Chapter 25 Valentina #2
Lucia pointed immediately, accusingly, at the aggressive mallard who’d been my ungrateful customer last time. “That one. He’s greedy.”
Marco studied the duck and then turned back to Lucia with a nod. “Understood.”
She handed him a slice of bread. “You have to feed the nice ones first, otherwise the mean ones take all the food. And that’s not fair.”
I could tell by the faint smirk at the corner of his lips that he was biting down a smile. “Got it,” Marco said quietly, breaking the bread apart in his hands, looking somehow both completely ridiculous and oddly endearing as he carefully followed her instructions.
Lucia threw her own piece gently into the water, narrating her every move. The ducks quickly surrounded her, scooping up crumbs, quacking and squabbling quietly among themselves. It was peaceful.
Well, as peaceful as ducks and a talkative six-year-old could be.
When Marco finally ran out of bread, he stepped back beside me. His arm brushed against mine just slightly, sending a tiny, unexpected jolt through me. He leaned a little closer as he watched Lucia with a faint smile as she continued explaining the finer points of duck fairness.
“She talks a lot.”
I smirked, tilting my head to look up at him. “Runs in the family.”
Marco hummed, probably debating whether Lucia’s talkativeness was a good thing or something he’d have to brace himself for later. It was entertaining, watching him quietly weigh the pros and cons of being around anyone who talked as much as I did.
I relaxed my shoulders. “So I saw you got flowers.”
He looked down at me, his brows pinched together. “I got flowers, yes.”
“What was the occasion? Who are they for?”
He smiled. “They’re for you.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Oh.”
Lucia twirled back toward us, blissfully unaware of the conversation happening above her head. “Tía, I ran out!”
I held out the bag. “Here—take the rest.”
She snatched it eagerly and skipped back to the pond, making ducks scatter as she went.
Marco tilted his head slightly, still watching her carefully. “You watch her a lot?”
“Sometimes.” I shrugged, feeling a weird twist in my chest. “Not enough, apparently.”
He seemed confused by my meaning, but he didn’t prod. Marco never prodded the way I would. He always waited, patient as hell, for me to spill things on my own. Which, honestly, just made me more likely to keep my mouth shut.
Probably why he did it.
I sighed, watching Lucia plop down onto the grass, completely oblivious to how much dirt she was grinding into her jeans. Isabel was going to kill me for that later, but that was a problem for future Valentina.
“She’s obsessed with ducks,” I said lightly.
Marco nodded slightly, almost smiling. “There are worse things to be obsessed with.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, turning to look at him with a smirk. “Like money laundering and extortion.”
And alcohol.
“But I guess ducks are safer,” I said quickly, snapping my eyes back toward the pond. “Low risk. Low stakes. Unless you count the one that bit me last summer—which, for the record, was an unprovoked attack.”
He still didn’t laugh, but I caught the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. The kind that almost meant something. The kind that told me he wasn’t ignoring what I’d said, he was just letting it sit there.
Which was somehow worse.
We hadn’t talked about that night.
It sat between us, impossible to ignore, but it was easier to pretend it wasn’t there if we both stared in the other direction. Like if neither of us acknowledged it, it couldn’t touch us.
What was there to say anyway?
He’d come back, and I’d let him. That was it. That was what we did, wasn’t it? No conversation. No confrontation. Just silence where all the messy, complicated stuff should go.
We were both cowards in our own way—him with his stillness, me with my sarcasm. He pretended it didn’t matter. I pretended it had never happened.
I didn’t bring it up, because I didn’t know what I’d do if he looked me in the eye and said it was a mistake. And I think he didn’t bring it up because he wasn’t sure what I’d do if he said it wasn’t.
So we ignored it.
We talked about ducks. About Lucia. About whatever bullshit filled the space and kept our hands from touching again. But underneath it—underneath every look, every breath, every almost—there it was.
That night.
I couldn’t handle the silence anymore. I hated that he was standing right there, pretending I hadn’t basically chased him out of my apartment a week ago.
I finally caved and asked, “So where were you?”
It came out softer than I meant it to, which irritated me. But whatever. The silence was getting ridiculous, and I was already halfway in my own head, so what was one more slip?
Marco glanced over at me. That look he always gave—like he already knew I’d ask and had just been waiting for me to get tired of pretending I wouldn’t. Not smug, not condescending. Just . . . patient. Like he understood why I was asking and didn’t plan to make me beg for the answer.
“Chicago,” he said.
“What’d you do there?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“Handled a few things,” he said calmly. “Castello’s legal team is a joke. Their counsel kept trying to slide clauses past me as if I didn’t write half the framework myself two years ago.”
“And now you’re back?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he murmured gently.
“Why were you in my apartment?”
He took a deep breath and then said, “I figured we should talk about—”
But Lucia chose that exact moment to swing around with the bread bag as if she were waving a white flag. “We’re out!” she announced like it was a full-blown emergency. “The ducks are still hungry!”
Marco looked at her. Smiled. And I watched the moment slip between us.
Like always.
He’d said he’d come back to talk to me.
I didn’t know what to do with that.
What did it mean? Talk about what? About that night? About what he’d said? About what he hadn’t? Because he’d never finished his sentence, and I’d been trying to fill in the blanks ever since.
He looked at me like he wanted to say something else. It was still there, hanging between us, just waiting for the right moment to drop. Maybe I was supposed to ask. Maybe I was supposed to make it easy for him.
But why the hell should I? He’d made the comment. He’d dropped the grenade. I was just the one left holding the pin.
It wasn’t even the sex. That wasn’t the problem. The sex was . . . the sex was great, honestly. The problem was the silence that had come after. The way he’d looked at me like I was the alcoholic he wished I weren’t.
I’d been doing the damn work myself. I’d been going to meetings.
I hadn’t been drinking. I hadn’t been acting out.
I’d been showing up—at least in the only way I knew how.
And then he’d opened his mouth and made me feel like none of it mattered, like all he saw was someone he had to fix. Someone broken.
I’d been broken before, yeah. I’d been a fucking disaster. I’d made choices that had wrecked people—including myself.
I’d never wanted his pity, but everything had changed when he became my husband. When the ring went on and the paperwork was filed. When we’d walked out of that courthouse pretending it was business, pretending it was fine.
Lucia came back toward us. “Tía, I think they like me!”
Marco took a step back, slipping his hands into his pockets as if putting distance between us would make his words fade.
It didn’t.
I forced a smirk and nudged Lucia’s shoulder. “Of course they do, carino. You’re the queen of the ducks.”
Lucia smiled brightly, but my thoughts were still tangled elsewhere.
After the park, Marco took us to get food. Nothing fancy, just one of those quiet little Italian places tucked away on a side street where the lights were low enough that everything felt softer, warmer somehow, and the pasta tasted like comfort.
Lucia was over the moon. She got to pick whatever she wanted off the menu, and Marco—usually the picture of logic and reason—didn’t complain when she pointed at the biggest plate of spaghetti known to mankind.
Of course, she barely ate a quarter of it, but Marco didn’t seem to mind.
I tried not to read into that, even though my brain immediately started wondering what it meant.
After dinner, instead of letting us navigate the subway, he drove us back to Isabel’s place, which honestly raised more questions than answers. Why had he even been on the subway all those times if he had a perfectly good car sitting around?
I shifted my attention to the blur of streetlights flashing past the window, thinking back to those moments we’d crossed paths underground.
That first time, when the creep wouldn’t leave me alone and Marco had barely had to move to scare him off.
The time I’d dozed off on his shoulder, exhausted, and instead of shaking me awake or moving away, he’d just sat there perfectly still, letting me rest against him, until my stop came.
And then there was the other time, with Lucia. I’d spotted him first, watching quietly from across the train car. He hadn’t said anything. Marco never made the first move. He never acknowledged anything unless I practically dragged it out of him.
When we finally got to my sister’s place, Lucia was already half-asleep in the back seat, her head tipped against the window.
I scooped her up into my arms, carrying her upstairs, while Marco stayed behind in the car because I’d asked him to.
I wasn’t ready to explain him yet—not to Isabel.
Not when I couldn’t even explain him to myself.
After a quick hello and a promise to call soon, I left Lucia safely tucked in with Isa and made my way back downstairs, still wiping some kind of mystery glitter off my shirt that Lucia had left behind.
It was everywhere. On my jeans, in my hair, on my soul, probably.
She was like a walking glitter bomb with tiny opinions and no volume control. I loved her for it.
Marco was still in the car, right where I’d left him—hands on the wheel, engine idling, eyes straight ahead as if he hadn’t just been sitting in the dark rethinking his entire life while I was upstairs pretending I didn’t want to check if he’d left.
He didn’t look at me when I slid back into the passenger seat. He didn’t have to.
We drove in silence for most of the way. The tension in the car made me hyperaware of everything. The low hum of the engine. The way his hand flexed on the wheel. The heat from the vents warming my legs like I wasn’t already flushed from just being near him.
When we got to my apartment, he locked the car doors immediately.
“What’re you doing?” I asked.
The look he gave me wasn’t good. It was serious. More serious than I’d ever seen him. I wasn’t sure what that meant.
“Let me out,” I demanded.
“No.”
I blinked at him. “Are you serious?”
I pulled at the door handle.
Still locked.
Of course it was.
I turned my head slowly, brows raised. “Did you child-lock me in your car?”
His mouth twitched as if he were fighting a smile. I could’ve murdered him.
“Yeah. I’m not done with you yet.”
“Oh my god. Unlock the damn door.”
“Not until you calm down.”
“I’m perfectly calm.”
“Great,” he started. “Then let’s talk like adults.”
“Oh, really?”
“Valentina.”
That was all he said—Valentina—like he was the one who was being reasonable here and I was being dramatic. But he was literally holding me hostage.
I crossed my arms.
“I’m back from Chicago, which means the timeline picks up again.”
I blinked. “Timeline?”
“Our living arrangement. It’s part of the agreement. I want your things packed.”
“I am not moving in with you.”
“You are.”
I stared at him.
He stared right back.
“I’m serious,” he added.
“So am I,” I snapped. “I like my apartment. I like my stuff. I like my freedom. You think I’m going to walk into your place, your routines, your everything, and just . . . fit?”
“It’s part of the deal.”
“So is pretending we don’t hate each other, and we’re not doing great on that either.”
“I don’t want to fight with you,” he said.
“Then stop giving me reasons to.”
He looked at me. Really looked at me. And I hated how long he held my stare. It was as if he was trying to memorize it. Like he didn’t trust I’d still be here when he came back.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Packed.”
And with that, the lock clicked open.
I didn’t move at first. I just sat there, my hand on the door handle, my heart somewhere it absolutely shouldn’t be.
Then I opened the door and stepped out slowly, like my pride wasn’t screaming at me to say something petty and theatrical just for the hell of it.
I climbed the stairs to my building, keys already in hand, trying to pretend my heart wasn’t beating in my ears. I didn’t look back—not even once—but I knew he was still there. Watching. Probably hating me a little. Probably hating himself more.
I told myself I didn’t care. That I’d go upstairs, pour myself a glass of water, scroll through something stupid until the heat in my chest wore off.
But when I got inside I didn’t do any of that.
I just leaned back against the door, staring at my apartment—at all the things I hadn’t packed; at all the chaos I still hadn’t dealt with—and thought, God, I wish I didn’t want him to come back tomorrow.
But I did.
I really, really did.