I pressed my lips together. “No need. It was just your father’s wedding gift. I was planning to auction it anyway.”
I only said it to cut him. It worked. His face shifted—from surprise to anger. “You’d auction that? Our wedding gift?”
“But she broke it,” I replied calmly.
Silence. He remembered. It wasn’t me. It was Dahlia who caused trouble this time.
“Sorry, Valentine. I really didn’t mean to,” Dahlia said softly now.
Why was she even here? To make a scene?
“I’ll have someone clean this,” Reynold muttered. “In the meantime… Dahlia will stay in this room. Just for a week. She needs sunlight, and this one gets the most.”
Then he looked at me like it was nothing. “You’ll move to the guest room, Valentine.”
And just like that, Reynold pushed me out of my own room. Out of what little space I still held in this house.
“Surely you won’t refuse your sister’s request, right?” Dahlia leaned against my husband’s shoulder the moment Reynold dropped that bomb on me.
My chest tightened. I knew Dahlia wanted me to snap and make a scene in front of him, but I said nothing Instead.
Request?
No. That wasn’t a request. It was an order. One that didn’t need my agreement.
We never shared a room like real spouses in the mafia world do. He never wanted that. He once told me we could use my room if I ever wanted him as a husband, but never his. He said he didn’t want his space “contaminated” with anything intimate.
But he didn’t know I already knew the truth.
He brought Dahlia to his room every time I returned late from a Commission meeting. Or when I was asleep, too tired to hear their whispers and footsteps.
“It’s only for a week, Valentine. You’ll get your room back when—”
“Fine. She can have it,” I cut him off with a nod. I turned away and continued packing.
“O…kay?” Reynold echoed, thrown off.
I shot him a cold glance. He expected me to fight for it the way I used to. He expected tears, begging, anger. But there was none of that left in me.
Why fight for something that was never mine?
“I’m giving it to her. Like you asked,” I said calmly.
Dahlia squealed in triumph. “See, love? My sister always understands.”
Reynold didn’t look pleased. For a second, I thought my indifference unsettled him. But instead of checking on me, he walked off, pride straightened on his shoulders.
Dahlia, of course, stayed behind. She never left without getting the last word.