Chapter 4: The Morning After

Marco POV 

"You did the right thing," Carmela said, setting the cup on my desk. "That girl was trouble the moment she walked in."

I didn't answer. I couldn't. My mind was stuck in a loop, replaying the last few hours.

I hadn't slept a wink last night. I had spent hours pacing the dark hallways of this house, searching for her. When she hadn't come up to our room after the dinner, I thought she was just clearing her head in the garden. Then the clock struck 2:00 AM. Then 3:00 AM. I checked the library, the terrace, the guest rooms, growing more anxious with every passing hour, wondering where she could possibly be hiding.

I never in a million years would have looked in the staff quarters. I never would have believed she was down there.

Then, just before dawn, Luca had burst into my study, pale and out of breath. “Marco, I found her. You need to come right now.”

The memory of rushing down that corridor tore through me. Luca had kicked the door open, and the sight inside burned itself into my retinas. There she was. On Enzo’s bed. Half-naked, stripped down to her slip, sleeping deeply and peacefully in the arms of my own driver. The rage that exploded in my chest had paralyzed me. I hadn't touched her. I couldn't bring myself to step inside. I had backed out, closed the door immediately, and stood right there in the corridor, arms folded, waiting for her to face me. When she finally opened the door, fully dressed, the devastation between us officially began.

And just a few minutes ago, I had thrown her out into the pouring rain.

"Marco." My mother's voice sharpened, breaking through the memory. "Did you hear me?"

"I heard you."

She sat down across from me, folded her hands in her lap, and looked at me the way she had looked at me since I was a boy, like she was waiting for me to arrive at the conclusion she had already reached.

"You handled it correctly," she said. "Quietly. No scene, no lawyers, no mess. Your father would have done the same."

"My father never had this problem."

"Every man has this problem eventually." She picked up her own cup. "The smart ones deal with it before it becomes something larger."

I looked out the window. The garden was wet from the rain that was still coming down. My chest still heaved from the shouting match in the hallway just moments ago. I could still see the way Valentina had looked at me. Her face had been completely wet with tears, her voice cracking as she begged me for just five minutes. She had been desperate, crying silently, blocking my path. Yet, even through the hysteria, her eyes had stayed steady on mine. Like she had nothing to hide.

"She said she didn't remember," I muttered, my voice raw. "Leaving the table. Getting to his room. She was begging me to believe her."

"Of course she said that."

"She was very specific about it. She was crying, crying out my name like she was drowning."

"Marco." My mother set her cup down. "Women like that are always specific when they panic. That's what makes them convincing. She had a year to study you, to learn exactly what kind of emotional display you would find difficult to dismiss. The desperate ones are always the most dangerous."

I said nothing.

"You did the right thing," she said again, like repetition would settle it.

Luca arrived at nine. He was quiet for a moment. He looked at the desk, then at me, then at the window. He was the only man I had ever employed who knew when to wait.

"The driver," I said finally, the anger curling back up in my throat. "I want him gone by tonight."

"Done." He paused. "Where do you want him gone to?"

"I don't care. Out of Florence. Out of the region. I don't want to see his face."

"Alright." He turned his cup in his hands. "And the girl?"

The word sat in the room like a heavy weight.

"There is no girl," I said.

Luca looked at me steadily. "She was here for a year, Marco. I just saw her outside the gate. She was completely broken, weeping in the rain, pleading for you through the iron bars."

"And now she's gone."

"I'm just saying it might be worth"

"Luca." My voice came out quiet and final. "There is nothing to discuss. You saw them. I saw them. It happened. It's done. We move forward."

He studied me the way he always did when he disagreed but had chosen not to say so yet. Not quite skepticism, not quite concern. Something in between.

"She didn't seem like that kind of woman," he said carefully.

The words landed somewhere I didn't want them to land. I kept my face still.

"You didn't know her."

"I saw her every week for a year." He shrugged, one shoulder, unbothered. "She was sharp. Careful. Didn't ask for things. Didn't push into business she wasn't invited into. Women who want to trap men don't behave like that. They push. They ask. They don't fall apart and beg for their dignity on the way out the door."

"She made herself necessary."

"Because you let her." He said it without judgment, which make it worse. "That's different."

I stood up. I walked to the window and looked out at the wet garden, saying nothing for a long moment because there was something sitting at the back of my skull that I didn't want to look at directly, the absolute desperation in Valentina's face. The way her eyes had stayed locked on mine even when she was crying, even when I'd said the absolute worst things to her.

Guilty people looked away. They made excuses. They didn't break down and beg you to look into their soul because they had nothing to hide.

She hadn't looked away.

Stop.

"It's done," I said. "I don't want to discuss it again."