Page 95 of Modern Romance Collection May 2024 Books 1-4

He stepped closer, both hands still wrapped around hers. Her breath caught in her chest as she tilted her chin up to look at him.

“You wanted to figure out what you wanted from your life.” He nodded toward the swing. “Seems like a simple step. Does Esmerelda Clark like to swing or not? Find out.”

When he phrased it like that, it did seem extraordinarily simple. She stepped back, missing the touch of his hands even as she hated that she missed it. She turned away and slipped onto the swing. The wood was warm from the sun. The ropes were made of thick twine, scratchy against her palms. She dug her toes into the sand and prepared to push off.

The swing gave a tug. Startled, she looked up to see Julius’s hands wrapped around the ropes.

“Hold on.”

His words whispered over her. He pulled back, then let go. A moment later she flew out over the water, blue beneath her and above. Startled by the sensation of flying, of weightlessness as she reached the pinnacle, she threw back her head and laughed.

She didn’t how long Julius pushed her on the swing. Probably only a minute or two, but it felt like one of those blissful moments in time that stretched forever, where the rest of the world faded away and left nothing but contented pleasure.

She glanced back over her shoulder with a grin. And nearly fell off as Julius suddenly stopped the swing.

“What—”

He circled around, his hands still on the ropes, caging her between his body and the swing. The morning heat changed, crackling with sensual tension as she looked up at him. The whiskey brown had turned almost golden as he gazed down at her.

“You’ve smiled at me like that before.”

Her throat constricted.

“What?”

“You smiled at me like that before,” he repeated. His eyes took on a faraway look as his mind tried to grasp the past. “In... Paris. We were in Paris. There was a café and flowers. I said something to you, and you laughed and smiled at me.”

“Okay.”

She tried to stand up, but he held his ground. She sat back down, unwilling to put her body against his, not with this electricity humming between them.

“I don’t know if you realize this, but people do smile and laugh at each other. Even princes and their bodyguards.”

“This was different,” he insisted. He leaned down until she could see the dark flecks in his eyes, could smell the rich scent of cedar rolling off his skin. “I saw it in your eyes. You felt something for me. Tell me what it was, Esme.”

Her fingers tightened around the ropes. She couldn’t lie. She had already stretched and twisted the truth enough, justified her insistence that they were not lovers. But what could she say now? This Julius, the softer, protective, yet no less commanding man who had emerged from whatever atrocity had occurred in London, could entice her back into his arms. Into his bed. He would insist the few idealistic memories he had of her meant they were to be together. And damn it, with how raw her still hurting heart was, she didn’t know if she would have the strength to resist.

Only for him to go back to Rodina and assume his responsibilities. To marry another woman, to have children with her.

Or worse...for him to remember. To remember and look at her once more like she was nothing more than a woman he had had one night with and no more.

“I don’t think your memories can be considered reliable given what’s happened, sir.”

The words had their intended effect, as did her formal address. He released the ropes and stepped back. She surged to her feet and hurried up the beach toward the path, not caring if she looked guilty or not.

“Esmerelda.”

Oh, how she wanted to keep running. But wasn’t that what she had been doing for over a month? Running away, running toward something, even if she didn’t know what that something was?

She forced herself to stop, to turn and face him. He stood on the beach, shoulders thrown back, the wind ruffling his hair. Even from this distance, she could see the regality on his chiseled features, feel his confusion and anger.

“I will find out the truth,” he shouted, his face hard and unyielding. “That’s a promise.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

JULIUSAWOKEWITHthe memory of funeral music pulsing through his veins, as if he’d been hollowed out by grief. The image of a woman with hair as blond as his, her kind face covered in makeup to make her look in death as she had in life, was seared into his brain.

Throwing back the covers, he stood and strode to the glass doors overlooking the ocean. His chest rose and fell as he tried to get a handle on his racing heart, his erratic breathing. Hard to do when the grief he’d felt at his mother’s funeral over twenty years ago flooded him as fresh as if he’d watched her coffin lowered into the ground yesterday.

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