Chapter 31 Valentina #4
Eventually, Marco stepped out into the room looking stupidly attractive in his stupid sweatpants and stupid black shirt.
Who would’ve thought the man owned something other than a suit?
His hair was damp, that slight scruff on his jawline more noticeable than usual, and I needed to stop noticing these things right now. Immediately.
I cleared my throat and opened the freezer, grabbing two tubs of ice cream and holding them up. I was willing to share.
“Want some ice cream?”
He tilted his head, giving me one of those amused looks. “You bought ice cream? When?”
“A few days ago. Some people prefer their kitchens to contain actual food.”
He moved closer, leaning against the counter. “What else did you buy?”
“Essentials,” I said vaguely, pulling another bowl from the cabinet. “You know, ice cream, cereal, probably things you don’t approve of.”
He smiled a little. “Ice cream is an essential?”
“Obviously.” I held up the two tubs. “Chocolate or vanilla?”
He paused for maybe half a second. “Chocolate.”
Interesting choice. I glanced up at him, a smirk tugging at my lips. “Didn’t really peg you as the chocolate type.”
He raised an eyebrow. “No? Why’s that?”
“Because,” I said, scooping out the ice cream and definitely not looking him in the eye, “you seem . . . vanilla.”
“You think I’m vanilla?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging as if it were no big deal, even though my pulse was definitely racing now. “Are you? I’m still evaluating.”
He didn’t answer right away, which of course made it worse. He just stood there looking at me with that annoyingly intense stare of his, dragging it out long enough for my imagination to spiral into places it really shouldn’t.
“I can be.”
Oh?
Marco never said things like that. He’d never casually admit he had other sides to him—especially when I’d already convinced myself he was completely unavailable and off-limits.
But that single little comment was enough to send my thoughts racing, imagining exactly what he meant by “can be.” Because if Marco wasn’t entirely vanilla—if he could switch gears and be something else, something more—I was officially screwed.
And judging by the look on his face, he knew exactly what he’d just done to me. Asshole.
“So there’s a kinky version of you hidden under all that seriousness?”
“You’d love to think that, wouldn’t you?”
He was right. I would.
“Is anyone else getting that side of you?”
I didn’t really care one way or the other, but the second the words left my mouth, I felt that twist in my chest. The one that meant I was already too far in to be pretending.
“Are you asking me if we’re exclusive, Valentina?”
Honestly, I wasn’t even sure. Marco wasn’t exactly mine to claim—not in any real way. But the idea of him with someone else felt . . . wrong. It made my stomach churn in a way I didn’t like at all.
I shrugged. “We never really discussed how this arrangement works—or if I should expect a mistress to pop up at some inconvenient moment.”
“You think I have time for a mistress?” he asked, as dry as ever.
“I don’t know,” I said, leaning back against the counter. “Do you?”
He was annoyed, maybe even defensive, because this conversation was too personal, too real, and Marco hated anything real.
He rolled his eyes. I was shocked he’d done something so dramatic.
“Believe me, one complicated woman is more than enough.”
He wasn’t seeing anyone else?
For some reason, that didn’t exactly surprise me.
Marco had never struck me as the type who’d have a casual fling.
He barely had time for me—and the only reason I was even in his orbit was because Max had put me there.
I couldn’t picture him willingly complicating his life any more than he already had.
I wondered sometimes, though, if it ever bothered him to be alone. I thought maybe he preferred it. Maybe the isolation suited him. But still, he was human, wasn’t he? At some point, he had to feel that tug of loneliness creeping in; the need for companionship beneath all those layers of reserve.
I caught myself wondering about his experience—how much did he have, exactly?—but I immediately scolded myself. It wasn’t any of my business. But damn, if he didn’t make it hard not to wonder.
Marco was impossible to read. He gave just enough away to intrigue me, but never enough to satisfy that curiosity.
Still, there was no harm in pushing just a little more, right?
“So . . . you’re saying I’ve got you all to myself?”
He gave me a dry, vaguely amused look—the one he always reserved for me when I pushed his buttons. “Is that what you want?”
I bit down on a smile. “Maybe,” I said, not fully admitting it was most definitely what I wanted. “Polygamy isn’t really my thing. Neither are open marriages.”
That got his attention. “That’s interesting. Because if memory serves, your last marriage wasn’t exactly monogamous.”
“Trial and error,” I scoffed.
“You didn’t like it?”
Oh, I’d liked it well enough at the time. Sebastian, at least, was gorgeous naked and knew exactly what he was doing with all that confidence of his—unlike Cillian, who’d had the sexual appeal and stamina of an overcooked noodle.
Actually, that was unfair to noodles.
Sex with Cillian wasn’t even sex—it was just tragically awkward fumbling that, mercifully, had never progressed beyond painfully embarrassing foreplay. I should probably send a thank-you note to whatever deity had intervened on that one.
“No,” I acknowledged with a stiff neck. “It was too hard to keep track of all my flings, you know.”
He probably wouldn’t know. Probably wouldn’t even know what a fling was. I figured before me, there’d been no one. I mean, maybe there was a barista who’d call him by his name, but I figured that was as much as the guy got. He’d have to actually talk to girls to know what a fling was.
“Right.” His lips folded into a thin line. “Must’ve been exhausting to keep the names straight.”
“Oh, it was,” I said, biting down on my smile. “But now it’s easy. Just the one arrogant lawyer.”
“One arrogant lawyer who knows exactly what you need.”
“Don’t let it go to your head, lawyer.”
He smiled. “Too late.”
“Well, at least you’re consistent.”
“And you’re not?” he wondered. “Your lips seem to find mine first every single time.”
I scoffed. “Not every time.”
“Yes,” he corrected. “Every time.”
“Would you rather I be inconsistent? You’re not the only man in a suit who knows how to fuck well.”
His mouth twitched. “I thought you preferred monogamy.”
“I prefer a lot of things. Doesn’t mean I get what I want.”
“And what exactly do you want, Valentina?”
You, apparently.
“Right now?” I said, looking up at him at him through my lashes. “For you to stop pretending you don’t already know.”
He didn’t bother giving me a response before I turned on my heel and made my way toward the bedroom.
“Valentina.” He said my name like a warning, stopping me dead in my tracks. “I don’t say this lightly, but if I find out you’re seeing someone else, I’d probably have to kill him. Just on principle.”
I just stood there for a second, hand on the frame of the door, breath stuck somewhere between “what the fuck?” and “don’t read into it.” Leave it to Marco to say something borderline unhinged with the same tone most people used to order their coffee.
I hated that it had hit me somewhere I couldn’t name. He’d said it like it was a fact, maybe even a promise, and God help me, some messed-up part of me liked it. Liked the idea of being someone worth getting angry about. Worth keeping. Worth protecting in the most dangerous, irrational way.
“On principle?” I wondered.
He nodded. “It’s how the Outfit operates.”
I knew that.
Of course I knew that. Everyone who’d grown up adjacent to this world knew what that meant. It wasn’t just a possessiveness thing. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t even about cheating most of the time.
It was about reputation. Territory. Pride. All three.
It was about a man staking a claim, and what happened when someone else crossed it.
Max had done it. Years ago. Before Rosalie was even officially his. He’d killed three men—not because they were in love yet, or because Rosalie had promised him anything, but simply because she was his the second he’d decided she was.
That was how this world worked. Men in power didn’t wait to be handed something; they took it. It didn’t matter if that something was a woman, a business, or loyalty. Ownership started the moment they chose to claim it.
“You ever kill anyone, lawyer?”
His eyes narrowed like he was deciding exactly how much truth I deserved tonight. “You want an answer to that?”
“Are you scared I won’t like the answer?”
“Scared you will.”
Truth was, I would.
Maybe it should’ve felt dark, dangerous, too close to Max and the Outfit and the parts of my life I wanted to escape, but it wasn’t scary at all. If anything, it was reassuring. Because if he’d kill for me, he’d fight for me. He’d stay.
“Well, if anyone turns up, I’ll know exactly what to tell the police,” I said with a smile.
“Don’t put me in the position, and you won’t have to tell anyone anything.”
I rolled my eyes, mostly because it was easier than admitting how much I liked hearing him say things like that—things that felt possessive, protective, and maybe even a little clingy.
Things I shouldn’t want from a man who was supposed to be a temporary arrangement, a contract I’d signed in desperation.
“I’m serious, Valentina.”
“I know you are.”
I stood there, caught somewhere between running to him and running away, my heart pounding a little too fast, my mind racing with all the ways this could—and probably would—end badly.
Because Marco wasn’t temporary. Not anymore. Maybe he never really had been. Every line we’d drawn had blurred until neither of us could remember why we’d drawn them in the first place.
“Buenas noches, mijo.”
“Marco,” he corrected, agitated. “Call me by my name, Valentina.”
I blinked at him, thrown for half a second by how fast it had landed. It wasn’t the words. It was the way he’d said them—like they mattered. Like my using anything other than his name wasn’t just annoying but offensive. Like I’d reached somewhere I didn’t belong.
Weird.
I’d only said it to mess with him, maybe flirt a little. To be soft in that way that wasn’t really soft. The word had slipped out before I’d thought about it—lazy, in the way Spanish nicknames sometimes were.
Mijo.
It wasn’t a big deal.
Until it was.
“Buenas noches, Marco,” I said again, slower this time.
I watched the way his jaw unclenched just slightly. As if that single syllable had settled something.
Still didn’t explain the reaction.
It wasn’t like him to care about that stuff. He wasn’t precious. He didn’t need to be handled gently, and he definitely didn’t mind when I pushed his buttons. If anything, he invited it. But this? This wasn’t irritation. It felt like something else.
But I didn’t know what to do with that, so I let it go. Or at least, I pretended to as I walked away with my smile in place, though the whole time, my brain was spinning. For a man who acted like nothing ever touched him, like nothing mattered, he sure didn’t like being misnamed.
And part of me—the part I didn’t say out loud—wondered how many people had gotten it wrong before me.
I wondered how many of them hadn’t even noticed.