“Are you on one?”
“Relax. I’ve been handling my sex life longer than you’ve been judging it.”
He muttered something—half-apology, half-frustration—dragging a hand through his hair. “I should’ve asked if you wereon something before I—” He cut himself off, jaw tightening, as if saying the words out loud would make them too real.
“Cute that you think you could knock me up on the first try.”
Marco hummed like he was actually considering it while he fixed his belt. “Wouldn’t be the worst thing.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’d keep you away from the wine,” he murmured as he stood from the bed.
Something hot simmered in my chest. Not in a good way. Not the kind of heat that starts in your stomach and works its way down. No—this was in my rib cage. In my throat. Something like acid. Something I didn’t know how to name.
I just stood there blinking at him as if the floor had tilted and no one had told me. Like my brain hadn’t caught up with the fact he’d really said that. Out loud. Tome.
I replayed it in my head three times just to be sure I’d heard him right.
What was he thinking? That getting me pregnant would be ... what? A rehab plan? A leash? A fucking lifestyle change?
What was I supposed to say to that?Oh, thank you, Marco. Really thoughtful of you to weaponize my addiction and wrap it up in the hypothetical of an unwanted child. Thank you for turning something intimate into a punishment I apparently deserve.
He’d said it like it wasn’t a big deal. Like it wasn’t one of the ugliest things anyone had ever said to me. Like I hadn’t already dragged myself through hell trying to stop drinking, trying to be better, trying not toneedsomething to numb myself.
I couldn’t even look at him. Couldn’t trust myself not to throw something—or worse,cry. And I wasn’t going to cry in front of Marco.
“Spare me the judgment, lawyer. You knew exactly who I was when you fucked me.”
He looked at me. “Yeah. I knew.”
God, that made it worse. I didn’t even know why. It just did. It was like he’d calculated the risk and decided I was a shitty investment before the ink had even dried. Like he could see every broken piece and had still said,“Yeah, I’ll hit that,” then got mad when he cut himself on the edges.
“Then stop looking at me like that,” I snapped. “Like it was a mistake you already regret. Like you’re trying to figure out how to scrub the memory of me out of your head.”
“I didn’t say it was a mistake.”
No. He didn’t. But I could feel it. I could see it in the way his mouth had gone tight, his jaw ticking like he was holding something in.
What made it worse was the baby comment.“It’d keep you away from the wine.”He’d meant it like a joke. Maybe a jab. Because I wasn’t the woman you looked at and thought,Mother. I was the one you warned your kid about. I was the mistake, the lesson, the regret. I knew that. I’d made peace with it—sort of. Or at least I’d figured out how to survive it.
But hearing it from him, even sideways, dressed up as a joke?
It gutted me.
And the worst part? I didn’t even think he meant to do it. He’d just said it.
I tried to act like it wasn’t sitting in my chest like a lead weight, that it didn’t confirm every single terrible thing I already believed about myself, but I couldn’t.
So yeah, maybe I lashed out. Maybe I went for the jugular. Maybe I wanted to make him hurt just a fraction of what I was feeling. Because if he was going to cut deep, then I’d make damn sure he bled too.
“You didn’t have to.”
“I didn’t exactly fuck you like I regretted it, Valentina.”
I laughed, because if I didn’t laugh, I was going to do something way worse. I was going to fall apart. Right there. In front of him. Maybe throw up, maybe cry, maybe beg him to stay.God,I could feel the urge climbing up my throat, and I hated it.
“No,” I said, my voice flat. “But you’re looking at me like you do.”
