Chapter 807:

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Valeria crossed the room and sat across from him, as she would in any session—except this wasn’t a session. She didn’t reach for a notepad or set a timer. She simply folded her hands in her lap and looked at him.

“Helena told me you broke off the engagement.”

“I should have done it a long time ago.” Dorian met her eyes. “I should have done a lot of things a long time ago.”

A silence settled between them—not uncomfortable, but weighted. Full of everything that hadn’t been said across all the months they’d spent circling each other.

Valeria was the one who broke it. “Do you know what the hardest part of my job is? Watching people hold on to pain like it’s the last proof that something mattered. Like letting go means it never happened at all.” She paused. “You’ve been doing that.”

𝗤𝗎аl𝗂𝗍𝘺 𝘵𝗿an𝘀𝗅𝗮𝗍iо𝗇𝘀 𝘰n 𝗀𝖺𝗹𝗻𝗈𝘷𝗲l𝗌.c𝗼m

“And you haven’t?” There was no bite in his question. Only honesty.

She didn’t answer right away. When she did, her voice was quieter. “I have. I’m still working on it.”

Dorian leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Valeria. I know I don’t deserve to ask for anything. I know what I did—the distance, the engagement, all of it. I’m not here to make excuses.” He exhaled slowly. “I just need you to know that what I feel hasn’t changed. Not once.”

Valeria looked at him for a long moment. The therapist in her catalogued everything—the steadiness of his breath, the absence of deflection, the way he held her gaze without flinching. Growth looked different on every person. On Dorian, it looked like this: quiet, stripped of performance, and slightly terrifying.

“I’m not ready to promise anything,” she said finally.

Something flickered in his expression—not quite hope, but the beginning of it.

“I know,” he said.

“But I came here.” She stood, smoothing her coat. “That should tell you something.”

She was almost to the door when he called her name. Not Dr. Clark. Just Valeria—soft and careful, like something he’d been holding in his mouth for months and was only now allowing himself to say aloud.

She turned.

“Thank you,” he said. “For coming.”

She gave him a single nod and walked out.

In the hallway, Betty was waiting. Neither woman spoke. Betty simply pressed Valeria’s hand between both of hers—a gesture that required no translation—and walked her to the door.

Across the city, Ella sat in her car outside a café she used to love, coffee going cold in her hand. Angela’s words had followed her all the way home and were still following her now.

Women were never meant to be rivals. We gain nothing from treating each other that way.

She hadn’t expected to cry. She did anyway—quietly, without performance, without an audience to play to. When the tears finally ran out, she sat in the silence that came after and tried to remember the last time she’d wanted something that wasn’t tangled up in competition or pride.

It took a long time.

But eventually, she thought of something.

She put the car in drive.

Leonino found Monique on the rooftop of her building.

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.

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