Page 34 of Please, Forgive Me

“I’ll think about it,” I said at last, my voice uncertain.

Diego nodded, satisfied with the answer. He knew he’d planted the seed of doubt.

But deep down, I already knew the truth: getting away from Diego Bittencourt would be far harder than I’d ever imagined.

CHAPTER 14

“The heart’s secrets are whispered between its quietest beats…”

MARIA GABRIELA

I went back to my office, but no matter how hard I tried to look composed, I was shaking. My hands barely held the stack of papers on my desk as I tried to breathe, to pull myself together, to convince myself I’d done the right thing.

I’d finally told Diego I was resigning.

The words had left my mouth with a weight I hadn’t even realized I was carrying until the moment I spoke them. In a way, I felt relieved—relieved I wasn’t hiding anymore, relieved I’d finally voiced my decision.

But the truth was, the tension was still there, gnawing at me from the inside. I could feel Diego’s intense stare following me all the way to the door, even after I’d walked out of his office.

I knew he hadn’t taken it well. Worse, I knew he wasn’t going to let me go easily. Diego was never the kind of man who accepted “no” without a fight.

I was stepping into dangerous territory, and I knew it.

Sitting at my desk, I glanced at the phone, the papers, the familiar space around me… everything reminded me of him. Every corner of this company bore his mark, his name, his imposing presence.

And me? I was trying to escape it all, trying to find a way out that didn’t mean losing myself further in this roller coaster of emotions and confusion.

Six months.

My boss’s offer echoed in my head like a promise and a threat all at once. I knew he hadn’t been joking when he said he’d make my life hell if I walked away now. Diego Bittencourt never made empty threats. He knew the power he held—and in his mind, he probably thought he had the right to use it.

And he would.

If I left without his consent, I knew he’d move heaven and earth to make my professional life impossible. And, if I was being honest, that scared me. I knew what he did to his enemies, and I was about to become one if I left at the end of the month.

Yet part of me still weighed his proposal. Staying meant more time to save money, to get my finances in order. I was almost done paying off that debt—that debt that had haunted me since the start of my career. If I could just hang on a little longer, keep my emotions in check, I could walk out of here clean, free to support myself while I figured out my own path.

Maybe that was the smartest move.

I could handle Diego. I could keep my emotional distance. And when the time came, I’d leave without looking back. He’d have to accept it, because the deal would be clear: I could go without retaliation, without bad blood.

What I kept asking myself was whether it was even possible to keep my distance from someone like Diego—a man who seemed to know exactly how to destabilize me, to trigger every reaction, to stir feelings I didn’t want to name.

Six months of provocation, of intense stares, of office encounters that always hovered on the edge of professional and personal…

Deep down, I knew nothing with Diego was ever simple. He was magnetic, dangerous in the way he made me feel everything so intensely. And that was the real problem.

I turned to the window, the sky outside already darkening as day slipped into night. It felt like everything around me was closing in.

For a brief moment, my decision had brought relief. But now I was caught in a new web of uncertainties. I knew that by agreeing to stay, I’d walked into a trap—one Diego had set with perfection.

Still, I had to be rational. Six months wasn’t forever. I could endure. I could prepare and walk out with my head held high.

In the end, the choice was mine. And I’d make it for the right reasons—for my future, for my independence. Not for my boss.

As I got up to gather my things, the tension in my shoulders eased just a little. I was still trembling, still feeling the weight of it all, but there was also a flicker of calm in having a plan.

The biggest problem was that with Diego Bittencourt, nothing was ever as simple as it seemed.