Page 31 of His Obsession
A slow grin spreads across his face. “So this is about a certain event planner.”
“Don’t.”
“I was going to pass along my congratulations,” he says with a shit-eating grin. “She did an excellent job.”
True enough. It also does nothing for my mood.
Matteo takes a sip of coffee. “You could just ask her out.”
“Absolutely not.” I sigh.
“Why not?”
“Nico would kill me.”
By lunchtime, the congratulatory noise hasn’t slowed. One of our investors wants an introduction to Val for his wife’s anniversary party. I give him her business email instead of her number and dislike the hollow feeling that follows. Absurd. I know that. If anything, I should be pleased. The event did exactly what a great event is supposed to do for someone in her line of work. It raised her profile. It made people talk. It turned one successful room into future contracts.
By end of day, Val sends a short, clean email with the final event recap, vendor reconciliation notes, and a boilerplate thank-you. As if our night together never happened.
I stare at the email longer than necessary, then send back a reply that’s equally professional. Because I’m not a child, and if distance is what she wants, I’m fully capable of giving it to her.
The next day, she sends the final invoice. I approve it immediately. Then I spend another ten minutes staring at the email chain like I’m going to find some hidden message inside her perfectly neutral phrasing if I read closely enough.
I don’t.
On the fourth day, I send her a question about a vendor I don’t even remotely care about. Her reply is brief and professional, and I half believe she had her assistant send it.
By the sixth day, I know with complete certainty she is avoiding me.
Valentina is too smart to be obvious about it. She isn’t outright ignoring my emails or refusing to answer questions or behaving in any way I could reasonably criticize. She’s simply keeping every interaction scrubbed clean of anything personal. Unmistakable. And I hate that it bothers me.
After a week, I’ve driven myself half out of my mind. I catch myself thinking about her at the wrong moments. In the elevator after a meeting. In the quiet between phone calls. At my own dining table.
I wouldn’t tolerate this behavior in anyone else. In myself, I dislike it even more. Which is why, when my phone rings just after midnight with Bellissimo’s security chief on the screen, all of that private irritation drops away fast.
“What happened?” I ask immediately.
“There’s been a shooting,” he says.
I’m already on my feet before he finishes the sentence. “Who’s hit?”
“No civilian injuries so far. One bouncer got clipped by glass when the shooter hit the back mirror. The guy got away before our people could get to him.”
I grab my keys off the desk in my home office and head for the door. By the time I reach Bellissimo, the block is lit in red and blue. Uniforms form a barricade at the front while guests huddle outside in expensive clothes, making the whole scene about themselves. One girl is crying into her phone while her friendangles them both into better light. A man in a dinner jacket is loudly insisting he knows the mayor.
That’s Los Angeles for you. Even panic is content.
One of my men meets me at the door and walks me through. Inside, the music is dead and the house lights are up. My staff looks pale. Furious.
The back bar took most of it. Bottles shattered across mirrored shelving, glass everywhere. One bullet lodged in the wall near a velvet banquette where, barely a week ago, I watched Valentina laugh at the bar before I crossed the floor to ask her to dance.
I push the thought away. Not the time. Not the place.
“What do we have?” I ask.
Matteo is already there, sleeves rolled up, assessing the damage. He looks up when I reach the bar.
“Witnesses are useless. Everybody ducked and ran then half of them were more interested in filming the aftermath than remembering what they saw.”
