraction of a second, but he kept his posture.
“Are you really going out like that,” he asked, voice low, “in that short dress and with that filthy mouth?”
“Better than walking around in an expensive suit with a small soul.”
He smiled—without humor.
“I just want to know if I should send security with you,” he said. “Or maybe hide a camera in that neckline of yours in case you get lost between the aisles of… I don’t know… a supermarket.”
My silence gave me away.
He saw it immediately.
Enrico’s smile turned victorious.
“You’re going to the store,” he said—statement, not question.
I rolled my eyes.
“Congratulations, genius. Someone has to stock this house with things other than arrogance. Clara eats differently than people like you.”
His gaze moved over me like he was assessing an investment.
Legs.
Hips.
Waist.
Neckline.
Then back to my face, that irritating half-smile in place.
“First,” he said, “I’ve already told you—more than once—whatever you or my daughter need, you ask, and it will be provided. And second…” His eyes flicked to my dress again. “You’re too dressed up to buy onions.”
I crossed my arms, stubborn.
“I prefer buying my daughter’s things myself. And you’re too bothered for someone who claims he doesn’t care.”
“I’m just saying the dress is short.”
I took a step back and smiled like I’d won the round.
“Then look away, Enrico.”
I opened the door and left.
None of it stopped me from feeling it.
His gaze followed me down the steps—hot on the back of my neck like fire.
And maybe—just maybe—he was smiling in the shadows as I walked away.
Because he liked the chase.
And the worst part was…
some part of me was starting to recognize the game.