Page 91 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

Jolie didn’t.

And it was something perilous and precious indeed to be in Apostolis’s arms, then. To have this music to move them, but to be aware of very little else but that look on his face, the heat in his gaze, and the way they fit together so perfectly.

She was not exactly surprised to discover that he was an excellent dancer. She supposed that both of them had been trained for that, one way or another. What surprised her was that it didn’t feel in the least bit awkward.

What it felt like, she almost didn’t dare think to herself, was that if they could just stop talking—stop sniping, stop looking for weaknesses—they might actually be perfect for each other.

There and then, becauseperfectwas too scary to contemplate with a man sworn to destroy her, she decided instead to stop worrying where all this would lead.

It was one night. It was one song.

It was just a dance, that was all.

And though it wasn’t a total surrender, she still felt as if that was what she did, here. She surrendered to the music. She surrendered to the sparkling lights up above her and the stars beyond. She surrendered to the lure of the grand hotel and the sultry invitation of the singer’s music.

She surrendered to the press of the crowd around her and the current of joy and excitement that ran through every one of them, at the same time, when the other singers joined in and brought out their own kind of percussion—on tables, with their hands, whatever worked.

And all the while, she and this man who had already claimed more of her than she’d intended to give away, danced and danced and danced.

It was much later, after a leisurely meal, too many drinks, and several more wild, unpredicted dances around the terrace that even the staff joined in, that Jolie finally left the main hotel building to head for the carriage house.

And she wasn’t alone.

Apostolis was with her, his arm slung over her shoulder as it had been far too much this night. She could feel the weight of him, pressing into her, making her walk at a different pace. Making her feel as if she was a part of all his heat and lean muscle.

They didn’t speak. The night was too hushed all around them. The stars were too close.

He led them over to the door and opened it, then walked her inside without untangling his body from hers.

And then there was that moment. The moment that grew harder and more unwieldy every night. The moment where they had to decide if they would drop their act...or not.

If they would perhaps...let it linger. If there would be a hushed, drawn-out moment—

Usually one of them broke it by starting up the usual hostilities.

But tonight, it didn’t seem to work that way. He didn’t turn the lights on. She didn’t pull away.

They stood there in the shadows of the hall and somehow he had turned her so that she was facing him. They were standing almost as if, at any moment, they might break into a new kind of dance. One that didn’t need any music. One that would simply be...theirs.

They wereso closenow. And they had danced so much tonight that she felt she knew him in a whole different way. Her breath began tohurtas it moved in and out of her body and she was fairly certain that the pulse she felt inside her skin was his. As if hers matched his completely, making a kind of beat all their own now, too.

“Jolie...” he began.

Normally that would be the start of something. A spark that would quickly flare, and then they could both gain some distance with harsh words, with accusations, with thisthingbetween them.

This architecture she was beginning to think was a whole lot of scaffolding disguised to hide a terrible truth. A fragile, impossible swelling of something that was nothing likehateat all.

Or even anything as relatively simple as attraction.

It felt a lot more like hope.

And that was why, before he could puncture it, she said something she’d vowed she never would. Certainly not to him. Because she preferred to let him think whatever he liked. Because that said far more about him than it ever could about her.

“My marriage with your father wasn’t what you think,” she told him.

His breath escaped him in a rush, as if to suggest she might as well have kneed him in the gut. Or lower still.

“This is the conversation you wish to have? Right now?”

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