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“I’m not asking you to give away Frankie’s share of the business.”
“No, you just want a part of it. But there are only so many slices of the pie. What the hell is your proposal, Adrian? You can’t tell me. Dad can’t tell me. All I have asked is for you to give me the details. But no, I am supposed to just support you no matter what because we slept together a few times.”
“Sofia…”
“Oh my God. Is that why you slept with me?” Her face drained of color and emotion as that nasty thought took root. “Were you trying to guarantee my vote for your proposal? Throw the big girl a little touch to clear your path?”
“No, that’s not…” He couldn’t let her believe that.
“Get out of my office.”
“I’m not done.”
“Oh, yes, you are! Do you think just because I let you touch me, you get to come in here and tell me how to do my job? Fuck that and fuck you, too. Leave the reports, and then just leave.”
Adrian knew when to call it quits. He turned on his heel, his fury now directed at himself for screwing up that conversation so royally. They’d both take time to cool down, and he’d try again.
* * *
The door closed behind him,and Sofia dropped her head onto her hands. She couldn’t stop the tears from coming. He hadn’t pulled a single punch. He thought she was incompetent, untrustworthy, and frivolous. He had zero respect for the value she added through her work. He’d slept with her to gain her cooperation and pushed her away when that had failed. She’d thought that they were building something solid. In her weaker moments, she had pictured them together, raising a family and running the company side by side. Now, those dreams felt ridiculous. He’d made them ridiculous by tearing away any illusion she had that she was in a committed, respectful relationship. She didn’t need him to rub her nose in it.
She was so done.
She walked out of her office, leaving behind everything but her keys.
Chapter 25
Sofia droveand drove until she got to the coast. She didn’t realize where she was headed until she got there, but her subconscious knew. She needed the water. It was already dark, and technically the beaches were closed. But she parked by the side of the road anyway and got out of her car. She kicked off her shoes and ran down the steep, sandy cliff path that wound down to the shore.
Her toes sank into the icy sand and the waves at high tide swirled around her ankles, soaking the hems of her jeans and chilling her to the bone. Letting loose the pain she’d been fighting to contain, she turned to face the turbulent waves and let out a scream that threatened to split her in two. Anger, sadness, fear, all crammed into a primal roar. Each sob pulled a painful memory or a piece of guilt to the surface, and she let them all flow into the vast ocean. Gabe, Mom, Dad, Adrian—every broken piece of her heart swirled in the eddy of her pain. Once the seal was broken, scream after scream fell from her lips, each one taking more of her, until at last she was empty.
When she came back into herself, she was kneeling in the surf, and her face was wet with salty water. Whether it was from the ocean or her tears, she couldn’t tell and didn’t care. With her head finally clear, she was able to think for the first time in weeks.
She wasn’t happy. What would make her happy?
She held the newly empty space in her mind quietly, and waited for the big picture to materialize. From the back of her mind, where she’d buried that shiny dream after college, emerged a bright and beautiful office, with her designs framed on the wall. It was a business that she loved and was proud of. In her mind, her dad gave her a pat on the back and told her, “Good work.” She drove home to a lovely old house with a loving husband and children running in the yard. She carefully kept Mister’s face blank. She had to move forward, so she touched the fragile dream gently. It had lain buried for too long, and she’d gotten distracted by her father’s crazy plans. It was time to bring it back into the light.
I want respect.
I want to do what I love.
I want to be with a man I can love and who loves me in return.
Surely that wasn’t toomuch to ask. Shivers rattled through her, shaking her from her soul-searching. Hauling herself back up the steep path to the highway, she picked apart her revelations. The first, she’d never get as long as she was working for her father. The second didn’t seem likely either. And her hopes for the third had gone out the window when Adrian hadn’t been able to handle her reaching for one and two.
She couldn’t control him or his feelings. No matter how much she wanted to, either he’d have to come to the conclusion that what she did was worthy of his respect on his own, or he wouldn’t. If the latter was the case, good riddance. She deserved better than that, no matter how much she missed his laughter and that dimple, his kisses and—
No, no farther down that path, or she’d crumble. She climbed into her car and turned on the heater, even though it felt like she’d never be warm again. She hadn’t felt this cold and shattered since the day they’d found out Gabe was dead.
What would her life have looked like if Gabe had survived and come home?
Would she be happily designing homes as the head of Valenti Brothers’ design team? The vision she’d guarded so long in her head felt like a shadow of the truth when held up to the moonlight. If Gabe had come home to run the business, she likely would still have ended up doing the lion’s share of the paperwork. Gabe had never been an organized soul. And though she would like to think he’d have supported her in her dreams, he was still her big brother and would have probably bossed her around, just like Dad. This illusion she’d held on to for three years evaporated as her resentment toward Gabe faced the cold light of reality.
She’d been so angry for so long, but that wasn’t fair to either of them.
“I’m sorry, Gabe. I’m sorry I blamed you for everything. I love you.” She whispered the words into the silence of the car, hoping that wherever her brother’s soul was he could hear them.
She’d thought she was done grieving, but the fresh tears on her cheeks assured her she was not. She was so tired. Tired of being angry and sad and guilty. She had to let it go.
