Page 74 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 1-4

This moment, too, was perfect, and she didn’t want to move. Yet then she felt him shift his grip on her, lowering her to the floor, cold air moving over her heated skin as he pulled away. His hands gently pulled her robe closed, wrapping her up, and it hit her suddenly that he was preparing to leave.

Nell didn’t think. Operating entirely on instinct, she reached out and grabbed his hand, holding on. ‘Don’t go,’ she said and if it came out sounding a little more desperate than she wanted it to, she didn’t care.

He went still, his gaze full of storm clouds. ‘I’m not. I have to stay with you for twenty-four hours, remember?’

‘That’s not what I meant.’ She took a little breath. ‘I meant stay with me.’

His beautiful face was unreadable, yet there was lightning in his eyes as he looked at her. ‘There can be nothing more than this, Nell,’ he said after a long moment. ‘Only a night. We can never see each other again after that, understood?’

There was a second where she wanted to know why, but then dismissed the thought. It didn’t matter why. The only thing that mattered was that he was here and he wanted her, and that once wasn’t enough for either of them.

‘Understood,’ she said hoarsely.

The quality of his attention changed then, sharpening, focusing on her, studying her as if she was a complex problem he was desperate to solve. ‘How are you feeling?’

She felt something inside her release then, in a silent exhale. ‘Pretty good. Though... I could always feel better.’

His gaze became pure silver. ‘The doctor is gone, but perhaps you need my help?’

‘I do,’ she agreed, her heartbeat already ramping up.

His fingers tightened around hers. ‘Then come here, woman. Show me where it hurts and I’ll kiss it better.’

CHAPTER FOUR

THEELEVATORDOORSopened and Aristophanes stepped inside. He’d just finished up a meeting in his New York office in downtown Manhattan, and, according to his schedule, he had half an hour to get uptown to meet Claire, an astrophysicist who’d been working with CERN, and whom he’d been trying to match schedules with for the past week.

Or at least, his secretaries had been trying to match schedules. This was their third attempt to find an evening that suited both him and Claire, and, if this fell through, Aristophanes was thinking he might not bother at all. They’d met at a fundraiser and she’d been interesting, and there had been enough chemistry between them that he’d told her that if she’d wanted a liaison, he’d be happy to oblige. She had and so his secretarial team had swung into action.

Yet he was feeling restless and off kilter, and strangely enervated at the thought of sex with Claire. Almost as if he didn’t want her, which would be the fourth time this month that he hadn’t wanted a woman. It had been the same the month before that too.

If he really thought about it, he’d felt the same since he’d had that one night in Melbourne three months earlier, with the perfect little preschool teacher.

He didn’t like to think about that night. He didn’t like to think about what they’d done in her small bedroom in her small, cluttered flat. They hadn’t talked. They hadn’t had any kind of conversation at all; they’d let their bodies talk instead, their conversation wild and passionate, without boundaries or limits. They’d done everything and anything, and, for once in his life, his brain had gone quiet and still. Silenced by raw hunger and need.

He’d left her fast asleep the next morning, organising his doctor to give her a final check-up. Then he’d pushed her to the back of his mind as far as she would go. As far away from his consciousness as possible.

He’d been busy these past few months, flying between his offices in various countries, never staying too long anywhere, which was his preference. He’d paid a visit to Cesare Donati, a good friend—possibly his only friend—whom he’d known for years, and who was the owner of one of Italy’s largest private banks. Cesare had recently married a lovely Englishwoman called Lark, and had spent Aristophanes’ visit proudly showing off his little daughter, Maya, whom Aristophanes, who’d never had anything to do with children, found rather more interesting than he’d expected. The little girl had even lifted her arms to him, wanting to be picked up, so he had, then had felt oddly at a loss as to what to do next.

Maya had looked at him with big blue eyes, babbling on about something, and he, who knew many different languages and a lot of them fluently, hadn’t understood a word. He’d found himself staring at her in stunned silence, a nagging sensation in his chest that didn’t make any sense. The child was a mystery, and he loved a good mystery, a good, complicated puzzle, yet there was another part of him that wanted to put her down and get as far away from her as he could.

Having children of his own had never occurred to him and if he’d ever thought deeply about it, he would have said he didn’t want them. Children could not operate on his schedule, for a start, and he didn’t have enough time for them even if they could. They demanded too much, and he was a man who demanded of others. He did not meettheirdemands.

Still, he couldn’t deny that having Maya and Lark had changed Cesare’s life and for the better. His friend had found happiness, it was clear, and Aristophanes was pleased for him.

But family life was not and could not be for him.

He was a man of the mind, of the intellect, and it was cerebral topics that interested him, not home and hearth.

Aristophanes hit the button for the first floor and the elevator moved smoothly into life, descending through the sleek steel and glass skyscraper that housed the New York office of Katsaros International, and down into the vast, glass-ceilinged hall that was the foyer.

As Aristophanes stepped out, a gentle commotion at the imposing front desk caught his attention. A woman was standing on her tiptoes, her hands on the edges of the desk as she tried to make herself taller, leaning into it and saying something urgently to Karina, who managed the front desk.

A small woman. Wearing a voluminous black coat against the early spring New York weather, the shoulders of which were wet with rain. As was her auburn hair, hanging down her back in a thick braid.

Karina was shaking her head with emphasis, then she glanced over to the security guards near the entrance and gestured to them.

Aristophanes should have continued on. He should have walked right past the little woman making a fuss at his front desk. Many people wanted entrance to his building and many people were turned away. Certainly, if it was him they wanted to see then they were out of luck. His schedule was full for the next month.

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