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“Oh, how exhausting for you,” I say sarcastically. “Since we’re both exhausted, can we dissolve this marriage already? I willingly give up all rights to Terra de Barbieri to you. You don’t have to be tied to me just to hold on to it. Take it and do whatever you want with it.”
“Francesca…” he reaches for me, but I slap his hand away.
“There’s no other woman. You are-”
“What about the woman who gave you a lap dance?” I shriek, like a madwoman.
His eyes flare with guilt, and seeing that hurts more than anything. A small part of me had clung to the hope that the video was an AI-doctored video, but now I know. It’s true. He paid for the services of a lap dancer.
But as I watch the guilt is gone, wiped away, and suddenly the dangerously powerful man sitting in the armchair dominating the three men of the law I’d seen a few nights ago was back.
“You saw a video of me getting a lap dance on Federico’s phone?” he asks quietly.
I roll away from him. “You disgust me.”
He stands and faces me with the bed between us. His gray eyes burn into me, searing my skin and heart. “What do you want me to say, Francesca? That it’s not what you think? That there are extenuating circumstances? That I didn’t feel anything when she was on top of me? That I didn’t fuck her?”
I frown.
“Look at your face. You don’t want to believe me. I’m done trying to prove myself to you.”
I’m shocked that Valentino isn’t trying to defend himself. It breaks my heart even more to know he’s given up so easily.
“But” he continues in a hard voice, “there’s no escape for you in this marriage. You’re not leaving me.”
“Valentino-”
“If you want to be miserable by letting other people tear us apart with lies and random video clips, then by all means, be my guest, but you,mia piccolo perla, are not leaving this marriage. I swear it on everything dear to me.”
“Fine. You’re the Boss.” I smile. I want to hurt him as much as he has hurt me, and I know exactly how to do it. “Keep me in this marriage, but just know you’re keeping a woman who doesn’t belong to you!”
“You belong to me,” he snarls ferociously.
I don’t back down. “I don’t belong to you. You will look at me every day, knowing I belong to another man. My heart beats for another man.” As I growl these words, I tell myself that I’m no better than Valentino for lying and scheming, but I’m hurt so why shouldn’t he feel the same hurt?
“Francesca, I’m warning you?—”
“Thomas is a much better man than you,” I continue vengefully. “He may not be rich or powerful, but he is a good man. He doesn’t cheat and?—”
“Shut up!” Valentino pushes me against the wall, trapping me with his hard body. I’m aware of the sweet burn of his touch, but I ignore it and laugh in his face.
“What do you want to do?” I challenge recklessly. “Hit me? Go on. Do it!”
His eyes flare with shock, and he instantly pulls away. “I would never hurt you, Francesca.”
“It’s a little too late for that, don’t you think?”
“You’re going to get Thomas killed,” he says, his expression, suddenly blank. “If you keep throwing him in my face. I’ve been good to you, Francesca, but don’t make the mistake of thinking he is safe while he poses any kind of threat to my marriage to you.”
“Killing him won’t take away the fact that he’s better than you.”
“Why is he better than me? Because he’s a social justice warrior?” Valentino says as if he finds the whole of Thomas’s principled ethos ridiculous.
“Yes. Thomas is different from you. He’s not about money. He cares about everyone. He wants to change and cleanse the world of people like you!”
His eyes shutter, and they become colder than the icy winds that blow in the Arctic Circle. “People like me,” he echoes softly. “Monsters who are only fit to prowl at night? Terrible men who kill and maim and abuse?”
“Yes,” I shout.