Page 250 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

His hopes for them to be old and wrinkled and wheezing together would never die. Maybe he should add the grandchildren she would surely have to the mix. Imagine them pushing the pair of them around in wheelchairs.

But where would her future husband be? he wondered, his mood dipping. To have grandchildren, she would need children first, and it was inconceivable that Victoria would choose to have children without a man by her side. A husband. A man she would pledge her life to.

His guts filled with acid.

He could provide a crèche and childcare staff in the office so she could bring her imaginary future children to work, but what if she met the father on one of her visits home and decided to move back to Ireland for real, and not just as a threat to Marcello to pull him back a peg?

She caught his stare in the mirror’s reflection.

After the longest time passed, she smiled. ‘You look beautiful.’

Pulling himself together, he straightened and strode over to her.

They still had this one last night together.

‘Beautiful?’ he said, feigning outrage. ‘I think the word you are looking for is handsome.’

She turned around and gently tugged at his bow tie. Eyes on his, she said with simple sincerity, ‘No. The word is beautiful.’

Her words touched something in him that made him close his eyes before taking a step back so he could drink the whole of her in. The red velvet dress fitted as if it had been tailored especially for her. Long sleeved, it dipped in a V to her breasts, giving the most tantalising glimpse of her generous cleavage, then hugged her curvy waist before cascading like drapes to her feet. Only the heels of the black knee-high boots she was wearing, a sop to the wintry weather, stopped the hem trailing on the ground. Her red hair, the perfect complementary shade to the colour of the dress, had been parted in the centre but then gathered together to fall over her right shoulder. It gleamed like the finest gold. ‘No. You’re the beautiful one.’

Rosy colour flushed her cheeks. ‘It’s the expensive makeup you bought me.’

Expensive makeup subtly but strikingly applied. ‘It only enhances what God has blessed you with. You are a beautiful woman, Victoria Cusack.’

The flush deepened. ‘I keep telling you, you should see my sisters. They really are beautiful. No enhancement needed,’ she quipped.

He captured her chin and rubbed his thumb over the faint cleft in it. ‘Stop comparing yourself to your sisters. You are perfect exactly as you are.’

The hazel eyes softened. ‘You mean that, don’t you?’

He brushed a kiss over her lips and breathed her in. ‘Yes. And it is time you started believing it.’

CHAPTER TEN

VICTORIAWASSPELLBOUND. When she’d watched this musical all those months ago, her vision had been obscured and she’d been sat so high up and so far back the cast really had seemed as small as ants. She’d also kept her phone clutched in her hand, surreptitiously checking it every five minutes. When Marcello had asked her back to the office, she’d told herself she was furious with him for calling her away on something so whimsical, but now she could admit the truth to herself—she’d been waiting for it. Hoping for it. By the time her phone had silently vibrated with his call, she’d already planned her escape route to take it without disturbing the other theatregoers.

This time, she kept her phone in the gold clutch bag that had been in another of the gold boxes Marcello had surprised her with, and watched on a seat so good it was as if she could reach out and touch the stage. Maybe if her hand weren’t so tightly clasped in Marcello’s she would have tried.

To Marcello’s surprise, he thoroughly enjoyed the show. Victoria’s joy would have made it worthwhile for its own sake, but the songs were catchy and the plot good enough to keep his interest.

When things had settled between them and they’d slipped back into the old rhythm of their lives, he would take her to another Broadway show. They would go as the friends they’d been from the start. He knew it would take time to find that old rhythm but they would find it. They had to.

But not yet. Tonight they were enjoying Broadway as lovers.

Outside, the snow was falling again, and when they climbed into the back of his waiting car for the short drive to the restaurant he’d booked them to dine at, fat flakes clung like sparkling diamonds in her hair before melting into a glisten and vanishing.

Palming her cold cheek, he leaned his face into hers and thought he would never be able to endure seeing the sparkle in her eyes vanish, not when they shone with such brilliance as they did now. ‘Go on, tell me, how many times have you already seen it?’ he murmured.

She grinned. ‘Four times. How did you guess?’

‘Your singing along to every word was the giveaway.’

Both laughing, they kissed, a short kiss because their short drive had ended.

Marcello watched for a reaction when she recognised the name of the restaurant, and experienced a surge of gratification when the sparkle in her eyes intensified. Famed for its fresh atmosphere and even fresher seafood, something he knew she had a deep and abiding love for, he’d selected this place with Victoria’s desires at the forefront of his mind.

Thinking there was a very real danger she could burst from happiness, Victoria felt like a celebrity when they were whisked up the steps and welcomed into what she could only describe as a sophisticatedly funky interior. Evening coats taken—her Merino wool coat had been another surprise from Marcello—they were swept off to a corner table. Water poured, drink order taken, a limoncello vodka martini for Victoria, a dirty vodka, whatever that was, for Marcello, and then they were left alone with their menus.

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