He Chose My Copy I Became The Law Chapter 12
I finally turned, allowing my eyes to rest on his face. “I believed blood and survival had forged an unbreakable bond between us.”
“We slipped beneath the orphanage’s iron gates side by side, slept under roofs that leaked, and shared one helping of pasta between us. I believed the red in my sleepless eyes and the endless stacks of ledgers I worked through on your behalf carried more weight than anything another woman could offer.”
“Eventually, though, I understood the truth.” I slowly shook my head.
“Adrian, you never regarded me as either your wife or the woman you loved. To you, I was the most convenient account book in your possession and the keenest weapon within reach. It was never me you dreaded losing. It was my intelligence.”
“The thing you cannot surrender is having my mind at your service.”
“Adrian,” I said, enunciating each word as my eyes held his, “a human heart is capable of dying.”
“Mine perished long ago beside our child in that incubator.”
He lurched upright, his eyes flooded with red. “No… I do love you, Valentina. I was only… power and wealth blinded me…”
“Your justifications are worth less than your treachery,” I interrupted. “Had your love simply ended, you might at least have behaved like a man. But this miserable performance of devotion? Do you honestly imagine it deceives me?”
A quiet rap sounded at the door before my deputy, Marco, leaned his head inside.
“Miss Rinaldi, Mr. Conti is expecting you in the main hall. The Commission has brought its emergency session forward.”
“I’ll be there shortly,” I replied.
I retrieved my coat from the sofa and settled it deliberately across my shoulders. I had nearly reached the exit when Adrian called after me, his voice bordering on hysteria.
“Valentina! Suppose that day in the fire… suppose I had picked you? Suppose you had been the first person I carried to safety?”
I halted but did not look back.
“Suppositions change nothing.”
“Adrian, the moment you took her through that doorway, you forfeited forever the power to stir any feeling in me.”
The door swung shut between us.
Brilliant light poured from the elaborate wall sconces, casting the corridor ahead into sharp relief.Â