The Temporary Wife: Luca and Valentina's Story(3)

I look away, trying my best to hide the hint of concern I’m feeling. Raven isn’t just our sister’s best friend. She’s also Ares’s fiancée’s younger sister. She’s the last woman he should be looking at that way. I shake my head and empty my wine glass. An arranged marriage is what awaits all of us siblings, but at least I’ll go into mine without feelings for someone I’ll never have.

“You’re quiet,” Valentina says as dinner wraps up. “Is everything okay? Is there something urgent we need to work on?”

I look up at her in surprise and shake my head as I lead her through the main house where my grandmother lives, toward my own condo. “Do you ever think about anything but work?”

She smiles at me in that way I despise. “Do you?”

The edges of my lips turn up. “Touché.”

Valentina presses her thumb to the scanner at my front door, and it swings open. She exhales softly as she slips out of her high heels, leaving them by the door as she heads to my living room barefoot.

Without her heels on, she looks so fucking tiny. It’d be so easy to pick her up and push her against the wall. Would her lips taste as venomous as the words that escape it?

I run a hand through my hair and shake my head. What the fuck am I even thinking? Valentina is beautiful beyond compare, but I have no doubt she’d be just as cold and unpleasant in bed. If I tried fucking her, I’d walk away with frostbite, no doubt. I shudder, annoyed with myself for even thinking about it.

“Interesting,” she says, staring at her phone as she sits down on the sofa. I take a seat and lean in to look over her shoulder, a whiff of her signature lavender scent involuntarily making me breathe in deeper. “He asked his son to step down. I’m surprised.”

She turns to look at me, her face so close that her nose nearly brushes against mine. My eyes drop to her perfectly full lips, an unwelcome hint of desire rushing through my body. “Why?” I whisper. She doesn’t move away, and neither do I.

“Why, what?” Her voice trembles.

“Why are you surprised?”

She blinks and moves back, that irritating professional mask of hers slipping back into place. Valentina Diaz, one of very few women I know who has never once wanted me. I suppose that is why we’re still working together after so many years — because we’ve never crossed any boundaries. That’s how I always wanted it to be, yet somehow, her indifference irritates me tonight.

“I didn’t think he’d ask his son to step down as CEO, but even more so, I’m surprised you gave him a chance to save his company at all. In all the years we’ve worked together, you have never once given anyone a second chance. You’ve always been decisive and ruthless. What was different this time?”

She stares at me pointedly. I wonder if she realizes that no one but her would ever dare demand an explanation from me — and no one but her would receive one.

I hesitate for a moment and reach for my pocket watch absentmindedly, my fingers brushing over the Windsor crest engraved on it. “Jackson was friends with my father. The decision to invest in his company was my dad’s.” Speaking about my parents hurts less than it used to, but even though it’s been over twenty years, the pain is still there. I suppose it’ll never truly fade. Some wounds never heal. This is one of them.

Valentina looks down, shielding her expression from me. “I see,” she says, her tone devoid of emotion. For a split second, I worried she’d ask me about my parents, but I should’ve known better. Valentina never intrudes. I used to think it was because she was scared she’d lose her job if she did, but I’ve come to suspect that it’s because she genuinely doesn’t care. She truly is made of ice.

“I suppose that explains why you refused to cut him loose despite their company performance declining year-on-year for five years straight.” She looks up then and smiles mischievously. “Perhaps you do have a heart buried somewhere deep within there.”

Her eyes twinkle as she presses her index finger against my chest. That heart she doesn’t think I have? It skips a fucking beat. I can’t remember the last time she smiled at me so genuinely, and I don’t recall her ever touching me in this way.

Before I realize what I’m doing, I’ve got my hand wrapped around her wrist and her palm pressed flat against my chest. Valentina’s eyes widen a fraction, but she gives me nothing. She doesn’t look as affected as I am.

“You tell me. Do I?” Does she notice that my heart beats a little faster than it should?

“No,” she says, grinning. “I stand corrected. You’re as heartless as ever.”

The edges of my lips turn up as I loosen my hold on her wrist, letting her hand fall away.

Valentina is smiling as she reaches for my laptop on the coffee table, and I can’t tear my eyes off her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile like that when it’s just the two of us. She’s given those smiles to every single one of my brothers, but never me.

“We need to finish the restructuring plans, and don’t forget to go in for a final suit fitting for Ares and Hannah’s wedding. It’s coming up far sooner than you think.”

I lean back as I think about everything we have on our plates for the next few months. If I can pull this off, I’ll finally be able to make my father’s dreams come true. We’re so close.