Page 45 of Ruthless Claim

She keeps having layers I don’t expect.

The reading glasses she wears at her desk.

The way she argues with herself out loud in whichever language matches her current level of irritation.

The specific Italian she uses when she’s given up on patience.

The way she laughs when she didn’t want to then looks annoyed at herself for it. I’ve been accumulating details about Valentina Santoro for our entire marriage and I can’t stop.

But then again, I don’t particularly want to.

She comes back out of the bedroom twenty minutes later fully dressed, hair perfect and composure immaculate, like nothing happened.

“You have calls until noon,” I tell her.

She glares at me. “I know when I have calls.”

I shrug. “Just saying.”

“Don’t,” she says, picking up her now cold cup of coffee, “manage my schedule. You did it on Friday and I’m still annoyed about it.”

“The gallery thing was⁠—”

“Moved for your thing, yes, I know, I was there.” She gives me the look over her mug. “I’m not one of your people, Cillian. I don’t work for you.”

It takes everything in me to not roll my eyes. “I’m aware.”

“Are you?” She tilts her head. “Because the last two Fridays suggest otherwise.”

Is she ever going to give up on that? “It was once.”

“It was twice. I have a calendar, and it doesn’t lie.” She dumps her coffee in the sink, takes her phone, and goes to her desk. That is apparently the end of that conversation. I stand in the kitchen for a moment. I am, clearly, not as in control of this situation as I told myself I would be.

I get a call from Connor at seven forty-five. “My office. Nine o’clock,” he says, and hangs up.

No greeting, no context.

Just the time and the expectation.

The call is already over before I can say anything except yes.

Which I didn’t even say and apparently didn’t need to.

Valentina looks up from her computer. “Connor?”

“Yes.”

She watches me put my phone back in my pocket. “He calls you the way you call a car service,” she observes.

I stiffen at that comparison. “That’s not⁠—”

“You should try not answering sometime. See what happens.”

“I know what happens,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Do you?” She goes back to her screen. “Because it looks like you don’t know, and that’s why you always answer.”

I open my mouth then close it.