𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐅 𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄

Chapter Eighty-Nine

VALENTINA
LARS

The penthouse was eerily silent, the kind of silence that seeped into the bones, making everything feel colder, sharper. I stood alone, staring out over the New York skyline, but my thoughts were miles away, back to the life I'd left behind and the decision I still wasn't sure of. My father's offer to return to him loomed in my mind like an escape route I was afraid to take. The more I considered it, the more it seemed like a surrender, an admission that things here were fractured beyond repair.
But leaving meant abandoning Christian, and somehow that thought weighed more heavily than my own pride or stubbornness. Despite the silence between us, despite the distance he'd put between us, I couldn't bear to leave him alone.

I asked for a break and distance, now I hated it.

Following him to New York had felt like the only choice, even though every step after our arrival seemed to confirm that I might've made a mistake. I wanted to stay with Addie, but I was scared he'd leave me.

The moment we walked through the penthouse doors, he went straight to setting up another room—the guest room. A small  detail, but it felt monumental, like was building a wall brick by brick between us. He was choosing distance, choosing to separate himself from me in the most intimate way possible. That's what I asked for but... it hurt. It felt like a hollow ache in my chest that wouldn't leave.

That night, sleep was impossible. I wandered aimlessly around the apartment, the walls feeling like they were closing in, suffocating me with the fear that he might pull away even further. With every passing hour, my thoughts grew darker, poisoned by a voice whispering fears I didn't want to acknowledge.

He loves you, Valentina. He does. He wouldn't hurt you.

But if he loved me, he wouldn't need another room. He wouldn't put that space between us that I asked for, he'd try to be with me. He'd be here, with me, and not giving in to whatever shadow hung over us.

I tried to reason with myself, to remind myself that I was the one who was hard to love, the one who'd pushed him, argued with him, stubbornly refused to bend or compromise. But somehow, it didn't feel the same. I'd always had my reasons, my justifications. He...he was just abandoning me, in his own subtle, quiet way. I felt my heart clench with every thought of him lying in another room, turning his back on the life we'd tried to build together.

He could be doing anything. He could be seeing anyone. The thought tightened like a noose around my mind, squeezing out reason until only doubt remained.

I'm allowed to have my walls, to protect myself. But he...

The reasoning fell apart as soon as I thought it. It was hypocrisy, I knew it, and yet I clung to it like a shield, as if it could ward off the reality of the situation. I wanted him to fight for me, to tear down every wall and barrier I threw up, to prove to me over and over that he'd stay. But maybe I'd built the walls too high, pushed him too far.

As I paced, the hours slipped by. Dawn approached, the first light of morning creeping over the city, casting a cold, gray glow through the windows. I wondered if he was awake, lying alone in that guest room, feeling just as lonely and lost as I was. Or maybe he slept peacefully, free of the tension that weighed on me. Maybe this separation gave him a relief he hadn't had in a long time.

With a sigh, I sank onto the couch, staring blankly at the city below. Part of me wanted to storm into that guest room, demand an explanation, pull him close and force him to feel what I was feeling

As I sat on the couch, lost in my thoughts, I didn't hear the soft footsteps approaching. I only noticed Christian when he appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame, watching me with an unreadable expression. The early light barely lit up his face, but I could see the tension in his eyes, the strain of whatever had been weighing on him, the same way it had been eating away at me. He looked tired. Was he tired of me?