Page 262 of Mario
Victoria does not know all the rules.
She does not know what silence means in my world. She does not know what it costs to leave questions unanswered around men like me. She does not know that walking away sick and scared, without telling me why, feels too close to insult, fear, and rejection all at once.
She only knows whatever is happening inside her own head.
And if that head is as sharp and unforgiving as I know it to be, then it may be doing more damage than I could from here.
My phone remains silent in my pocket.
I step out of her office and pull the door mostly closed behind me.
Not all the way.
I do not know why I leave it cracked.
Maybe because closing it feels too final.
Maybe because I do not want anyone else walking in and seeing what Lorenzo saw.
“Have someone handle the trash,” I say curtly.
“Already done.”
I nod once, then walk back down the hall to my office.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Victoria
I sit on my couch with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and try not to look toward the cracked bathroom door.
Which is stupid.
I cannot see the test from here.
I put it on the counter, then immediately decided I could not look at it any longer, so I slid it behind the little basket of extra hand towels, like that somehow changes what it says.
It does not.
One line would have fixed everything.
Well, almost. It would have let me breathe.
But two lines are sitting in my bathroom.
Not one. Two.
I pull the blanket tighter around myself and stare at the blank television screen
My reflection stares back at me, pale and hollow-eyed and wrapped in fleece like a woman recovering from the flu instead of a woman whose entire life has just changed because she had the best sex of her life with Mario Conti.
I press my hand against my mouth.
The word still feels impossible.
Too big for me to process.
Too big for a Monday afternoon when I am supposed to be reviewing operations documents and taking notes and pretending I am not professionally entangled with a man who can ruin me.
