My Funny Valentina (2 page)

She’d
been scared out of her mind about becoming a mother.  Had never really had one of her own to pattern herself after.  Never had much of
any
kind of family, she amended.  Valentina frowned, thinking of the series of apathetic relatives she’d been shuffled amongst while her mother had gone off on her latest mission.  Though it had never been a flag waving, pride-inducing mission to fight a war or any other noble purpose.  No, her mother had instead engaged in her own personal waterloos all doomed to failure, in pursuit of a man with big pockets. 

A second husband
, ‘better than the first dud,’ as she’d always disparagingly referred to Valentina’s father, dead almost fifteen years now after being knifed in a bar fight over a backroom poker game.  Her mother had never once hit the marital jackpot, instead ending up in a string of dead-end relationships with rough, tough burly men with even surlier attitudes. 

Me
n who usually didn’t want a kid around.  Until the freckle-faced, snub-nosed kid had blossomed into a beauty, that is.  And a whole new
range of problems had arisen between Valentina and her competitive mother then.  Her eyes misted, recalling some of the sordid accusations that had been hurled her way. 

Well, you
shouldn’t have worn that outfit around him, Val, you know he has grabby hands! 

When
her own daughter had arrived on a rainy November night three months ago –
with Stash’s full head of black curls
– it had been even harder for her to understand her mother’s actions as it had been instant, fierce love for Valentina.  A love so strong she would do anything in the world to protect her.  To make sure her child was happy and healthy. That she was safe.  To see she had the
best
care available.  Which is why she was here today at this photo shoot…why she had done the unforgiveable. 

The inexcusable
. 

The muscles of
Valentina’s taut abdomen visibly clenched, her stomach beneath rolling in a somersault thinking about the father of her child…her estranged husband.

Stash.
 

Her
gaze crept over for the hundredth time to the round clock hanging on the wall across the studio. 
9:30 am.
  Evelyn had said Stash – the mighty, the powerful – the alpha male his entire office revolved around as though he was the sun, they mere planets in his gravitational pull – was expected in at that time.  As his prized assistant knew her boss so well, there was no doubting he was there at this very moment.  Finding out right now, she had perpetrated possibly the biggest betrayal a woman could ever do to a man. 

A man
she’d stood with before a judge repeating sacred vows.  Clinging with ecstatic fervor to his strong, steady arm the entire time.  Gazing up with adoration into smiling eyes so dark a brown they appeared black – eyes that had been suspiciously moist that day as she’d slid a ring on his finger uttering devout promises in a voice bursting with happiness. 

I will love and honor you,
Anastasio Andreas Karas from this day forward. Forever. 

Forever had
lasted exactly two years, two weeks, five hours and thirty minutes. 

Oh, Go
d, he’s probably apoplectic with anger! 
Valentina’s full-body shudder had little to do with the fact she was half-naked in the large draughty studio.  Stash, she knew, was undoubtedly beside himself with fury.  Discovering what she’d managed to keep from him for three months.
Twelve months. 
One entire year if you counted the long nine months of her pregnancy – as Stash undoubtedly would.  Then to just
leave
their daughter for him to discover at his office.  With no explanation – not even a note.  It was indefensible. Unbearably cruel. 

B
ut there was nothing else I could do. 

V
alentina bit down hard on a just glossed lip, her furrowed brow revealing she’d not succumbed to any expression-altering concoctions like so many of her model brethren. 

‘
Hey, stop biting your lip, Val,’ Kandi scolded before sighing; ‘now I’ll have to do them all over again.’  

As Kandi reapplied the
crimson-hued gloss with painstaking careful strokes of a sable lip brush over a pair of lush, full lips, Valentina was miles away.  Recalling the pained indecision she’d felt upon learning Stash was coming in late to the office that day.  It was a most unusual occurrence.  You could usually set your watch by the man.  She remembered well his impatient toe tapping while waiting for her, outrageously attractive in his formal eveningwear – tall, dark,
Greek godlike.
Leaning with an indolent grace against the open door of the master bathroom.

Just another five minutes, Stash
.

She’d beg for more time, her
gaze bumping into his in the mirror as she applied her lipstick and mascara getting ready for a night out to a gala or formal event in the bustling city of Chicago that came alive once the sun set over Lake Michigan.  Feeling excitement and a sensual exhilaration stirred up by the admiration and...
lust
... for his wife she saw in the heart-melting dark eyes chasing after hers in the reflection. 

Come on
, Val – the invite said eight o’clock sharp.  You look beautiful, now let’s go, or in another minute I’m gonna hustle you back into the bedroom and we ain’t going nowhere!

On m
ore than a couple of nights that’s exactly what had occurred.  They’d ended up eating pizza they’d had delivered later instead, with her wearing just his unbuttoned tuxedo shirt in the sex-romped bed as a reclining, bare-chested Stash, with black bowtie still in place around his neck, poured fizzing warm cola instead of bubbly champagne into her crystal flute. 

And
those had ending up being some of our best nights together.

But
this morning of all mornings, Stash had been late to the office.  Delayed by a problem on a work site.  Forcing her to make the agonizing decision to leave the stroller with her daughter inside with the very capable, efficient, Evelyn.  Who’d sometimes seemed to fill the role of a surrogate second mother to her much younger boss.  Valentina had felt Evelyn’s reproachful look – magnified ten-fold by her bi-focaled lenses – following after her all the way down the hallway as she’d flown out the door of Stash’s office to the elevator. 

L
eaving my sweet baby behind.  

Bu
t she’d gone there with every good intention of talking to Stash alone first.  Valentina rationalized her defense in her head as though preparing to face a condemning judge.  Gone with the hopes of explaining to him each and every one of the very tough decisions she’d made over the last twelve months.  But when he’d not been there, she knew she couldn’t miss the photo shoot and take the chance of someone else being called in to replace her. 

I
need this job
; Valentina fretted, just stopping herself from biting off the freshly applied gloss.  Needed the hefty paycheck this modeling gig would provide.  Desperately!  If Stash refused to help, if he callously ignored her pleas, it was the only way she could possibly hope to pay for –

‘
Val, for
crissakes,
would ya stop with the frowning – I know it’s been awhile since you’ve done a photo shoot, but you’re acting like you just got off the bus from Hoboken yesterday. 
Smile
and show me those pearly whites!’

‘
Sorry, Lars,’ Valentina apologized to the mega-talented photographer who’d taken the photos at her very first modeling job ten years ago, ‘just tell me what you need from me and you’ve got it.’ 

S
ummoning all her poise, exhibiting the versatility – and a lingering hint of the smoldering vulnerability she’d been known for when she’d first arrived on the scene, that had made her a favorite of photographers and designers alike, she forced her mind clear of all troubled thoughts. Made her face a blank canvas with whatever emotion requested painted upon it. 
That
part of modeling had always come to her easily.  Hadn’t she’d learned to do the same thing in her personal life at a painfully early age?

‘
Beautiful, doll – now that’s more like it.  That’s the smile that’ll sell a million swimsuits,’ he applauded, his camera beginning to click like a demented grasshopper, snapping photo after photo. 

‘
I hope so, Lars.’

‘
No doubt about it!  I’m glad we managed to track you down in L.A., Val,’ Lars muttered from behind the lens, ‘– you seemed to almost fall off the map when you left Chicago a year ago,’ his native-bred, nasally intonation making it sound like
Chi-caaah-go.  ‘
But you’re absolutely perfect for this shoot.  Pre-Raphaelite angel with a little
Jenny from the Block
mixed in!  Now wet those kewpie-doll lips, widen those bottle-glass green eyes of yours – shake that glorious mane of titian hair and show me the look of raw, undiluted lust you were famous for. Grab onto Mario’s ass if that’ll help get you into the Valentine’s Day mood.’

Th
e spray-tanned hunk in a zebra-striped Speedo she was leaning against in an air of languorous, post-coital lethargy, smiled widely as she gingerly placed a hand on one of his freakishly over-muscled, oiled-up thighs.  ‘Sorry, Mario –’ Valentina whispered an apology, ‘nothing personal.’

‘
Ees
all right,’ Mario whispered back in a thick Italian accent, having only recently come to America hoping to find fortune and fame through his sculpted face and body, ‘my boyfriend – he will not mind as long as you leave no
feenger-
prints,
sì.
’

They shared a muffled laugh
and both being true professionals, kept their carefully arranged poses until they broke them a moment later, heads craning over their shoulders.  Startled by the sudden commotion they could hear taking place at the studio door.

Lars
twisted too, nearly falling off the ladder he was perched atop set up among a tangle of simulated swinging jungle vines.  ‘Dammit, that racket completely blew my money shot.  What the heck is going on out there, Kandi?’

‘
There’s a...
man...
here – he’s demanding to come in!’ The stylist gulped an explanation, trying to hold the bucking black metal door shut with just her twiggy body.  ‘He said he’s here for V–’ Before Kandi could finish her sentence she was knocked off balance, the door swinging wide and the man himself appearing – all six-foot-three of him, his sculpted upper frame filling up the entire top portion of the doorway. 

W
hich seems somehow appropriate, Valentina’s thoughts went every which way at once. 
He is a native son, after all, of what’s known as the ‘City of Big Shoulders’.

‘
Ah, for the love of –’ Lars’s sigh held deep exasperation.  He lowered his camera seeming resigned to taking care of the problem himself. ‘Look, stud, the auditions for male models for our ‘Hunk of the Month’ calendar shoot don’t start until this afternoon.  Now we’re in the middle of a very important photo layout here for a major clothes designer that you’re interrupting.  Either leave your portfolio with Kandi, or come back later today at two...’

Valentina saw how the mistake might
have easily been made as her husband was, in a word – ‘gorgeous’. 

Definitely male model material.
 

Her h
eart jerked, having not seen him in a year; one sweeping glance from his gleaming dark head to his polished shoes, confirming her recollections of his magnificence had all been correct and not overly embellished by their lengthy separation.  If anything, he was bigger, brighter – shone more brilliantly, eclipsing all men around him to unnecessary colorless stick figures.  He wore a charcoal-grey suit on his ruggedly lithe body and he wore it well. 

Brioni
.

M
ade of a rare vicuna fiber.  Ten hours of hand sewing and over forty stages of ironing by the exclusive Italian clothier whose custom-made suits could equal the cost a luxury car.  Valentina knew all this detailed information having splurged and ordered that particular suit for her husband’s thirtieth birthday two years ago.  

T
he olive-toned skin beneath the Brioni was just as burnished in arresting contrast against a dazzlingly white dress shirt, as she recalled.  The chiseled symmetry of his face was all hard male perfection.  Just as she’d so often dreamt it during 365 long barren nights.  Framed by hair cut ruthlessly short, she knew, to thwart the glossy dark curls that were his heritage.  The distinctly masculine, well-shaped brows above his eyes still provided her a true barometer of his emotions – lowered now, as they were, in a menacing glower.  And that mouth.

O
h, that mouth!

A
shimmering miasma of just what that superbly molded mouth was capable of, ensnared Valentina in a fast-moving wildfire of incandescent heat.  That mouth her entire body had once genuflected before, had wanted to shout about from the rooftops, could take on a devastating sensual curve when he was happy or...
aroused
…but it was neither now, instead maintaining a tight clenched line of furious anger.   That mouth she had once revered opened.