Chapter Forty-Three
Valentina
T he key to Matteo’s apartment is heavy in my palm. I play with it, flicking it distractedly between my fingers. Anything to put off walking into his flat and breaking the news of my engagement to him.
I’ve been sick to my stomach for the past two days just thinking about it. I lied and told Aurora it was food poisoning when all along I knew it was because of the heart breaking in my chest. That’s also how long it took for me to stop crying.
Why did he even give me this stupid key?
“Here ,” he’d said as he handed it to me, “ This way you can come home whenever you want, regardless of whether I’m here or not.”
Why did we tangle so many parts of our lives together? Was it so that breaking apart would be as painful as possible?
The door is there, waiting.
On the other side of it lies everything I’ve ever wanted. This lone panel of wood isn’t my enemy but I’ve made it such, because crossing it means giving it all up. My pulse thumps in my chest like a warning. It sends a rush of blood to my head, making me lightheaded.
My body’s reaction is only going to get more debilitating from here, so I square my shoulders, take a breath, and slide the infernal key into his front door one final time.
It opens as easily as it always has, welcoming me home for one last goodbye.
Matteo and Enzo sit at the living room table, a couple of beers set between the two of them. They’re bent over pages of documents, matching expressions of concentration splashed across their features.
Matteo looks up at the sound of the door opening and his face transforms. The tight lines of focus ease from his eyes, melting into a happy smile he has no business directing entirely at me. His chest settles at the bottom of a long, slow exhale, almost like he’s been holding his breath since the last time he saw me.
The smile slips abruptly off his lips, replaced by a concerned line between his brows.
One look.
It takes him one look to know something is very wrong with me. His eyes scan my face intently in search of answers he won’t find.
Enzo’s gaze pings meaningfully back and forth between Matteo and I as he also tries to figure out what’s going on.
I clear my throat, but it does nothing to remove the cobweb of emotions strangling my windpipe like a noose. “I said I’d be honest and that I wouldn’t keep things from you anymore, so that’s why I’m telling you this,” I start, saying the words I spent hours rehearsing today just so I’d have the courage to actually say them. “Not because I expect anything from you—a reaction or much less that it’ll matter given the reality of our situation—but because I promised you that I would be honest.”
Matteo’s spine jerks, then stiffens. Still, his voice is gentle. “What’s going on, cara mia ?”
My chest is unbearably tight and growing more strained with every step I take towards him, but I don’t want to shout this from across the room. I don’t want to fling the news carelessly at him like he isn’t the man I love.
“I’m—” My throat shuts down, my body revolting against the words. I try to swallow, but my mouth feels like it’s covered in sandpaper. “I’m…” I try again, to no avail.
When I finally manage to shove the words out, they emerge just as raw and devastated as I feel. There’s no sign of the cold detachment I’d intended to use to mask my real pain.
“I’m engaged.”
Enzo chokes on his beer. The sound of his coughing fills the dangerous silence that falls over us. He beats a fist loudly against his chest, his wide eyes pinned on his boss, bracing for his reaction.
Matteo doesn’t make either of us wait long.
The temperature drops below zero and keeps plummeting as he rises slowly to his feet.
“What?” His voice is eerily calm. Somehow he manages to draw the one syllable into a question that feels endlessly longer and far more threatening.
My mind goes completely blank. All the things I had planned and practiced to say disappear, and I start rambling instead.
“It’s not a love—” I stop, wilting beneath Matteo’s sudden glare. “It’s not a love match. Obviously. It’s an arranged marriage my brother negotiated. I only found out about it two days ago—”
“You’ve known for two fucking days that you’re engaged to someone else and you’re only just now telling me?” The words tear from Matteo’s throat like they’ve been ripped out.
“ Ooh .” Enzo stands, mildly alarmed. “Alright, I’m going to go drink this beer…anywhere but here.”
“And you thought it wouldn’t ‘ matter ’ to me.” His voice is deceptively even on the surface but danger is laced so thoroughly through each syllable, it leaves little doubt as to the explosion looming on the horizon. “Is that what you just said?”
“Hold on, boss, I’m still here,” Enzo reminds him, scurrying further back into the apartment. “Let me leave before you lose your fucking mind, no need for any collateral damage in this.”
“Not that it wouldn’t matter to you ,” I reply, ignoring Enzo who disappears into one of the bedrooms. “That it wouldn’t matter because of our… situation. This was supposed to be just fun, remember?”
Matteo rounds the dining table, coming towards me with deliberate steps. My breath recoils into my lungs when I see the low burning fury simmering in his eyes.
I should have waited a few more days before doing this. It’s too soon. I’m not ready. A sudden urge to flee makes me turn my back to him.
A feral growl freezes me in place.
“If you walk away from me now, I’ll do what I should have done two years ago and lock you away somewhere no one will ever find you.” My stomach pitches, not at the threat, but at the thick emotion warping every word. I stand rooted there, shaking. “Look at me and tell me it’s not true,” he commands. I glance over my shoulder at him and instantly falter. He’s right behind me and his face is pale, the color having washed from his features. He’s the same shade as the trembling white-knuckled fists he holds clenched tightly at his sides. “Tell me this is some kind of sick joke.”
Every one of his exhales is a little too sharp, a little too quick, whereas I simply can’t breathe.
“I can’t do that,” I croak. Pressure pushes violently against the backs of my eyes.
A dangerous rumble of warning expels brutally from his chest. The threat of violence looms palpably over us, thickening and electrifying the air.
“Who is he?”
I shake my head, emotion taking my vocal cords. His name doesn’t matter, he doesn’t matter. He’s just some guy, but if I try to open my mouth and say that, I’ll cry.
Matteo sucks in a tight, viscerally angry breath. Jealousy squeezes the question from his throat. “Are you actually going to marry him?”
Agony shuts mine down, starving the air from my lungs.
My insides feel like they’re being turned out. I drag my gaze away, incapable of staring into his livid eyes anymore.
“Find your tongue and use it, Valentina. I’m about five minutes away from going on a killing spree and you’re the only one who can stop it.”
“I don’t know,” I whisper, barely loud enough for him to hear me.
That’s the truth. A life without Matteo in it isn’t a life worth living, so why fight against something that’ll never mean anything to me anyway?
My brain decides to flash a montage of the next twenty years of my life with someone who isn’t Matteo through my mind. Birthdays, movie nights, special occasions, vacations… all without him.
I look down, my hair fanning to either side of my face. I’m crying before I even realize it. Barbed wire wraps around my heart, puncturing it fatally. My shoulders cave under the weight of my heartache and shake as the tears pour out of me. I clamp a hand over my mouth and try to swallow the sounds as they come out.
This is so much harder than I ever imagined, and I went into it knowing it would break my heart.
This feels like it’s crushing my soul.
“Valentina,” Matteo warns, voice tight.
My tears seem to only infuriate him further. I look up into his face, and a sob slips past my hand, breaking free of its makeshift prison.
He looks devastated. There’s a storm gathered in his eyes but his anger does nothing to conceal the blatant misery rolling off him in thick waves. The only thing more evident than the anguish in his gaze is the hurt. It burns brightly in his dilated pupils, so visceral that it coats my heart in black tar. Part of me is happy to see that this hurts him as much as it hurts me, but the other part grieves for what could have been between us.
“How do you think this’ll work between us when you’re married?” he demands, upset. “Will you have dinner with him and then slip away to find me when you’re done? Will you let me fuck you in my bed and then sneak back into his to sleep by his side?” His eyes flay me alive with accusations as wounded, jealous words rip quietly from his chest. “Will you be on his arm at parties, find me in the bathroom for a quickie, then meet him back on the dancefloor with my cum running down the inside of your thigh?”
The questions hang in the air between us, heavy and condemning.
“I don’t know,” I sob.
His eyes flash, telling me in so many words that he doesn’t accept my answer.
I extend the key in my palm back to him and add in another whisper, “I didn’t think we’d be together anymore.”
Matteo lunges, his anger propelling him swiftly forward. He pushes my hand aside and snuffs out the distance remaining between us until we’re pressed chest to heaving chest.
“You didn’t think we’d be together anymore,” he echoes hollowly. A low, humorless laugh leaves him.
He towers broadly over me, his brown hair so unkempt it mirrors the turmoil inside him. His distressed green eyes close and he drags a hand roughly over his face, looking every inch like a man on the verge of breaking.
His next words are murmured with the kind of poisoned venom that seeps only from a breaking heart. “So you thought I wouldn’t care?” he asks. “You thought I’d watch you marry someone else?”
Tears etch rivers down my cheeks.
This is unfair. So fucking unfair. He doesn’t get to be devastated that I’m engaged when he is too.
“You’re getting married as well, Matteo. You’ve been very clear with me from the beginning that you can’t break up your engagement.” My voice cracks. “What do you want from me?” I rasp brokenly as I shove at his chest. “Do you want me to spend the rest of my life thinking about you, pining after you, wishing I was the one sleeping next to you instead?” I shove at his chest. “Do you think I don’t care?” Shove . “Do you want me to watch you with her ?” Shove .
Matteo grabs my wrists and uses them to wrench me into his chest. “Do you want to marry him?” His voice is hoarse with distaste. “Tell me the truth.”
“No!” I exclaim.
“Then what I want is for you to explain to me why you’ve just accepted this,” he bellows. Matteo’s gaze is tormented, his eyes red rimmed. Raw emotion burns so brightly in them, everything withers beneath his gaze. “Why haven’t you told your brother to fuck off? Why haven’t you told him you can’t marry whichever worthless cunt he’s picked for you?”
The blazing anger pouring off of him scorches the earth beneath my feet, the skin on my body, the heart in my chest.
“I did! Of course I did. I told him I couldn’t marry him, but he didn’t listen.”
“Then why didn’t you tell him there’s someone else?”
“Because there is no one else.”
Matteo’s hand flies to my throat with enough force to make me stumble backwards. He follows, a dark look of primitive rage unfurling in his eyes.
“Be very fucking careful, Valentina,” he warns, voice strained down to a dangerous whisper.
My throat moves beneath his hand as I swallow thickly. I wipe the tears off my cheeks with the backs of my sleeves.
This isn’t how I wanted this to go, but I guess a messy, explosive end was inevitable for two people who should never have met, never have found each other again, and never risked it all for the other.
“I’m not trying to provoke you, Matteo. It’s the truth.” I look up at him with difficulty. Every time I gaze into his face, a sharp pang stabs me in the chest. “You’re not an available option, you know that.”
“I told you I’d find a way to make this work.”
“You’re also the one who expressly told me not to fall in love with y—”
“Did you?” he interrupts.
Protective gates slam loudly shut around my heart. I push the hand he has at my throat away and he lets me. “You don’t get to ask me that.”
He bumps into my chest. “And why not?”
“Because whatever feelings I may or may not have for you, they don’t matter. This was always going to end between us, you made that very clear.” Spitefulness makes me meet his gaze square. “Are you mad because I’m the one leaving you instead of the other way around?”
He hisses in a vicious, shaky breath. “Watch it.”
“You were going to end this!” I exclaim. “I heard you telling Enzo to confirm the meeting with the Marchesanis.” A hollow laugh leaves me. “Seems you were able to bring yourself to meet her after all.”
Matteo takes another step, bumping dominantly into me, his eyes flashing. “You have no idea what you heard. None at all.” His jaw slams shut so violently, I hear his teeth snap together. “Forget Marina, forget your family and mine. Forget everything but the decision before you, Leni.” He continues advancing, forcing me to take matching steps backwards. “You’re at a fork in the road and you need to choose now. So what’s it going to be? What am I to you? Am I just a fling and are you going to marry him, or am I more?”
I push my hands into his chest again, but it does nothing to hold him back. “No, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to make me be the one to take the leap here. This whole time, you’re the one who’s had another woman in the wings. You’re the one who’s been setting the rules. You tell me .”
“I’m the one who’s spent the last four months protecting you, helping you, and earning your trust! I’m the one who’s been steadfast in my dedication to you. I’m the one who’s been honest, you’re the one who’s lied.” His breaths are short and uneven, growing huskier with every viscerally uttered word. “For once, you owe me the truth about what you want.”
My back hits the wall. “Matteo—”
His palm comes down next to my face and he traps me beneath his body. “What do you want?”
“ Pavona .”
The words hit him like a ton of bricks. He draws back in surprise then surges immediately forward, his eyes flashing furiously.
“No. No , I won’t let you run away this time. This is one question you have to answer,” he murmurs gutturally. “What do you want?” he demands.
I drag my gaze away. “I don’t know.”
Matteo doesn’t let me hide. He never has. He grips my jaw and forces my gaze back to his.
“Yes, you do. Tell me. " He crowds me further into the wall, stealing the air from my lungs in the process. His tone verges past desperate when he pleads softly, “What do you want ?”
“What I want is irrelevant!” I exclaim, the words bursting emotionally past my lips. “I know what’s at stake for you. I know you don’t want to marry her, I think I even know who you’d choose if you could, but that’s the thing.” I reach up and clasp his face, my eyes roving over his features to burn one last memory of him into my retinas. “The choice isn’t between me and her, and I know that. It’s between me and everything you’ve ever wanted, everything you’ve ever worked for, which is why I will never, ever be selfish enough to ask you to choose me,” I explain, adding as a belated confession, “No matter what my heart really wants.”
Matteo pins brooding eyes on me.
Five seconds turn to fifteen, then stretch to fifty. He cups my chin and runs his thumb possessively across my mouth. Heavy, half-lidded eyes stare with naked hunger as he drags my lower lip down beneath the pad of his finger.
“Leni…” he whispers hoarsely, his voice raw with unmasked need. “You never had to fucking ask.”
I frown, but he pushes off the wall and away from me. I feel the loss of him immediately. He aims once last impenetrably long look at me and stalks out of the apartment without a backwards glance.
The door slams shut behind him with a pronounced finality that rips a tear right down the center of my battered heart.