Becoming Mrs DeLuca novel Chapter 97

Chapter 97

Chapter 97

ADRIAN

It had been seven days since Valentina rode me on that couch and then walked car I’d found it sexy, it was still gut wrenching. It had been seven days of silence that felt like a bude casting in my reasy time I breathed.

I sent flowers- white camellias first, because the once told me they means “you’re adorable in socce did fangenge the bowed. She left them on the doorstep to die. I sent lilies next, and they met the same face. Then moves the color of freds blood. The delivery driver told me the door opened just long enough for a hand to appear, take the box, and tam sint. I tener en

her shadow.

Every afternoon at four–thirty I parked across the street from the house she grew up in the one the fed so after she learned what a liar I was, and I waited. Sometimes the curtains of the pool house moved. Sometimes they didn’t I never go ou unless it was to lean against the hood and smoke until the sun bled out behind the trees. I told myself I was giving her space. The truth was I didn’t know how to leave.

Today the sky was the color of a fresh bruise. I was on my third cigarette, boot heel propped against the tire, when the from door opened.

It was not Valentína.

It was her father.

Paul Romano walked down the steps and stopped three feet away and looked me over with nothing but pity in his eyes.

“You planning to grow roots in my asphalt, DeLuca?

I flicked ash onto the street. “If that’s what it takes.”

He snorted. “You look like shit.”

“I know”

There was beat of silence. Somewhere down the block a dog barked itself hoarse. My father in law wasn’t my favorite person. It was no secret that I thought he was a coward. So this was probably the first time we were having a civil conversation in a long time.

“You gonna talk to my daughter, or are we keeping this circus running forever?” He folded his arms. “Because standing out here every day like some lovesick teenager is starting to look creepy, Adrian. Even for you.”

I laughed, but it came out scraped raw. “She won’t open the door.”

“She opens it for the florist when you send roses and sunflowers,” he said dryly. “Maybe try being a man instead of a greenhouse.”

I dragged a hand over my face. “I don’t know what to say that could probably fix this.

“Then start with the truth and work your way up.” He stepped closer, voice dropping. “You know, she’s going on a date tomorrow night.”

The cigarette fell from my fingers. I didn’t feel it burn my shoe.

“It’s with some lawyer,” Paul continued, mercilessly. “They were childhood friends and he just came back to town.”

Each word landed like a fist to my throat.

bun, Nov 23

Chapter 97

She told you that? My soice didn’t sound like mine.

“She didn’t have to. Her mother overheard her talking to him on the phone?

I closed my eyes. I could already see it. I could imagine her wearing a skin tight dress, the dress clinging to her hips, the sh flashing thigh every time she moved. And some civilized prick was going to put his hand on the small of her back and guide her into a restaurant while I stood out here like a ghost she’d already buried.

Paul’s voice softened, but only by a degree. “She’s my daughter. If this lawyer makes her smile even once without looking over her shoulder for your monsters, I’ll shake his hand and wish them luck. But I’m telling you this as a fellow underboss, fix it, or let her go. Dragging this out is cruel, and it’s not fair to her.

I stared at the pool–house where Valentina now stayed. The curtains didn’t move.

“How long do I have?” I asked.

“They’re having dinner at eight. He’s picking her up at seven–thirty.” Paul turned to leave, then paused. “And Adrian? Please take care of my daughter. I never want to have to see her like this again.”

He walked away without looking back.

I stood there until the streetlights flickered on, until the burned–out cigarette scorched a black mark into my shoe leather. Tomorrow at seven–thirty some other man was going to ring that bell.

I had twenty–six hours to figure out how to tell Valentina the truth without losing her forever. Or I had twenty–six hours to learn how to live in a world where she belonged to someone else.

Neither option felt survivable.

But I got back in the car anyway, started the engine, and drove home to figure out which war I still had a chance of winning.

VALENTINA

I jolted awake to a soft clack against glass.

The room was dark except for the slice of moonlight cutting across the floorboards. My heart was already sprinting. I sat up, clutching the sheets and straining to hear it again.

*Clack.*

It sounded like pebbles against my window. I knew who it was before I even reached the window.

I shove lid the curtains aside, clutching the heavy crystal vase from my dresser like it was a baseball bat just in case I was wrong, and there he was: Adrian, standing in the middle of my parents‘ front lawn at two in the morning, jacket collar turned up against the cold, and a handful of gravel in his palm like some tragic Romeo who never learned that the play ends badly.

He lifted another stone.

“Don’t you dare,” I hissed at him, voice low so no one could hear me.

I don’t know why I bothered. I’d decided to move into the pool- house when my mother kept bringing racks and racks of her clothing into my old bedroom. I needed to space and privacy anyways. So it wasn’t like they could hear me all the way in

the main house.

Adrian froze, looked up, and the streetlamp caught the sharp lines of his face. He looked tired, unshaven, and desperate.

Chapter 97

“Then let me in, Valentina.”

“You’re insane.”

“I’ll stand here and throw rocks until every window in the house is broken or your father decades to go out and shoot me Your choice.”

I glared at him for a long second. The vase was cold and heavy in my hands and I considered throwing it right at his head.

Instead I slammed the window shut, set the vase down with a thud that probably woke up the entire city, and marched to the door barefoot in my sleep shirt and shorts.

I yanked the door open just enough to snarl, “Get in before I change my mind.”

He slipped inside like a shadow, closing the door softly behind him. The click of the latch sounded too loud in the sleeping house.

For a moment we just stared at each other in the dim entryway. He smelled like cold night air and the faint trace of the cologne I used to always inhale off his neck. His eyes were bloodshot. Mine probably were too.

“You look like hell,” I said.

“You opened the door,” he answered in a rough voice. “I’ll take it.”

I folded my arms, leaned back against the wall, and waited. I was done speaking first.

He exhaled and dragged a hand through his hair. “I’m not here to beg you to come home. Not tonight.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because tomorrow some guy in a tailored suit is taking you to dinner and I needed you to hear the truth from me before you decide to completely lock me out and move on.”

My stomach knots. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Adrian frowned. “The date you’re going on tomorrow? With the childhood friend who’s a lawyer? Your father said-”

He didn’t even complete the sentence before I burst into laughter. He understood the situation immediately and shook his head. “He lied to me, didn’t he?”

“Sure did.” I said. “I don’t have a childhood friend who’s a lawyer, and I’m definitely not going in any date.”

Adrian scoffed, smiling faintly. “I can’t believe he tricked me.”

I didn’t say anything.

He stepped closer, close enough that I had to tip my head back to hold his gaze.

“I’m sorry for everything, Valentina. I’m so fucking sorry. I hurt you, and I’ve been stupid and you deserve better than that.”

I wrapped my arm around myself and looked down, then motioned for him to follow me to the sitting area.

When we sat down, Adrian swallowed hard.

“I never hit Serena. I know I’m a ruthless man but I would never hurt her or you or any of our kids. Everything I told you before was the truth… well, except for the fact that she was still alive.”

I rubbed circles around my palm, not really knowing how to feel. I could remember Serena’s face again. And the crack….

15:21 Sun, Nov 23

Chapter 997

“She did drug the kids. She did slit her wrists…”

I tried to think back to all the times Serena and I were together in her room, to uemi

but now that I thought about it, she always had long sleeved dresses on. I never saw her.

“I thought she was dead when it happened,” Adrian continued. “But she wasn’t. And while Trener back to health, she kept trying to hurt herself. She went into a coma because she overdosed on seeping falls and frohol. She was a danger to Stefan and Sofia, and I just figured it would be casier… 1- I don’t know. It was stupid. I can see row how stupid it

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify