Chapter 13
VALENTINA
This emotional roller coaster is taking its toll on me.
Two weeks into our marriage, and I think we’re becoming a couple, but Luca has a way of pulling back just as I’m about to melt comfortably into his being.
We get closer, and our nights are hot and steamy—yet when morning comes around, there’s only distance and silence between us.
It’s as if he works overtime to keep himself at arm’s length, to keep himself from fully giving into me. In to us.
But when I walk downstairs one evening to find him standing in the lobby with an armful of red roses, I falter. I damn near lose my balance.
“Luca, what is this?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
“I haven’t been the most consistent husband,” he says. “I never even took you out on a date, Valentina.”
“No, you haven’t.”
He just plucked me out of my Calumet City rental home and tossed me into this one. Had me pick out a wedding dress and married me, more or less against my will. He’s ravaged me in bed every night until there was nothing left of me, only to leave in the morning to “keep us safe”—or so he says.
And in the meantime, I can’t resist the urge to fall in love with him.
“You deserve better than what my brother did to you,” Luca says. “But in my line of work, it’s not always easy to do. I was hoping we could start small.”
“We can start however you like,” I reply.
He glances around, and I admire the way his jacket drapes his broad shoulder and the way his green tie brings out the subtle green specks in his eyes. “Where’s Michael?”
“Upstairs with Susie. They’re getting ready for dinner,” I say.
“Do you think he’ll mind if I take you out for dinner instead?”
We stare at each other for what feels like forever.
This side of Luca is so sweet and awkward.
He came at me so hard and was so unforgiving, so determined to have everything his way, yet here he is, trying to fill in the gaps.
It makes my pulse quicken, and a smile stretches across my lips as I move closer.
“Dinner?” I ask, then take the flowers.
“A dinner date, actually. I skipped some necessary steps in this whole marriage thing,” Luca admits. “It’s not too late to catch up, is it?”
The flowers’ fragrance fills my soul with a pleasant sensation, and I set the vase aside to glance down at what I’m wearing. “It’s never too late, but should I change first?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Where are you taking me? I’d hate to be underdressed.”
Luca reaches out and takes my hand. He pulls me close, wrapping an arm around my waist. I feel his touch through the layer of delicate lavender-colored chiffon flowing over my body.
It’s a simple but comfortable dress, held only by thin shoulder straps and pinched just above my waist to keep my breasts snug and my figure curvy.
Luca runs his fingers through my hair and kisses my temple, his scent making me drunk.
“You’re perfect dressed precisely the way you are,” he whispers in my ear.
“I’ll let Susie know we’re dining out then.”
We find a lovely, jazz-themed restaurant with a cocktail bar close to the Loop and overlooking Grant Park.
It’s well after eight when we arrive, but given my husband’s notoriety and determination, the chef cannot afford to turn us down.
I try my best to pick out menu items that are easy and quick to prepare, and before long, a feast arrives.
“This looks fantastic,” I say, admiring the steak before my knife cuts through it.
The fries are perfectly golden and crisp, with a New Orleans-style sauce that titillates my taste buds with every dip.
Luca works on his own plate, but he steals glances at me, always observing and analyzing every movement, every gesture, while a waiter discretely keeps our glasses filled and our bread basket crowded with freshly baked garlic and butter rolls.
“What is it?” I ask Luca at one point. “Am I doing something wrong?”
“Not at all. You’re doing everything right,” he replies with a wry smile. It fades quickly, though. “I owe you an apology, Valentina.”
“I could ask what for, but I think we both know that’s a very long list.”
Luca tries to laugh. I know he meant it as a joke.
But it still hits a sore spot, and I almost feel sorry.
Outside, the river glistens gently against the night sky, while the city’s lights dance across like diamonds over a pitch-black field.
I see the tree crowns shivering in the darkens, their leaves occasionally capturing enough light to reveal a hint of green.
It’s so peaceful out there, unlike my heart.
“I shouldn’t have read your journal,” Luca says.
“That was ages ago,” I say, trying to brush it off. “You didn’t make it past the third page, anyway. You said so yourself.”
“Nevertheless, I shouldn’t have. I owe you an apology for that.”
“You do, and I accept it,” I say.
He leans back into his seat, his eyes searching my face. Darkness swirls in them, his pupils dilating with each deep breath. “There’s one thing I’ve been meaning to ask,” Luca mutters, “about what I didn’t get to read.”
“Oh?”
I almost want to change the subject, but part of building something with someone involves a certain degree of vulnerability.
His vulnerability came in the form of a genuine apology—I know how hard that can be for a man like him.
They’re hardwired never to apologize or explain.
This man runs Chicago from behind a curtain.
His orders decide other men’s fates. And I am able to appreciate every second he’s able to be here with me, giving me his full, undivided attention.
“You said I didn’t make it to the best parts the morning after our wedding night,” Luca says. “What did you mean?”
“I went through all the stages of grief in that diary,” I admit.
“It’s how I coped with everything I felt: the pain, the shame, the anger, the grief.
There was so much grief in realizing I’d given so much of myself to someone who would never appreciate any of it.
I felt lost and embarrassed. And as time passed, my body began to change.
I felt it before I even took a pregnancy test. I felt it. ”
“Michael.”
I nod slowly. “Yes. His heart and mine beat in perfect unison before his heart was even fully formed. And in those moments, I was writing. Each page of that diary was more or less a letter to Stefano. At first, I thought he’d read them all someday.
I fooled myself into believing he’d read them and come back to me. ”
I pause, noticing the way Luca’s gaze drops upon hearing his brother’s name. “But then I healed. And the unborn child in my womb beckoned me forward, to desire more out of life. The best pages came after.”
With a trembling hand, I reach into my handbag and into the zipped pocket, where the diary still lives in silence, its last few pages still blank after all these years. I take it out and open it to one page that truly healed me, then hand it over to Luca.
“Read that. Out loud, if you wish.”
He frowns, doubt in his eyes. “Are you sure?”
“You have my permission. I think it’s important for you to read it, so you understand my mindset.”
“Alright then,” Luca replies.
I’m seeing a side of him no one else sees. Beneath the strong jaw and the hard lines, beneath the shadows and the coldness of a Mafia warlord, he is a man whose power radiates from his heart. And his heart has piqued my interest on a deeper level.
“Dear Stefano,” he reads. “No, that’s wrong.
It’s not ‘dear’ anymore, because you’re not dear to me anymore.
You never were. You were a lie I told myself because I was starving for love and I took the breadcrumbs, thinking of them as a full, filling meal.
I bought the lies because the truth was simply too difficult to bear.
I’m over it now. This baby growing inside me isn’t yours.
By blood, he is, but by soul, he isn’t yours, he is and will always be mine, a piece of me that I will give to the world.
“He’ll grow up to be a bigger and better man than you ever were.
He will love fiercely and intensely, and he will look after the women in his life.
He will respect women. And when he finds his queen, he will worship her.
When that day comes, I will think of you and smile, remembering how something good can come from even the smallest and most pathetic of men,” he continues, raising an amused eyebrow.
“It wasn’t love I felt for you. It was attachment, the kind that comes from your successful strategy.
Nothing more, ever. Once the magic wore off, and I saw the real you, I understood.
You’re a small man, Stefano Petrucci. A man who doesn’t deserve to have my son.
My son will never know you. He will never see you.
He will never be like you. And that fills me with all the hope and joy you thought you stole from me. ”
Luca pauses and sets the notebook down.
He needs a minute. So do I. It’s painful to remember my state of mind when I wrote those words.
I allow myself a smile as I take a long sip of sparkling lemon water, then finish the rest of my steak and fries while modern jazz music with delicate echoes and a mournful saxophone trickles through the room.
“What you wrote was incredibly intimate,” Luca says.
“But it was honest,” I reply.
His eyes meet mine. He gives me one of those deep piercing looks designed to reach deep into my soul, and for the first time, I realize I’m not fighting it anymore—this urge to bare my heart to someone, especially the man in front of me, who turned my life upside down and somehow positioned himself at the very center of it.
“What do you say we go for a walk? I’m done, and it’s getting a little stuffy in here,” I suggest.
“I’d like that very much.”