Page 56 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 1-4

His gaze narrowed on her. ‘Is that what you did that day?’

Sadie’s gut churned. ‘Yes.’ And then, before the past could reach out its tentacles to poison the present even more, she asked, ‘Is there no chance at all of us trying...to be a family?’

An expression somewhere between anger and pain flashed across Quin’s face. ‘I grieved for you, Sadie,’ he said roughly. ‘I’ve never grieved for anyone in my life—not even my own mother. But I grieved for you. And I won’t ever risk that kind of hurt or loss again.’

Sadie’s heart ached. ‘I love you, Quin, and I never want you to be hurt again. I never wanted to hurt you in the first place. You gave me the only sense of belonging and home that I’ve ever had.Youare my home. You are my world. You are everything that I love and adore, and I will never, ever leave you and Sol again if you give me a chance.’

Sadie stopped talking. She was raw.

Quin just looked at her, and she could see the pain in his eyes. The pain she had put there. The pain she feared was insurmountable.

And he confirmed it when he shook his head. ‘No, I can’t do it, Sadie.’

She couldn’t breathe. And then, in the distance, she heard Sol’s excited voice, and suddenly knew she wouldn’t be able to keep it together if he saw her.

So she said, ‘I’ll go upstairs and start packing. Just tell Sol I had to go back early.’

Quin nodded. ‘I’ll be gone for the day too.’

So this was it.

Sadie looked at Quin, feeling as if her heart was being ripped out of her chest, still beating. It was agony, being sent away like this, but she couldn’t argue with him. Sol had to come first, and if there was any danger of him getting too attached, and then confused by their actions, Sadie would never forgive herself.

The last four years had strengthened her in ways that she was only appreciating now. She could do this. She had no choice.

‘Goodbye, Quin.’

His face was like stone. ‘We’ll discuss what happens next back in Sao Paulo.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

QUIN’SVERYBRITTLEsense of satisfaction lasted until about half-time in the football game—not that he’d been able to focus on it up to that point. All he could see in his mind’s eye was the pale set to Sadie’s face and the pleading look in her eyes for his understanding when she’d disappeared before Sol returned.

And then the look of abject disappointment on Sol’s face when she hadn’t been there.

Quin had felt like the lowest of the low, knowing he was hurting his son, but if anything Sol’s disappointment only proved that he was doing the right thing in setting down boundaries.

He pictured her now, getting on the bus to Sao Paulo, repeating the journey she’d taken that fateful day four years ago.

And suddenly the flimsy, brittle facade of control he’d been clinging on to fell apart like shards of glass falling out of a window frame, cutting him so deep that he realised this was the first time he’d felt such pain in four years.

The kind of pain he’d thought he’d avoid because he was in control here.

Hadn’t he’d just demonstrated that by sending Sadie away? Before she could leave again and rip his heart out and tear it to pieces.

But it hadn’t worked. Because he was no more in control of his pain now than he’d been in control of anything since he’d laid eyes on her again and his life had been spun off its axis—much like the way it had when he’d first laid eyes on her.

She’d told him she loved him. That she’d never stopped. Her words had been lying in wait inside him and were now detonating like bombs, intensifying that pain, mocking him for believing that he was impenetrable.

Quin felt as if he was unravelling at the seams. Cracking open. Losing his bearings. Everything he’d clung to for the past four years was dissolving and being replaced with a vast abyss, into which he was falling with nothing to grab on to.

Suddenly he knew what he had to do. He felt wild, desperate. Urgent.

It was half-time. Sol was there in front of him. ‘Did you see the goal I nearly got? I wish Mom was here—maybe then I would have scored.’

Quin knelt down on one knee. He said, ‘There’s something I need to go and do, so I’m going to arrange for you to go home with Joao afterwards. Is that okay?’

Looking wise beyond his years, but also very much like a little boy who had just got his mother back, he said, ‘If it’s to do with Mom then, yes, that’s okay.’

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