25
ARGENTINA, 1940
‘Valentina, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we always knew this could happen.’
Valentina sat stiff-backed as she faced the lawyer, trying her very hardest to maintain her composure and not crumble. Her breasts were still aching, her body craving the touch of the baby she’d left behind, and her heart felt as if it had splintered beyond repair, and yet she sat in the lawyer’s office in the last of her best clothes, trying to pretend as if her world wasn’t falling apart for the second time.
‘Just tell me,’ she said, forcing the words out as her throat felt like it was closing over. ‘I want to know everything that has happened in my absence.’
He nodded. ‘Very well. But let me assure you that once you’re in control, once?—’
‘Tell me the bad news.’
‘The company has been sold.’
Valentina’s eyes widened as she gasped. ‘Sold?’
‘Your mother appointed your brother director of the company, and it was sold four months ago. Unfortunately, from what I understand, there would be no way to reverse the sale—unless you could convince the new owner to sell it back toyou, of course. Which I have to point out would need to be at a premium, most likely a greatly inflated amount over what they paid to secure it.’
‘Tell me the rest,’ she said, unable to contain her sigh. It was as if everything had collapsed in the short time she was gone. ‘I can tell there’s more.’
‘Your family home is up for sale, as is the property in Mendoza.’
‘So, she’s trying to sell everything? To erase every memory of my father,’ Valentina said bitterly.
‘Publicly, she’s the image of the grieving widow,’ he said. ‘I won’t paint the picture for you, I’m certain you can do that yourself, but she certainly knows how to act.’
Valentina looked out of the window for a long moment, before taking a deep breath. She’d given up so much to come back to Argentina, and she wasn’t going to back down now.
‘Lorenzo, I returned home for a fight, and I intend on having one,’ she said. ‘Are you still confident that my father’s last will and testament would be upheld in a court of law, now that I am an adult, when we contest it?’
‘I am.’
‘Then please go ahead with the annulment proceedings, so we can have that in place, and file whatever court documents are required on the matter of my inheritance. I want to start this fight tomorrow.’
‘Your instructions are clear, Valentina, and I will proceed immediately,’ he said, before adding more softly, ‘and I have a small apartment near my offices arranged for you. It’s very modest, but?—’
‘It will be perfect, thank you.’
‘I have to warn you, this could stretch on for months, and if your husband isn’t agreeable?—’
‘Offer him enough money that he would agree to sell his own mother,’ she said. ‘So long as he’s erased from my life, I don’t care how much it costs to extricate myself from him.’
‘Very well, but I will have to make it clear that any payment will need to be made after you challenge the contents of the will.’
‘All he’ll hear is the amount you’re offering—he won’t mind if he has to wait for it, I’m certain. Just, please, make it happen.’
He went on to show Valentina paperwork and have her sign documents, and by the time his secretary took her to the apartment he’d found for her, she was so exhausted she could barely stand. But in bed, curled into a ball as she prayed for sleep, all Valentina could think about was the beautiful little baby who should be cradled in her arms, which kept her from sleeping at all.
Te amo, cariño. I miss you so much.
And she also thought of Felipe, and what she wouldn’t give to go and find him, to tell him that she was back, that they could finally be together. But she’d waited this long, and she knew that once this was all over, they’d have a lifetime together. She just had to be patient and wait.
Valentina had expected to feel differently when her lawyer personally called by to tell her about the annulment. It had just been granted, thanks to her husband agreeing to sign the petition, in exchange for the deeds to the Mendoza property and almost ten million pesos in cash, and she’d reluctantly given her consent. The money she was ambivalent about, but giving up the property had hurt, and made her feel as if she were betraying her papa. It was close to adjoining the land where her father had grown his best olives, land that he’d purchased when he’d firstmoved to Argentina, and she knew how much he’d have hated to see it let go. But with the business already sold, and the large piece of land with it, she could see no point in refusing to part with it.
Agreeing to this brings me one step closer to going home, and to returning for my daughter. Papa would have understood, and he’d have wanted me to do anything to regain control of what he left.
Only the day before she’d received a letter from Hope, telling her that her daughter was thriving, despite being unsettled the first two nights without her mother to hold her. It had given her the strength she needed to push on, knowing that she had to continue what she’d started. And so she’d signed on the dotted line, agreeing to give her husband what her lawyer had negotiated within six months of the date of annulment—something she could only do if she successfully challenged her mother. If she didn’t win in her court case, then she wouldn’t be able to fulfil the agreement with her husband.
