“I regret a lot of things,” he said, his voice quieter now. “But fucking you isn’t one of them. Seeing you like this though?” He shrugged. “That might be.”
Something hollow cracked open in my chest. It didn’t even hurt at first. It was justquiet.
My legs moved on autopilot as I picked up his jacket from where it had landed, still warm from the last time he’d touched it, and threw it at him. Not to make a point. Not to be dramatic. I just didn’t want it in my space anymore. I didn’t wanthimin my space.
“Get out.”
“Valentina—”
“No.” I pointed to the door. “You don’t get to say shit like that and stay. You don’t get to fuck me and then judge me like you didn’t sign up forthis.Forme.This exact version of me. You knew.”
He didn’t fight me. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t explain. He just picked up his things. Jacket, phone, dignity. Looked at me one last time like maybe—maybe—he was thinking about staying.
But he didn’t.
He walked out.
And the second the door clicked shut behind him, I stood there alone, still wearing half the clothes I’d started with, still tasting him in the back of my throat, still hoping—stupidly, shamefully—he’d come back.
He didn’t.
CHAPTER 23
MARCO
“She kicked you out?”
Max didn’t look up when he said it. He was already sitting out on the back patio as if it were any other Sunday morning, drinking his coffee and thumbing through the paper like an old man.
Rosalie’s ridiculous dog, Duke, kept trotting up every five minutes, dropping a half-shredded stick at Max’s feet, his tail wagging like an idiot. Every single time, without fail, Max grumbled under his breath, muttered something about how the damn thing slobbered too much, and then tossed the stick again anyway.
He hated that dog. Said so all the time. It was too loud, too clingy, and too dumb. But I’d caught him letting Duke curl up beside him when he thought no one was looking. The soft spot was there, buried under his control issues.
I sat across from him nursing a cup of black coffee that tasted exactly as bitter as I felt, trying to decide if showing up here was a mistake.
“She told me to get out,” I finally admitted.
Max flipped a page, not even bothering to look at me. “And you listened?”
“She meant it.”
He raised his eyebrows over the top of the paper. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
I shrugged. “Didn’t want to make things worse.”
“So, naturally, you made them worse.”
I ignored him.
It wasn’t like I’d planned to show up at Valentina’s apartment just to fuck everything up, but things had escalated fast. We were fine, and then we weren’t. One second I had her pressed against the counter like she was the only thing in the world that made sense, and the next I was saying something I couldn’t take back. Something I didn’t even mean—not like that.
And then she’d told me to leave.
So I did.
I didn’t want to, but I respected her enough to listen. Or maybe I was just afraid of what I’d do if I didn’t. Afraid I’d stay and make it worse. Afraid I’d keep pushing until something broke—for good this time.
Max sipped his coffee. “What did you say to her that pissed her off?”
