Page 261 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

Pulling herself together, she yanked the door open, took one look at the man standing there and, with a whimper, reflexively closed it.

Adrenaline shooting through her, hand over her mouth, she staggered backwards.

The voice she loved was faint through the reinforced safety door.

‘Please,bella, let me in.’

She shook her head frantically as if he could see her, the only word in her head an echoingno.

Not now. Not when she’d spent the whole week fighting the craving to seek him out and tell him she’d changed her mind, that she would rather suffer twelve-hour days by his side knowing he would never love her than spend another second without him.

She’d never understood what it felt like to miss someone before. Truly miss them, as an ache in her very soul.

She understood it now.

‘I know this is terrible timing but there are things I need to say to you, and I want to say them toyou, not to a door. Please let me in.’

Shaking inside and out, she stared through the blinding tears at the door.

After she’d wiped the tears, it took a burst of impetus to make her body move and open it.

Bright but dull blue eyes captured hers. Broad shoulders rose. ‘Thank you.’

It hurt to even look at him.

Turning her face, she whispered, ‘I’m leaving in a few minutes.’

He closed the door.

She heard him take a deep breath. ‘I know, and I’m here to beg you not to go.’

The howl that echoed in the room came from her own throat.

‘Please,bella, come back to me,’ he begged. ‘Don’t go. Come back. I can’t function without you.’

Her heart and stomach plummeted to her toes. Ryan had confided that he was finding it hard to gel with Marcello and that he believed it obvious Marcello thought him a poor replacement for her.

Stumbling to the tumble dryer, she groped for the towels and hugged them tight to her chest. She had no idea how she made her mouth work. ‘Look, Marcello, I know Ryan can be a little earnest but he has great—’

‘Not as my EA,’ he interrupted.

She blinked hard.

He stepped over to her and gently took the towels she was using as a shield from her arms, and placed them on the edge of the table. Then he gazed down at her and, with a long sigh, stroked her cheek. ‘Victoria, I want you to stay with me as my wife. I want to marry you.’

His words were such a shock that it took a long moment to fully absorb them.

Absorbing them only added to the distress.

Swiping at his hands, she backed away from him so quickly that she bashed into the table.

‘I never thought you were capable of such cruelty,’ she cried. ‘To play on my feelings like this, just because you can’t adjust to having—’

The precariously placed towels fell to the floor. With them fell a glittering ring.

Marcello watched Victoria’s gaze fall on the ring he’d raced back to his apartment to get and had held tightly the whole way to her, the ring he’d forgotten he was holding the moment he’d looked at her for the first time in what felt like a whole life. He must have let go of it when he’d taken the pile of towels from her without even realising.

Crouching down in the stunned silence, he picked it up then slid onto his knees before her and gazed at her until her wide eyes slowly turned back to him.

---