Page 129 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

It didn’t feel...wrong.It felt as if it had always been there.

Her thoughts spiralled. Why would the doctor call for a psychiatrist when her wounds were physical? Why wouldn’t they call her mum? Why did the nurse, the doctor, the registrar all look at her with pity when she’d explained she was twenty-two and living at home with her mum?

Because she didn’t live with her mum anymore? Her mum was gone, and...she lived with him?

Who was the prime minister? What day was it? Was it Thursday as she thought it was? Was her mum reading in the library? Was she Emma Powell? Or was she someone else? Someone’s wife?Hiswife?

Vulnerability threatened to close her windpipe.

But before it did, a warmth spread up her cheeks. This man, Dante Cappetta, was cradling her face. His hands were strong, and it made her feel...safe.

She couldn’t explain it. The touch was so intimate. They were strangers in every sense in her mind. But her face feltrightcradled in his palms, like it belonged there. And she didn’t want him to let go, despite her logical mind knowing he shouldn’t be touching her this way.

‘You will come with me,’ he said, his eyes shimmering with confidence that she’d go with him and let him take charge. ‘You will see a doctor,’ he continued, ‘and be diagnosed with a plan of treatment within the next few hours.’

‘I’m already in a hospital,’ she reminded him.

His hands moved, releasing her face. His fingertips slid down her cheeks so softly, sogently.

Dante claimed her chin firmly between his thumb and forefinger. His eyes dark with determined decision, he proclaimed, ‘We are leaving. Together.Now. This is the only choice. I will help you remember, Emma,’ he promised.

‘What if I don’twantto remember you?’ she asked, because someone—something—was lying to her, and if it wasn’t him, if it wasn’t her body, it was her mind, wasn’t it? And the mind did things to protect the body. The soul. The...heart.

‘What if my mind has blanked you out on purpose?’ she asked. ‘To protect me fromyou?’

‘I am no threat to you, Emma,’ he said roughly. ‘We are married. I am your husband. Your protector. Trust me to protect you now.’

Marriage. Husband. Protector.

Those words did something inside her. Something she didn’t want to recognise.

Physically, she was safe. He was no physical threat. She just knew.

He’d walked in here with no overt displays of emotion. He’d found out the facts and taken charge. Her mind didn’t understand it. But her body...itlikedit.

Everything felt uncertain. But his hands hadn’t. They were steady. In control.

Realisation settled on her shoulders, in her chest. She would go with him.

‘Okay,’ she said, because right now he was her anchor to the truth.

In his world, she was his wife. And a part of her wanted to know whatthatlife looked like.

‘I’ll come with you.’

CHAPTER THREE

ITWASALLTRUE.

Her mother was dead.

The grief was beginning to hit her.

She understood she’d lived through it already, even though she couldn’t remember it, but it washed over her in waves.

It was a pain, an ache, an unfulfilled need all tied together in loops of barbed wire. And they sat in her ribcage now, all three side by side.

Her mother had been so young, with so much life left to live, and Emma didn’t understand how a woman who had survived everything life could throw at her was gone.

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