Page 174 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

‘I’m sorry,’ she breathed, because she was. Sorry for breaking the rules. Sorry for needing him. For wanting him in ways they’d never agreed to. Sorry for wanting what he didn’t want. Sorry for letting him lock the doors behind her, for letting him learn her name, her face, when she was the danger. She was everything he didn’t want. And he’d let her in. He’d—

Dante released her chin. ‘You are exhausted, Emma.’ He shook his head. ‘I should have let you sleep.’

He picked her up and held her against him. And she let him carry her back the way they’d come. She closed her eyes. Pushed her face into the crook of his neck.

She wouldn’t let the tears fall.

She wouldn’t cry.

But she knew when they left this place, there was no going back now for either of them.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

DANTECLIPPEDEMMA’Sseat belt and told the driver to take them back to the Cappetta Continental.

She collapsed against the seat and watched out of the window. Everything looked different. Felt different. The sleeping streets were too grey, too dim. The city lights, the busy billboards of flashing images, nonsensical.

Emma hadn’t only betrayed herself. She’d betrayed Dante. And now she understood just how deeply.

She’d run away, abandoned him, without explanation. She’d left him alone in a house with nothing but empty noise. With faces of people who didn’t care, who would walk out of his life without a backward glance. Staff who were there to meet his every need, but who didn’t know his face. They didn’t know his name. They did not know him.

Emma knew him.

Her stomach hurt. She wanted to sob at the emptiness she hadn’t recognised before. This emptiness that had only ever been absent when he’d been with her. Inside her. Filled the hollow where he’d branded her. Ruined her.

And she was ruined, wasn’t she?

She’d ruined everything because she’d caught feelings. So why then did she not feel ruined? Why was she warm? Why was she—

She was a fool.

The car stopped outside the hotel, ablaze in pink light. Dante stepped out of his side and opened her door. She looked up, met the questioning dark brown of his eyes, and she understood her time was up. She had to tell him her memory had returned. She knew why she’d left.

‘Shall I carry you?’

She shook her head. How could she let him carry her, hold her, when she was the enemy? When she was everything he didn’t want? He never should have taken her to his place. He never should have let her in.

‘No.’ She swallowed it down. The lump in her throat felt as though it was blocking her airway, making it difficult to breathe. She had no choice. She was going to have to reveal herself. Expose her crimes. And then it would be over.

Theywould be over.

‘Come.’ He offered her his hand. Long, thick bronze fingers reaching for her. How many times had he claimed her hand? Held it? Comforted her when she did not deserve it? She did not deserve him. His softness. His trust. She was not his safe place. She was not his garden. And he could no longer be hers.

Emma reached out her hand to him, and he claimed it. Supported her as she stepped out of the car, and together they walked into the hotel, to the lift. And she saw none of the hotel lobby. Only him. Only his hand. The strength of it closing around hers and keeping her steady.

But she was not steady. Inside, she trembled. Inside, she knew, after tonight, after she told him the truth, he’d never hold her hand again.

The steel doors closed, sealing them inside.

Her throat ached. She swallowed repeatedly, trying to soothe it. To prepare it for the story she knew she must tell. But she wasn’t prepared. She wasn’t ready.

How different her body felt from the last time they’d been in here together just a few hours earlier. It wasn’t anticipation flooding through her in waves as it had been before. It was a heaviness. A breathless dread. She was rigid, sweating beneath her coat.

Higher and higher the lift climbed until the ping of arrival boomed into the air between them.

Hand in hand, side by side, they moved through the open doors—

‘Dante,’ she said, and he stopped. Turned. And it was acute. The realisation. The piercing pain in her chest. These would be their last moments together.

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