Page 79 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

Maybe she didn’t know how she wanted to feel about any of this.

Take Dioni, who had gotten strange over the past few weeks. Jolie had wondered if it was a reaction to her friend marrying her brother. If Dioni hadn’t minded when Jolie was married to herfather, but Apostolis, who Dioni had always looked up to, was something else no matter that she’d initially celebrated it. Because Dioni hadn’t felt that Jolie marrying Spyros was really anything but a bit of a personal tragedy for her friend, but great news forher,because she got to have her best friend around all the time.

But Dioni was not a liar, and she had nothing but positive things to say about Jolie’s marriage.

Maybe,she had whispered fiercely on the tarmac,my brother and you will find what you need in each other.

And she had sounded so hopeful. Jolie hadn’t had the heart to tell her that Apostolis had never been even remotely heroic—not to Jolie.

That was something he saved for his sister.

In the car ride back, she’d had to face the fact that Dioni, for the first time in as long as Jolie had known her, was keeping secrets. Like why she suddenly wanted to move halfway across the planet, alone, when she’d never indicated the slightest interest in such adventurousness before.

She should have been proud. She had always told her friend that she needed to go out there andclaim her life.

Jolie should have specified that she hadn’t meant that Dioni should do that while leavingherbehind, neck-deep in another round of herchoices.

She was going to miss her best friend terribly.

She already did.

It made her tell the blasted man things she shouldn’t. He made her forget herself, and that was unforgivable.

She blew out a breath, there in the hall. Calm was what was needed, not more storming about lighting fires. After all, she’d already done seven years in this lovely prison. What were five more? There was no need for more fire, thank you.

Jolie chanted that to herself as she opened the larger door at the end of the hall and all her breath deserted her in a rush.

Because this was clearly the master bedroom.Hisbedroom.

She drifted in, feeling jumpy. As if she expected to trip an alarm, when that was silly. She knew where all the security measures were in this house and all the other buildings on hotel property.

But her gaze was drawn immediately to the bedside tables, where some member of staff had carefully stacked the things she’d had on a similar table in her room in the other house. Just so.

It made tears prick at the backs of her eyes, and a lump fill her throat.

It wasnot good,she told herself.

She whirled around, seeing a succession of spaces that were clearly meant to mimic the flow below. But she found her way into a massive dressing room, where she saw all of her clothes. Justhangingthere, suggesting an intimacy with all ofhisclothes.

As if their clothes were more married than they were.

Jolie had to put her hand out to the nearest wall to steady herself. From the surge offurythat swept over her. Because this was clearly a moment oftemper,she assured herself, as her body...reacted.

And then kept reacting.

She dashed a hand over her eyes. Did he truly believe that he could simply...move her things in and that would be that? That he could simplydecidethat it was time to commence a relationship that involvedsharing a bedwhen they’d never agreed to anything of the kind?

When they’d never discussed it at all?

Jolie refused.

And she was certain that that rushing sensation in her body and the way it all pulled down low into her belly—almost uncomfortably hot, likefuryorflu—was confirmation that he was out of his mind.

But she made herself take a long, steadying breath. She pushed away from the wall and went into the attached bathroom suite, so she could check her face and make sure she looked nothing but effortless.

Because he wasn’t the only one who could play mind games.

After a quick stop at the hotel’s front desk, she drifted out onto the terrace where the family that had been staying with them for weeks now was already gathered. The adults were enjoying their drinks and talking in low, happy voices as they looked out at the sea far below, waiting for another one of the predictably spectacular Mediterranean sunsets.

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