Chapter 14
The soft click of the magnetic lock was the loudest sound I’d heard in the last hour.
I walked into my spacious living room overlooking the heart of Milan. The stillness met me like a wall.
The air was freezing—about eighteen degrees—but yet the chill seemed to come from within. I tossed my keys onto the marble tray. The sound of metal striking stone was sharp and profane.
I could still feel the camera flashes bursting against my retinas. I could still hear the roar of the reporters, a sound like hungry animals.
I am the father. The mistake and the shame are mine.
I had done it. I, Marco Valenti, the man who built an empire from nothing, who never backed down, who never admitted a weakness… I had knelt before the whole world and offered myself up as a sacrifice.
The adrenaline from the press conference—that feverish, desperate energy that had kept me on my feet—collapsed all at once.
I stood motionless in the middle of my vast, empty living room. The lights of Milan, which were beginning to come on outside, seemed distant, unreal.
Pathetic…
The part of me that was the wolf was screaming. I had just committed corporate suicide. To expose myself to that kind of vulnerability? To admit I’d been manipulated? I had handed my rivals a weapon to use against me for the rest of my life. I looked weak, emotional, and broken.
Furious, I ripped the tie from my neck. The knot was tight and suffocating. I threw it on the floor.
Then, the image of her came back to me.
Bianca’s face in the office—pale, terrified, but fierce. The photo on TV, her name being dragged through the mud.
No… It wasn’t weakness.
It was the only move I had left. The only one that mattered.
I’d spent six months furious at myself for letting myself be deceived. Six months focused on my humiliation, on my wounded pride. And what did she do? She endured the humiliation and protected my son… All by herself.
I’m sorry, Bianca.
I said that to the cameras. But I didn’t say it to her.
I dragged her out of her office, kidnapped her, kissed her with brutal hunger, and fucked her against my apartment window like a brute. Then, when she finally kicked me out, my next move was to blow her life apart on national television.
Dio mio. I didn’t fix anything. I just traded one disaster for another.
I had to talk to her.
I grabbed my cell phone. My finger hovered over her name. Bianca.
What would I say? “Did you see the news? I humiliated myself for you. Is that enough?”
The arrogance of the thought made me sick.
She hated me. And rightly so. The fact that I’d admitted the truth publicly didn’t erase the Duomo, the abandonment, much less the terror I’d caused her—and, above all, it didn’t erase what happened before the press conference.
I was lost… completely.
I’d played my strongest card. A public confession, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t have a next step.
I couldn’t force her. I’d tried that. The result was violence and more pain. I couldn’t buy her. I’d tried that. She threw my food in the trash and refused my car. I couldn’t just show up. Her brothers would kill me before I even got close to the door.
The cell phone in my hand felt like it weighed a thousand kilos.
I was desperate; I had the world at my feet, but the only woman who mattered was locked away in a fortress, and I myself had handed over the stones to build its walls.
I let go of the phone. It hit the marble countertop with a dull thud.
I couldn’t call, I couldn’t go, and I couldn’t send anything.
The anger was gone, leaving only a hollow quiet.
I had made my move and put myself out there. At that moment, the only thing left for me to do—the hardest and most agonizing thing I’d ever had to do in my entire life—was to wait.
I would have to wait for Bianca to decide whether what I’d done was enough for her to even look me in the face again.
I sat on the dark sofa as night fell over Milan. For the first time, I felt I had no control over what would happen next.
I didn’t move. The whiskey in my hand remained untouched, the ice melting slowly, diluting a courage I didn’t possess. The penthouse was dark, except for the lights of Milan streaming through the glass, casting long shadows that looked like prison bars.
I had played my last card, exposed myself publicly, hoping that the fallout would somehow protect her.
And… nothing.
Every quiet minute that passed was a confirmation that it hadn’t been enough. She had seen it, of course she had. The whole world saw it, but she left me here, alone in the isolation I had created.
I was completely lost. I was a general without an army and a king without a kingdom. I had all the power in the world and couldn’t do the one thing that mattered: make her look at me without hatred.
I have to do something.
I stood up, feeling the adrenaline of desperation begin to bubble up again. I would go to the Villa, face her brothers, and take another punch. It didn’t matter; I needed to see her.
I was already walking toward the door, picking up my jacket from the floor, when the sound rang out.
A soft ding coming from the private elevator.
My body froze.
Who? It was late. Bianca Ferraro? Silvio, coming to deliver the verbal coup de grace? Matteo?
The brushed steel doors opened, and the air rushed out of my lungs… it was her.
She was standing on the elevator threshold, her hand still clutching the strap of her purse as if it were an anchor. Her face was pale, exhausted, and her eyes—the ones that haunted me—were red and swollen from crying so much.
We just stared at each other. The air between us vibrated.
I couldn’t breathe. My racing heart pounded in my throat, in a wild panic. She came… She’s here.
“You…” My voice came out like a scratch, hoarse. “How did you get in?”
“Your doorman knows me,” she whispered, her voice weak but steady. She didn’t step inside. She just stood there, on the threshold between the hallway and my apartment.
“I saw you.”
Her confession was so quiet I almost missed it.
“I saw it… on TV. The press conference.”
I swallowed hard. The taste of whiskey and guilt was all I could taste in my mouth. I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry” felt like an insult. “Thanks for coming…” felt pathetic.
“Why?” she asked, and her eyes finally met mine. There was no anger in them. Just a deep exhaustion and a confusion that broke my heart. “Why did you do that, Marco?”
She wasn’t talking about the altar, but about the press conference…
“Why put yourself out there like that? Humiliate yourself in front of the whole world?”
I leaned against the marble wall. I couldn’t stand under the weight of her gaze.
“Because…” I tried, but the truth was too heavy. “Because it was the only thing I had left… because it was the truth.”
“The truth?” She finally took a step into the room. “Are you really serious now?”
Her anger was returning.
“You humiliated me, Marco. At the altar. You made me the laughingstock of Milan. You dragged me out of my office. You…” She stopped, unable to say the rest.
“I know,” I whispered, and the tears I’d held back at the press conference threatened to spill. “I know, Bianca. I behaved monstrously. I was… terrified.”
“Terrified?” She laughed, a bitter sound. “Yes!” I shouted, the confession bursting out of me. “I was terrified! I found out everything all at once. Silvio, the lies… and the pregnancy… I lost control.”
I moved toward her, but stopped when she stepped back.
“I have no excuse, Bianca,” I said, letting the desperation of the past six months show. “There’s nothing I can say that will erase the Duomo, or what I did to you that day in the office. I know that.”
She stared at me, tears silently streaming down her face.
“You destroyed me, Marco. Again… and again.”
“I know.” I took another step, and she didn’t back away this time. “…and I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to make it right.”
“You can’t…” she sobbed, shaking her head. “You don’t understand. I’m so scared.”
Her admission hit me hard.
“What?” I asked, my voice hoarse.
“Yes, I’m scared!” she shouted, pounding my shirt with her clenched fists, without any force. “…of being alone… of…” she paused, instinctively resting her hand on her belly. “…of not having you to raise this baby!”
She collapsed, and the anger faded, leaving only raw, terrifying pain.
I held her, and this time she didn’t struggle, didn’t hit me—she just fell against me, and her sobs shook us both. I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her to my chest, burying my face in her hair.
“You’re not going,” I whispered into her hair. “I won’t let you.”
“I hate you,” she sobbed against my shirt.
“I know,” I replied, holding her tighter, as if I could fuse her to me. “But I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
She didn’t forgive me, didn’t say everything was okay—she just cried, and I didn’t run away. I held her, and amid the wreckage we’d created in my penthouse, that was the first honest conversation we’d ever had.
I held her, feeling her tremors slowly subside. My own arms ached from the strength I was using to hold her together, as if I could physically prevent her from shattering into pieces right in front of me.
“I’m here,” I whispered again against her hair. “I won’t…”
She stopped sobbing.
The tension left her briefly, and then she pulled away.
The movement was slow. She didn’t push me away angrily; she just moved back far enough so she could look at my face.
I braced myself for the blow, for the hatred, for the accusation, and for the contempt I’d seen in her eyes ever since the day I came back…
Her face was a mess: swollen, red, smudged with mascara, and yet it was the most honest and beautiful sight I’d ever seen.
Her unsteady lips parted slightly. I expected her to say something like, “Leave me alone,” but she said nothing—she just kissed me. Bianca rose on tiptoe. Only minutes earlier, those hands had pounded against my chest; now they settled gently on my shoulders, and her mouth found mine.
The shock was so intense that I froze.