Page 146 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

‘And then there was another picture when I was five. Another when I was thirteen where I’m looking at him with disgust. And he disgusts me still. Not because he wasn’t there for me. He wasn’t there forher. Because every time he left, he promised he’d be back for good next time. But he couldn’t be the man my mother deserved.’

Tears of rage clouded her vision but she wiped them away.

‘He didn’t deserve her. Her kindness. Her patience. Her devotion. He broke her heart and killed her with his lies.’

She turned and finally met the gaze she’d been avoiding. But there was no trace in his eyes of the pity she feared. But not empathy either. Just his steady gaze on hers. And his hand remained where it had the entirety of her story. On hers. Unmoving. Justthere.

‘That’s why, on the plane, I was soangry. Angry that you’d left what was meant to be our house. In that moment, I was her—I was my mother.’

Her heart was beating so fast. So hard. And she felt vulnerable.Exposed.

‘I swore I’d never be her. Never devote myself to any man. But I married you. And I... I need to understand it. I need to know who you are and that you’re not him. Not like my father. That I have not betrayed myself and everything I stand for.That’s why I stopped you,’ she admitted rawly. ‘Because it was too intense. Too blinding. Too frantic. Our marriage, it seems the antithesis to all that I am.’

She pulled her hand from beneath his and turned her body to face him. She’d never told anyone about her parents, and how their relationship had changed her forever.

She’d thought it would feel weak to have told him everything, but it didn’t. It felt like she’d taken her power back, after amnesia had taken everything from her. She was choosing to share these memories with him.

‘So help me to make sense of our marriage, Dante,’ she said. Shoulders back, head raised, she continued, ‘Talk to me. Tell me who you are,’ she breathed heavily. ‘Tell me why you hate your dad too.’

Dante gave a slight shake of his head.

For two days, he’d stayed in his company’s Tokyo headquarters, avoiding this conversation. Talking wasn’t how he had imagined he was going to persuade Emma back into his bed. And so he’d plotted how he’d exploit this talking she wanted to his advantage. And he’d planned to exhilarate her senses and distract her with worldly things. Sights and sounds that would make her dizzy.

He saw no advantage here. Only emotion and feelings. Feelings that he didn’t want to examine, either hers or his own. He did not want to examine the faults of their fathers and find common ground.

They didn’t need any here.

Only in bed.

And yet, it was clear that Emma would not be appeased by what he had been willing to offer. So he must adapt, change tack, offer...something.

‘My life was not hard, Emma,’ he said dismissively. ‘I never worried about my parents’ relationship. They didn’t have one. I didn’t worry about the bills or the fridge. I did not work before my tutelage. I never worried who would take care of who. My father employed a triage of nannies to care for me while he conquered the world.’

And women, he added silently.

‘Your dad left you alone too?’ she summarised without his permission. ‘Left others to care for you while he cared only for himself?’

‘It was not like that,’ he said, but even as he did, he knew it was a lie. ‘When I was of age, I conquered the world myself, and with him, guided by his ethos for life.’

‘Isn’t that what I’m doing—what Ididbefore you?’ She screwed up her nose. ‘I let my father’sethosfor life determine my every relationship. I didn’t have relationships because I didn’t want to be...’

‘Abandoned?’

And it hit him now; the very thing she didn’t want to happen to herself, she had done to him. Done to him what his mother had too. His father was different; he had never abandoned Dante, never made any promises.

He was your father; he shouldn’t have had to. He should have just been there.

‘Yes,’ she admitted, jolting him back to the present. The spaghetti strap of her dress fell over her bare shoulder. He swallowed as her fingers grazed along her skin to pull it back into place.

‘He never considered how him coming in and out of our lives affected us. It sounds as if your dad did the same,’ she concluded, and his lips thinned into a firm line when she didn’t stop. ‘He gave you up to nannies until he could benefit from your company. He only showed up when it was of some benefit tohim.’

She didn’t understand his life.

She didn’t understand him.

‘It is not the same,’ he rejected.

‘Isn’t it?’ she asked, her blue eyes seeking and finding his. Something heavy shifted inside him.

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