Page 144 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

He rolled his shoulders.

It was a challenge he’d welcome.

And win.

CHAPTER FIVE

EMMASTEPPEDONto the terrace of their hotel suite and embraced the light breeze on her skin.

It had been two days and she could still feel heat clawing at her. It was the only thing she understood about her relationship with Dante. She couldn’t make sense of anything else but that, which was why she’d asked him to stop. Before they’d headed to bed, any bed.

Shinjuku City was spread out before her. She’d seen the lights from the highest floors of every skyscraper that required a cleaner, or a silver service waitress, but she’d never seen...this.She’d been raised in a city, but this was unlike anything she’d ever seen.

This was a city made up of buildings piercing the clouds, a city that kissed a mountain. Any minute now, the sun would move again and settle behind Mount Fuji.

She pressed her open palms to the balcony balustrade.

They hadn’t talked. They’d moved into the penthouse mansion two days ago and she hadn’t set eyes on him since.

She’d drawn the battle lines, and he’d retreated with the excuse of touching base with the board of his company. She understood what he was doing.

His vulnerability on the plane had been raw. As open and present as her own. He missed his wife. But she wasn’t his wife. At least not the one he remembered.Not yet.

And he remembered everything. Their first kiss. Their every touch. Every night spent in their bed together.

But she still had the same questions. Why had she married him in the first place? Why had she left? And her only goal was to figure it out. To figurehimout. To learn, to understand, who she was with him. The only way to do that was to talk without the urgent pressure of his lips. Because, on the plane, she’d felt the adrenaline, and the need to chase it.

It would have been so easy to fall beneath him, and stay there, under the weight of him. Far too easy. But sex didn’t feel like a big enough reason for her to marry him. To tie herself to a man legally. No matter how intoxicating his kisses, or how good he made her feel.

He hadn’t spoken of love. And for that, she was grateful. She didn’t want it. She didn’t want him to love her, and she did not want to love him, did she? But then what didthatmean? What kind of marriage did they have if it wasn’t based on love?

Was their marriage really just based on sex? And if that were true, if that was what twenty-six-year-old Emma had wanted and agreed to, why had she left him when the chemistry between them was so potent?

Had Dante wanted more? Had she walked away from her marriage because she couldn’t give to him the kind of marriage her mother had craved? Did he want a family? Children? Did he still want those things? Was that why he’d come for her? Was that why he hadn’t divorced her? Because he still hoped he could persuade her?

She swallowed. Had she not divorced him because she too hoped that he would change his mind? Or perhaps because she had fallen for him...

She felt his presence before she heard it. A shift in the air, in her.

‘Have you been bored without me, Emma?’

She didn’t turn. Didn’t visibly let her body react, but the deep husk of his voice reached inside her.

The instinct to turn and move towards him was overwhelming. All she wanted was to meet him. To raise her mouth to his in invitation and demand he kiss her again. Kiss her until all she could feel, all she could question, was how to angle her mouth. Until she was breathless with his kisses.

She closed her eyes to steady herself. She couldn’t do any of that, not until she understood why she’d married this man who made her blood run hot, whose kisses left her frantic, who made her feel unaligned with her natural self.

‘How could I be bored with this view?’ She opened her eyes and commanded her gaze to stay forward, on the glints of orange disappearing into the shadow of the night.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he agreed, and in her peripheral vision, she saw his hands slide onto the balustrade next to hers.

‘If you listen carefully,’ he said, ‘you will hear the ring.’

‘The ring?’

‘The bell of a setting sun.’

She listened. Watched as day turned to night. Heard the bell as the sun disappeared into darkness behind the mountain.

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