The Temporary Wife: Luca and Valentina's Story (The Windsors) by Catharina Maura

Author:Catharina Maura [Maura, Catharina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-02-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Valentina

I check the time and sigh as I walk into the house at eleven in the evening. For days now, I’ve been avoiding Luca, working late and making sure I’m out the door before he is in the mornings. I’ve felt oddly flustered and uncomfortable ever since we slept together, but it wasn’t the sex that threw me off. It was the intimacy that followed.

Luca has been treating me the same at work, but the way he looks at me has changed. I’m scared that he thinks less of me now, or that he’ll take pity on me. I worked incredibly hard to cultivate my professional image, and I feel like I ruined it all in just one single night. Besides, I’m worried about the thinning boundaries between us.

It’s been a long time since I shared so much of myself with another, and I’m worried I revealed too much. The last time I opened up to someone that way, I ended up heartbroken.

Luca has been confusing me lately and I’m uncertain how to handle this new version of him. I thought I knew exactly who he was and what I could expect in this marriage of convenience, but nothing about it feels convenient anymore. When he asked me to marry him, he made it seem so simple. I figured I’d pretend to be his wife in front of his family, and in private, nothing would change. I couldn’t have been more wrong. With each passing day, I grow more scared to lose my heart all over again, permanently this time.

I pause on my way to the kitchen and instinctively hide at the sound of Luca’s voice. “Yeah?” he says, his voice soft. I thought he’d be in bed by now, but it looks like I was wrong.

I peek around the corner to find him standing in front of the stove, his earbuds in. He’s dressed in gray sweatpants that give him an entirely unfair advantage, and the black t-shirt he’s wearing strains around his muscles in a way that makes it impossible to look away.

“Don’t be upset,” he murmurs, his tone gentle.

I tense, a knot settling in my stomach. Who is he speaking to? I’ve never heard him take that tone with anyone but me, and he only started speaking to me so sweetly once we got married. Who is it that’s got him exposing a side of himself that he hid from me for years?

“I know. I’ll handle it, okay? I promise.”

My heart clenches tightly and I inhale shakily. Is it Natalia? I still remember the way he looked at her when she came into the office. When they first got engaged, he seemed patient but reluctant around her, but the last time they spoke, he acted different. He was kinder, more gentle. Something about that time didn’t sit well with me and left me feeling irrationally jealous. I hide behind the door and continue to listen in, unable to suppress my curiosity. The news of their engagement

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