Page 173 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

‘A safe place?’ She looked at him. His dark hair was neatly combed over to the side; soft and billowy from being newly washed, it teased at his ears. Dark stubble covered his cheeks, his sharply angled jaw. Leading her eyes down his throat to his shoulders, broad and sheathed by a suit jacket that sat on him like a second skin, over the fitted black T-shirt revealing the tautness of his bronze chest.

‘Yes,’ he said.

She lifted her gaze back to his.

She’d found what she thought she’d never wanted.

Safety with a man.

With him.

The organ inside her chest fluttered as wildly as a million bees buzzing towards home. Towards their queen. And it didn’t matter to them. To the bees, where home was, because home was their queen.

Home was right in front of her, wasn’t it?

He was her garden.Hewas her safe place. He was giving her everything she’d always wanted. And things she’d never considered as a way to get them. A relationship. Marriage.

But he was showing her he could provide for her needs. From her simplest need to her most extravagant. The whole world surrounded them. He was offering her the world. He was offeringhisworld. A safe place. Where she would be warm. Cared for. Protected. Wanted. But not loved. Because neither of them wanted that.

‘And maybe this is the reason you left. I kept you on the outside. But I know your face. I know your name. You can come inside, Emma. You can stay. Because in here, and in our house, in our bed, I will give you what you need. Security. A safe place from the hardness. I wanted you to know, for you to understand, when I take you to bed, when I possess your body, I can give you what it is you need. To know that I can provide it by giving you everything you don’t have.’

Suddenly, Emma was slammed with the last five years of her life.

Her spoon clanked into the empty bowl.

Emma remembered everything. The breakdown of her marriage. Her reasons for staying. Her reasons for leaving.

She knew why she’d left.She remembered.

She stood. The chair screeched backwards. She’d left, abandoned their marriage, the contract they’d agreed to, because shehadstarted to get emotionally invested in their marriage. She had wanted more than either of them had agreed to give one another. She had wanted this man she’d sworn never to need. Never to—

‘What is it?’ Dark and intense, his eyes probed hers. ‘What’s wrong?’

Emma closed her eyes. She needed a minute, a moment, to collect herself. Because she was hurting.

Her chest, her heart, ached.

She heard the slide of his chair. His footfall coming towards her. Firm fingers claimed her chin. She opened her eyes. Met his. Dark and probing.

‘What is it?’ he demanded roughly.

‘I don’t feel well.’ Her core trembled in deep, rhythmic spasms. ‘I’d like to go back to the hotel. I’d like to...’

She didn’t know.

She’d got emotionally attached.

She’d broken the rules.

But he didn’t know that.

To him, she’d just left. She’d abandoned him. Like his mother. His father. She’d left him alone, without a safe place, without explanation.

And still he’d come for her.

Still, he was here.

And he was wrong; shewasa risk. It wasn’t safe for him in this place with her. She wanted all the things he’d locked outside. And she’d brought them inside with her.

---