“Three,” he repeated. “I don’t care what you do outside this apartment, but in here? You act like a respectable human being.”
I scoffed. “Respectable?”
“You know what that means?”
“Sure,” I said, smirking. “It means whatever you want it to mean.” I reached for the door handle. “That it?”
“Four.”
I froze.
“You don’t drink. That is not welcome inside my house. Do you understand me, Valentina?”
And just like that, I wanted to throw open the car door and roll myself into traffic.
I didn’t say anything right away, mostly because I was calculating how dramatic it would be to make a scene in his luxury parking garage. Too much? Probably. But the urge was there. Just for a second.
I finally looked at him. “Wow,” I said, deadpan. “You really are a good time.”
“I’m not here to entertain you.”
“Clearly.”
I leaned my head back against the seat and exhaled slowly through my nose, trying not to say the thing I actually wanted to say, which was,“You don’t get to make rules for me.”Because the truth was, he did. I’d signed a piece of paper that said he did. And I knew, somewhere deep down under the layers of sarcasm and stubborn pride, this was probably the one rule that actually mattered to him.
Which, of course, only made me want to break it.
But I didn’t say that either. I just let the silence stretch between us until it got thick and sticky, like heat on your skin in the summer that you couldn’t sweat out.
“Got it,” I said, all honey. “No drinking. No hookups. No curiosity. No fun. Crystal clear, lawyer.”
I yanked open the door and stepped out before he could say another word. Because if he looked at me again like I was fragile or broken or halfway to disaster, I was going to do something reckless. Like tell him the real reason I hadn’t been drinking lately. Or ask if he’d meant it when he’d said he didn’t regret it.
Or, God forbid, kiss him first this time.
He led me all the way up to his apartment from the parking garage. I didn’t know what to expect from Marco’s place, but it wasn’t this.
I knew Marco had money.Obviously. Max didn’t keep men in his circle who were anything less than completely successful, and Marco carried himself like someone who always had enough of it: comfortable, but not flashy. And still—still—I expected something ... different? Maybe a little personality?
Instead, I walked into the most aggressivelyboringpenthouse I’d ever seen in my life.
And that was when it hit me.
I didn’t actually know Marco.
Not really.
I knew his job. His reputation. The way he carried himself. The way he never gave away more than he had to. I knew the way he argued, the condescending littletchhe did when he thought I was being ridiculous—which, to be fair, was often. I knew how heavy his stare was, the way he made people nervous without trying. The way he never raised his voice even when he was furious.
But the actualman?
Nothing.
It was unsettling. Even at my lowest—at my most selfish, reckless, and impossible—I’d alwaysbeensomeone. I’d always left a mess, a mark—something.
But Marco?
Marco could disappear tomorrow, and no one would ever know he’d lived here.
