My lungs forget how to work.
Luca stands alone in the hallway. His broad shoulders fill part of the frame, suit jacket open over a crisp shirt. His dark hair has more gray than I remember, and deep lines bracket his mouth. He stares at the door with an expression I don't recognize.
My stomach drops. Heat surges through my chest, up my throat, and behind my eyes. I step back as if I've been shoved.
For a second, I consider the possibility that I'm hallucinating. The lack of sleep mixed with too many orgasms and too much unresolved history has broken something in my head.
A loud thud slams against the door.
My brain splinters into a dozen disjointed thoughts.
Why is he here?
A younger version of me roars to the surface. I'm the little girl who stood at the windows in an unfamiliar house and wondered why her uncle never came. It's the same girl who convinced herself he didn't exist, because that explanation held less sting than the alternative.
But he did. He chose distance and to hate me.
My legs threaten to give out. I grip the handle to keep myself upright.
"Valentina." His voice carries through the wood in a low rumble. It holds a deeper rasp than I remember.
My throat closes.
I stand frozen in the small entryway, bare legs, messy bun, shirt slipping off my shoulder, pancake batter drying on my fingers.
"Please," he adds, the single word threaded with something raw. "I'd like to talk to you."
My lungs pull in a sharp breath. It scrapes against my ribs. I stare at the handle as if it might shift my entire reality. The girl from the past wants to run, barricade herself in the bedroom, and wait for Brax to return and make this choice for me.
Except my husband made me make a promise to him. I swore I wouldn't let other people decide my fate ever again.
My hand turns the dead bolt before I fully process the action and open the door. It creaks just a fraction, then swings wide enough to reveal my estranged uncle standing a few feet away.
He straightens when he sees me, his sharp Marino eyes sweeping over my face in one swift, assessing pass that can make men twice his size flinch.
I expected to see contempt. Yet they seem to hold something shattered and uncertain.
For a heartbeat, no one speaks. We just stare at each other.
He looks older. The realization hits me like a slap. There's more silver at his temples, more lines at the corners of his eyes, deeper grooves in his forehead. This isn't the man I last saw. This is a grandfather of two babies I love.
"Valentina," he says quietly.
Seeing him after all these years cracks something in my chest. A sharp, stinging pressure rises behind my eyes. I stare at his mouth, as if the shape of it might morph into the man who used to bring me sweets behind my mother's back.
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. No words emerge.
His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows. He glances past me, taking in the condo over my shoulder. Then his gaze returns to mine. "May I come in?"
My brain screams every argument at once. This is Luca, my uncle, who vanished when I needed him most. It's the same man whose absence branded me nearly as deep as the iron.
My body answers before my brain does. I step back and to the side.
He crosses the threshold slowly, as if he expects the floor to open and swallow him whole. His nostalgic cologne wraps around me, tangled up with ghosts.
I shut the door behind him and press my back to it for a second, one hand still on the knob.
The silence between us stretches again, thick and charged.
