Ch. 5

Dante lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. He said the words aloud to get used to them, to hear how they sounded on his tongue. "My wife has left me. I'm sure she'll want a divorce. I'm going to be a divorced man, a statistic. Despite my best efforts, my son is going to grow up in a broken home. I slept with my wife's cousin, and she is not going to forgive me for it. I trashed my life, my wife's life, my son's life. Ah-mazing. And what about Valerie? What do I do about these feelings I have for her?" He paused for a second, and then shook his head. "Well, Ceiling? What do you have to say? No smart remarks but no answers either, huh, not even pithy ones? Fat load of help you are. Thanks a lot."

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Later that afternoon in Jordan's office, Valerie was sitting across the desk from her boss, watching as she shook her head. "Girl, what did you think would happen? I'm not going to tell you 'I told you so,' 'cause I know that's the last thing you need to hear right now, but realistically? How did you see all this falling out?"

Valerie blinked back tears as she answered, "Not like this. We didn't intend for her to find out, remember? I'll never forget the look on her face as long as I live. Like someone had sucked her soul right out of her. I didn't mean for any of this to happen! Under different circumstances, I wouldn't have hurt my cousin for the world! Which means nothing now, I know. I have no clue where to go from here."

Jordan handed her a tissue, which she used to wipe her eyes. "Good question. Where do you go from here? Literally. Where are you staying?"

Valerie gave a short laugh before replying, "I stayed at the Metro Court last night, but that can't last forever. Carly's been great, but she needs to be seen as impartial right now. I don't want to ruin her relationship with Lulu on top of everything else. I can't live above Kelly's for the same reason. My Aunt Bobbie's, LULU'S Aunt Bobbie's place. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but something will turn up. It always does. I'm sorry to be bending your ear with all this, Commish, but I didn't know who else to talk to, since you already know everything, anyway."

"It's cool, I don't mind, and if I can help, so much the better. I know how it is. My sounding board is out of town, which is why I bent your ear about my son and Sonny Corinthos, so I get it. Sometimes you need to just blow off steam, get things off your chest. Let me know how things turn out. If worst comes to worst and you've got nowhere else to go, you can always use my couch…"

Dante halted mid-knock on the Commissioner's office door; he paused to listen. His original intention was to bring her up to speed on his current case, but slowly, as he listened, his mission changed. This was one thing he could fix, he thought. "I'm gonna take a 10-7," he told the officer on the duty desk before leaving the station.

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Sonny looked at Dante in growing amazement as he listened to his son's request. Then he slowly shook his head. "I still don't think you're thinkin' clearly, Dante. With all that's goin' on, you come to me with this? I can allow it—that's not the problem. The problem is your wife findin' out about it, and how she's gonna feel about it. You do this, and I don't see any hope for you two goin' forward. That what you want?"

"You told me to take my cues from her, didn't you? I'm pretty sure she'll want a divorce. She won't even talk to me right now. I don't see any fixing this, Sonny. As long as she doesn't try to keep me from Rocco—I'll deal with the rest later. In the meantime, though, Valerie needs a place to stay, now that she's been kicked out of Wyndemere. Well, not 'kicked out'. Politely asked to leave 'for his sister's sake,' more like. You have that huge penthouse standing empty. No one said it has to be forever. Just until a more permanent arrangement can be made."

"Are you part of that 'permanent arrangement'?

"I'm not thinking that far ahead right now, Sonny. I feel so rotten about this whole situation! I heard Lulu tell Valerie to prepare to move out of Wyndemere, but I honestly didn't think about what that really meant. I guess I didn't think Nikolas would ask her to leave; I don't want her worrying about not having a place to stay, either. Not on top of everything else that's happened to her since we all entered her life. Can you help me out, or not?"

"Yeah, sure. Tell her she can move in whenever she's ready. See Max—he knows where the keys are kept."

"Thanks. If you don't mind, I was also hoping to send Max with her to Spoon Island to get the rest of her stuff. I don't think there will be a problem, but she doesn't need to tangle with Lulu again. I want her to be able to get her stuff and get out with minimal drama."

Dante frowned when Sonny gave a little snorting laugh. "What?"

"You're so blind you don't even see it. I don't know what exactly is drivin' your train, but you're into this girl, big time. You might not be ready to admit it to yourself yet, but you are. Otherwise, you wouldn't be goin' through all this trouble for her. Keep telling yourself it's because she needs a break. Eventually, though, you'll be able to tell yourself the truth. Now get out of here and go find Max. I've got work to do."

"Thanks again, Sonny. I really appreciate it. I owe you one."

"Your debts are startin' to rack up, kid. What're you gonna do when I decide to collect?"

"Hope that whatever you want as repayment won't be illegal or cost me my badge, I guess."

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Dante waylaid Valerie as she was walking out of the PCPD doors after work. He asked her, "Where are you headed?" She gave him a blank look and then a bittersweet chuckle. "Actually? I'm not sure. I had a vague idea to go to the park for a while and just sit, to figure out my next move. Then I'm going to try to find a new place to live. As you might have suspected, Lulu's words came true—Nikolas asked me to leave. I don't blame him, though. There's no way she and I could have stayed there at the same time, anyway. So I'm on the apartment hunt. Why do you ask?"

"I need to show you something. Could you come with me?"

"Something like what?"

"Just come with me. To somewhere you'll like, hopefully." Valerie gave him a skeptical look as she shrugged her shoulders and then replied, "Why not? It's not like I have anywhere else I really need to be right now."

They drove a short way through the city before Dante slowed down as they approached the Harbor View Towers. He looked for the private parking garage and after being directed by the guard at the entrance gate, he found Sonny's parking space. "Wow," he suddenly said, a bit unsurely, "I just this minute saw how you might find this overbearing. Not my intention at all." "What do you mean? What are you talking about?" inquired Valerie. He directed her, "Go ahead and get out. I'll show you."

They went up the elevator in silence. Valerie was beginning to get a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach. Why in the world were they here? What could he possibly have done that she might take offense to? In the middle of her racing thoughts, Dante announced, "We're here."

"Where is here?"

"Ok, listen," he responded as he unlocked the door to Sonny's penthouse, "This place is one of Sonny's properties. No one has lived here for a while, but he has someone come in from time to time to keep it up and stuff. You don't have anywhere to go. I asked Sonny if you could stay here for a while. I know it seems like I might have overstepped some boundary or something, but the idea of you being out on the street or worrying about where you were going to live didn't sit well with me. I really hope I'm not offending you by offering you this place—there aren't any strings attached. It's not necessarily a forever deal, but Sonny said you can use it for as long as you need to, ok? I can't say enough that I don't have any ulterior motives for wanting you to stay here. I just needed to know you had a safe place to go since you can't go back to Wyndemere."

She walked over to one of the windows and looked down, gazing on the city below. There was silence in the penthouse while she reached for the right words to express her feelings. Finally, she turned to him and said, "I don't know what to do, or what to make of this. See, when you do things like this, when you 'care' like this, I get confused. I know I shouldn't be. Another kind gesture towards me from a kind, caring man, right? And I'd be a fool to refuse, wouldn't I, and I'm not a fool. This kind of stuff just makes it harder to be near you, though." Valerie turned again to the window and leaned her head against the glass, exhaling deeply. "I don't know what to do," she muttered.

Dante approached her and gently turned her around to face him. "Did I do something wrong, Val? You can tell me. What exactly about this is hard for you to accept?"

"The part where this is just you looking out for a friend. I know that's what you're doing—in my head, I know that. In my heart, though-" She once again turned away from him toward the window.

Dante waited a beat, and then turned her back in his direction once more. "Listen," he began, "Ok." He put his hand on his head as he tried to find the proper way to express his thoughts. "Ok," he started again, "I am a friend looking out for a friend, that's true. I'd be misleading you, though, if I let you think that's all that's going on. But I'm kind of confused, too. A few months ago, I was a happily married man. I know I was. Then I met you and I won't lie, I found you attractive from the beginning. The attraction grew, but I was married, I loved my wife, and I had no intentions of ever acting on the attraction. Initially, I meant to be stepping up where I found Lulu lacking in her relationship with you, and I just wanted you to feel like part of the family. The more time we spent together, though—a bond formed. I think I wanted you to be able to count on me. Maybe we got closer than we should have, even before we slept together. I don't know."

"And now I'm more confused, Dante! What is my take away here? Be clear with me, so I don't get any wrong ideas-"

He pushed her against the window and their eyes met for a moment before he kissed her. The kiss turned passionate quickly because he cupped her head to hold her still as his tongue began tangling with hers. Val let out a deep moan, and Dante drew back. They stared at one another, breathing heavily.

Eventually, when he could speak, Dante told her, "I'm a bad bet right now. I've got to settle this thing with Lulu, work out custody of Rocco. I'm a mess, I'll admit it. But I need you in my life, Valerie. I can't stand the thought of you not being there."

Valerie licked her lips. She could still taste the kiss. "Settle this thing with Lulu? What does that mean?"

"I see us splitting up. I don't see any other way forward. Even though I thought we were happy enough, there were obviously some problems lying below the surface of our relationship. Trust issues on her part, and some deep seated resentments on mine. It really feels like too much damage has been done to try to get what we lost back. Something's broken, something's shattered, and it's not in me to fix it."

She walked over to the dining table next to the window out of which she had been gazing, and she leaned against one of the dining chairs, letting out a sigh and then a soft snort. "You know," she finally said, "this wasn't my plan at all. I came here to get to know my family, see if I could make some connections to help me deal with losing my mother so I wouldn't feel all alone in the world. I didn't want to break up your marriage. Dante, that wasn't my intention at all. I hope you know that."

"Ultimately, this is on me and Lulu. More me, because I'm the one who actually broke my vows, but the lying and distrust on her part didn't help. Maybe our problems came to light more easily because of you, but I don't want you thinking you were the cause. I can't say if it hadn't been this thing with Canada, it wouldn't have been something else. I can't deal with what might have happened, though. I'm dealing with now, and right now, I've got to settle things with my wife."

"Lulu is going to have a fit when she finds out I'm staying here. How do you plan to handle that?"

"So you are taking me up on the offer?"

"Yeah, I am. Thanks. Thank you, Dante." Valerie approached him and hugged him before gently kissing his cheek. "I don't know what's going to happen between us in the future, but it is nice to at least have one worry off my mind."

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