Page 37 of Brutal Obsession
Valeria’s tension is palpable. It’s the kind of anger that makes my jaw ache from tensing it too frequently, and it worsens when her sniveling words infiltrate my ears. “How do you know her?”
When I arch a brow, silently warning that I don’t answer to anyone, she lowers her tone. Too bad it does nothing to diminish the whistle of audacity in her words.
“You’re looking at her like you know her. Like she isn’t somerandom woman who came in and snatched our child out from beneath us.”
“What happened was a mistake.” Not even her pounding pulse would have her missing my scathing tone. “Valentina didn’t do anything wrong.”
Valeria scoffs. “She did this on purpose, Giovanni. I know she did.” I’m about to point out that her insults to Valentina are also insults to me, but she keeps talking before I can. “You fucked her, didn’t you? She’s the girl your brothers have been talking about all month. The damsel in distress you swooped in and saved.”
“If I did?” My tone is a warning that I’m at the end of my rope.
She pays it no attention. “Then you fell into her trap like Dante did Camille’s mother, and for what?” A bitter, jealousy-filled laugh reverberates around the cab of the car. “She isn’t even your type.”
Even though her eyes are red from crying, and more than mascara clumps her lashes together, I still struggle not to respond to her ill-formed misconceptions with violence. For one, this isnothinglike what Dante went through. Not even close. And two, Valentina is more than my type.
She is theonlyoption.
Valeria locks gazes with me, and her eyes plead for me to understand. “When we were filling out our paperwork, she mentioned how similar our names were. She joked about how it would be easy for the clinic to get us mixed up. She seemed hopeful. Like she wanted it to happen.”
With a scoff, I shake my head. “Why would she do that? What benefit could she get from a mix-up like this?”
“She agreed to sell her eggs for money, Giovanni. You’ve clearly overestimated her self-worth.”
Valeria twists her lips, and her leg bounces with anger and something else. Fear, maybe? It’s expected. I haven’t stopped shooting daggers at her since she juiced up Valentina’s veins with a sedative.
“After the doctor mentioned my low egg count, he went over surrogacy options and their financial implications. She’ll get five times what she would have with a simple donation, and that with a standard, everyday couple.” Her huff announces she doesn’t class herself as anything close to standard. “She knows the power she now holds, and if she’s smart, she’ll exploit it for all it’s worth.”
My initial impulse is to dismiss her claims outright and attribute them to her desperation to assign fault. The way she looks at me, however, eyes glistening and pleading, prevents me from doing so.
For several miles, I attempt to talk some sense into her.
Why would Valentina orchestrate something like this?
What could she possibly gain?
Valeria remains persistent. She paints Valentina as a cunning opportunist who saw an opening and took it without a second thought.
“She saw you outside the clinic, walking me in. I’m confident she did.”
Since I’m unable to deny her claim, I remain quiet. Her theories are nonsense. Valentina is different. But I can’t control the memories that surface. For years, women have tried to worm their way into my family’s good graces. They lie, manipulate, and scheme for a taste of the Caruso legacy.
Dante’s baby mama is the most recent and painful example. Her brief intermission in the Caruso household left a trail of chaos in its wake.
Furthermore, I’ve seen what desperation can do. It can twist even the most innocent intentions into something ugly. But Valentina? She doesn’t seem like that.
As rows of lemon groves whiz past my window, I go over every moment we’ve shared, searching for signs I might have missed. She looked at me with an open rawness that was also defiant, and she was clueless of my identity until I revealed my name.
If she’d known my influence aligned with Valeria’s perspective, what was the reason for her repeated escapes?
Because she knows you like the chase.
Loathing my inner monologue, I ball my hands into fists. Trusting my instincts is as natural as breathing, but is an attraction powerful enough to thicken my cock even while I’m being played for a fool impairing my judgment?
In all honesty, it doesn’t matter. Just the memory of Valentina’s lips on mine and the way her body fit against me, as if designed for me, has me willing to hand over every dime I have, so who cares if Valeria’s claims are true?
You can’t be played when you sign up to participate.
Don’t get me wrong, I want Valentina to be innocent. I’d rather she be, but obsession is a dangerous thing. It can make a man rush to his death without thinking twice.
