“What do you think of Azure as a target?” Valentina asks, her tone as matter-of-factly as always. I took her out on a date under the guise of helping her prepare for the battle she’s about to face, and it’s fucking ridiculous. I shouldn’t have to come up with excuses to take my own wife out on a date, yet here I am. With each passing day, she makes me want more. Valentina makes me crave things I swore I’d never want.
I run a hand through my hair and take a steadying breath. “It’s an option, but they’re known for having a heavily diversified portfolio. They’d invest, but not to the level you’d need.”
She is still the exact same person she’s always been — heartless and cold as ice. What I thought was her biggest asset has swiftly become the biggest obstacle. Am I crazy for wanting her to look at me with that warm gaze of hers outside of bed? Have I truly lost my mind? I must have, because I want all of her.
“I wish they hadn’t banned me from participating. I’d have invested my own funds,” I murmur.
Valentina shakes her head. “No. I can do this. I don’t need you to—”
“— I know,” I cut her off, my hand wrapping over hers. “I know you don’t need me, but I want to be the one you rely on. I’m your husband. Sometimes it seems like you forget that.”
She pulls her hand away from mine and places it in her lap, her eyes on her plate. She seems colder lately, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s because of Ben.
“Luca,” she says, her tone apprehensive. “This marriage is temporary. I can’t keep relying on you. Doesn’t it feel like our time together is flying by? I need to learn to stand on my own two feet.”
I look away and grit my teeth. “Why are you so eager to leave me?”
“I’m not,” she says, her tone emotionless. “But like any business deal, this will come to an end, eventually. I think it’s best that we don’t complicate things more than we already have. I don’t want our lives to be intertwined any further. Once this is all over, I want a life of my own, without being tied down by the past. For as long as I can remember, my life hasn’t been mine. I’ve always lived for someone else, and I don’t want to do that anymore.”
I glance at my wife with a heavy heart. This should be music to my ears, so why do her words bring me such torment?
“Elena and Alexander Kennedy,” I tell her, my voice soft. “Alec is an old friend of mine, and I know he’s been looking for a new fund to invest his family’s capital in. His previous firm didn’t perform the way he expected, so he’d be receptive to our offer. They’re throwing a charity ball soon, so we can pitch our offer then.”
She looks surprised, the gears in her mind turning. “Brilliant,” she murmurs eventually. “They’d have enough capital to beat whoever Ben brings in.”
I clench my jaw, annoyed at the mere mention of him. I don’t want his dumb name on her beautiful lips. She drives me fucking mental, and meanwhile, she’s utterly unaffected. My eyes drop to her empty ring finger, and I sigh. Every night since Ben showed up, I’ve secretly slipped her wedding ring onto her finger, and every morning, she’s taken it back off. She told me she’d wear it outside of the office, and I can’t tell if she’s genuinely just forgetting about it lately, or if she just doesn’t want to be seen wearing it.
I stare at her for a moment, taking in her beauty. She’s been by my side for eight years, but throughout that time, she never felt a thing for me. Do I even stand a chance at all?
“Valentina, what did you mean when you told me that Ben was the reason I’d never have to worry about you falling in love with me?” Ever since he showed up, she’s felt further out of reach than usual. I’ve been trying my hardest to pretend that I’m unaffected by the way he looks at her, the way he hovers around her, but I’m at my breaking point. “Do you still have feelings for him?”
She looks caught off-guard, and I take a shaky breath, fearing her answer. “No,” she tells me, her tone firm. “I don’t.”
I stare at her, trying my best to figure out if she’s being honest or not. “Then what did you mean? Give me the truth. We promised each other that we’d communicate, didn’t we? This is important to me. I need to know.”
She looks into my eyes, her gaze turning more and more vulnerable by the second. I hate that someone other than me can make her look that way. “It’s complicated, Luca,” she says, exhaling shakily. “Ben is… to me, he’s proof that men like you will never stay with women like me. He’s a reminder that I sorely needed, that’s all.”
I run a hand through my hair and take a deep breath. “Valentina, what the fuck does that even mean?”
She looks away, her eyes falling closed for a moment. “It doesn’t matter. You and I have been very clear on what we are and what we aren’t from the very start. Why are we even talking about this?”
She still won’t let me in. Each time I think we’ve made progress, we end up taking ten steps back. I should be grateful that she keeps the boundaries between us in place so well, but I fucking hate it. That damn contract we signed will be my downfall.
I grit my teeth for a moment. “It matters to me. From the moment he’s shown up, it’s been driving me crazy. You once told me that thoughts of me being with Natalia tormented you, didn’t you?” She nods, and I tear my gaze off her as I empty my wine glass. “That’s what it’s like for me. I keep wondering what kind of hold he must have over you, and it worries me. It’s really fucking hard for me to admit that, baby, but I’m trying. He fucking bothers me. Maybe I have no right to feel the way I do, but I can’t help myself. I hate it when you so much as mention his name, and I can’t stop thinking about what you told me. Why is he the reason you won’t love me? The way I see it, it can only mean that you’re still in love with him.”
She stares at her plate, her gaze unfocused for a moment before she lifts her head. I’ve never seen her look at me with quite this much uncertainty in her eyes. “Will you snap out of the funk you’re in if I tell you what happened between Ben and me?”
I nod at her, my heart heavy. I don’t know what she’s done to me, but I’m not myself. It looks like she’s noticed it too.
Valentina sighs and looks away. “I told you about my parents, right? Growing up, my mother always told me to never trust rich men, and to always remember my station in life. I had no intention of falling in love at all, let alone with the exact kind of guy my mother had always warned me against, but Ben was relentless. We met in college, and he’d find every excuse to be around me, whether it was joining the same elective classes or showing up at my part-time job at the coffeeshop on campus. He was just everywhere, and all he’d ever ask was to take me on a date. He seemed harmless, and he really took his time to charm me. Eventually, I gave in, and we started dating. I really thought I’d found true happiness of my own, and for a couple of months, it felt like I escaped my mother’s shadow. It’s funny, looking back at it. How could I truly have believed that I could be happy?” She laughs humorlessly, and the mere sight of her breaks my heart. No one deserves to be loved more than she does.
“But then my mother was in an accident, and I had to drop out to take care of my grandmother and her. Ben assured me that we’d be able to do long-distance and that nothing would change, and I believed him. He made it easy. He called me every day, and he texted me all the time, too. I truly believed that I was the only one for him, and that our relationship was strong enough to survive anything. So on his birthday, I saved up enough money to go see him. I thought I’d surprise him, and that he’d be happy to see me…”
She inhales shakily and lowers her gaze. “I walked into his bedroom to find him on top of one of our mutual friends. It devastated me, but it was more than simple betrayal. It was proof of everything my mother had warned me about. I thought my life would be different, that what happened to her would never happen to me, yet the first relationship I was ever in ended the exact way she’d told me it would. I think that might have been when I truly stopped believing in love.”
She looks out the window and sighs. “There truly is nothing for you to worry about. I don’t have any feelings for him, Luca. Perhaps some lingering resentment, but that’s it.”
“I see,” I murmur, unsure how to feel about her story. I thought it was difficult enough to compete with the beliefs her mother drilled into her mind, but to know she once rebelled against those constraints, only to be proven wrong? It’ll be near impossible for me to make her see that I’m nothing like him. The betrayal she experienced runs deeper than the surface, and the heart I so desperately want may not have any room for me in it.
“What did you two talk about two weeks ago, when he first came to the office?” I wish she hadn’t given him any of her time at all. Guilt flashes through her eyes, and I tense.
“He said he wants me back,” she says, her voice soft.
My stomach fucking drops, thoughts of her with him filling my mind. The two of them might be competing for the same role, but because of that, they’re seeing each other a whole lot more often than I’d like. What if a late work night turns into a conversation, forgiveness… a stolen kiss?
Would she moan his name in the same way? Would her lips part for him the way they do for me? Does he know her body better than I do? It’s clear that he was her first love, but that’s most likely not the only first he took. They say a woman never forgets her first love, and I’m starting to worry that it’s true.
“Luca,” she says, her tone gentle. I look up, keeping my face perfectly expressionless. “I told him he was crazy, and we argued. It isn’t something to worry about, but I didn’t want to lie to you about it.”
“Does he know you’re married?”
Her eyes widen a fraction, and she shakes her head. Of course he doesn’t. She’s been adamant that no one could ever find out. Was he one of the reasons why? She might tell me that all she feels for him is resentment, but there’s a thin line between love and hate. The fact that she still feels anything at all when she looks at him worries me.
Our server clears the table, and we’re both quiet as I get the bill. This isn’t how I saw tonight going. My fingers brush against hers as we walk toward the exit, and she pulls away before I can even grab her hand, frustrating me even further. My own fucking wife won’t even hold my hand in public, and it pisses me off endlessly. She might say that she doesn’t have any feelings for Ben, but he affected her enough to make her withdraw from me.
“Luca Windsor?”
Valentina tenses, her body going rigid, and I look back to find Miguel Garcia standing in front of the restaurant, his eyes moving from Valentina to me. He extends his hand, and I shake it hesitantly, confused as to why the CEO of the country’s largest insurance firm is looking at my wife with such hostility. Does he not value those eyeballs of his?
“You’re a hard man to track down, Luca,” he tells me, before glancing back at Valentina. He raises a brow and smiles. “I’ve called your office several times and emailed your secretary, but for some reason, I’m always told your schedule is fully packed, no matter how much I offer to invest.”
There’s a hint of panic in Valentina’s eyes as our eyes meet, and then she looks down. It’s not like her to purposely ignore potential clients, especially ones we already have a business relationship with. What’s this all about? She knows he’s in charge of every single Windsor insurance policy. If he were to invest even a portion of his insurance funds in us, that could be a game changer.
The Garcia family is just as influential and vast as the Windsor family. Compared to their entire empire, Miguel and ReInsure are small fries — that’s how powerful the Garcia family is. Miguel isn’t the head of his family, but he’s powerful enough to have been made CEO of one of their most profitable companies. He isn’t someone I can take lightly.
I glance back at Miguel, only to find him staring at my wife. He’s older, but even I can’t deny he’s handsome. First I have to deal with fucking Ben, and now this fucker appears out of nowhere. Maybe I don’t keep my wife busy enough, if she has time to attract all these fucking fruit flies.
“You might not remember,” he tells me, “but I still remember you sitting in my lap when you were much younger. I was friends with your father.”
I grit my teeth. “Indeed, I don’t remember. I’m not a sentimental person, Mr. Garcia, but there’s nothing I hate more than people I don’t know bringing up my parents.”
He looks taken-aback and nods. “Very well, I can understand that.” He reaches for his wallet and hands me a business card. “I gave your secretary a business card when I ran into her a few months ago, but it’s clear you never received it.”
I stare at it and place my hand on Valentina’s lower back. “It indeed looks like there’s been a misunderstanding of some sort,” I tell him, my voice soft despite my anger. “It appears you think Valentina is merely a secretary. You’re mistaken. She is the one person I trust above anyone else, my right hand, my de facto co-CEO. If she didn’t grant you a meeting, it would be for a reason. I don’t need to know why, and quite frankly, I don’t give a fuck. If she says no, it means no. I respect her opinion above all else, and I strongly suggest that you do the same.”
My wife looks at me with such shock and appreciation that my heart wavers. Doesn’t she realize how highly I think of her? Perhaps not. I never told her any of this, after all. Perhaps the words I left unspoken did more harm than I expected.
I lead her out the door, ready to just get my wife the fuck home. This entire night has been a complete fucking clusterfuck. I wanted to spend some time together, yet all it’s done is make me feel further apart from her.
The valet hands me my keys, and I hold the door open for my wife, but she isn’t looking at me. Her eyes are on Miguel.
I’m restless as I start the car and lean back for a moment. “First Ben, and now Miguel,” I murmur, my eyes falling closed for a moment. “What is it that they have and I don’t?”
Valentina turns toward me, her gaze tormented. “Luca,” she says, her voice trembling. “It’s not like that, I swear. Miguel… he is… he is my father.”
I stare at her, wide-eyed. Miguel Garcia, the CEO of the country’s largest insurance firm, is her father? How could that not have flagged in the countless background checks I ran?
There’s only one way for this to have remained hidden from me. My grandmother. She must have known and chosen not to disclose it, but why?
