Page 152 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

They drew it onto the jetty, a puddle at their feet, and Sebastian crouched down, unzipping it. ‘Hat, sunscreen, water bottle, very waterlogged books. You were right.’

‘Poor kid,’ she said, smiling up at him. He smiled back, and everything was right again.

‘We have enough,’ he said, eyeing the icebox that had ten good-sized fish. ‘Let me pull up the pots, and then we’ll go back.’

‘Oh.’ Disappointment spread through her. She was enjoying herself.

‘The storm is coming,’ he reminded her, gesturing towards the horizon. ‘By the time we walk home, it’ll be here.’

‘Right, of course.’ She hadn’t even noticed the darkening clouds. That was the Sebastian effect, she supposed. He was so much—too much—he just took up all of her oxygen and ability to focus on anything else. He drew in the two ropes to reveal several crabs in the pots and Rosie watched, fascinated, as he expertly hooked the pots together for easier transport. The crabs nipped their claws, but Sebastian wasn’t worried.

The cove was not far from the house, and they didn’t talk on the short return journey. Rosie was in her own mind, thinking about their morning, their conversation, about the ebbs and flows that made being here with Sebastian so interesting, even when it was tense. She supposed it had been a long time since she’d done this—gotten to know someone new. Besides the king, there wasn’t really anyone in her life she talked to. It had been nice to open up to Sebastian, and even nicer when he responded in a way that showed he was genuinely interested in her life.

While Rosie showered, Sebastian set to work filleting the fish and preparing the crabs. While she’d enjoyed fishing, she could honestly say she wasn’t sorry to miss either of those tasks, and she took her time blow drying her hair and rubbing moisturiser all over her body when she was done.

By the time she stepped out into the kitchen, the storm had arrived. Rather than the pristine blue sky, they were now engulfed by dark grey, and rain fell to the ground in big fat drops, slowly at first, and then much faster, like making popcorn but in reverse. Out at sea, lightning forked through the sky, so everything was momentarily overbright.

And she shivered, for no reason she could think of. She wasn’t cold—this was still summer, and though the rain would cool things down, it would also bring humidity. No, it was more the darkness of the sky and the persistence of the rain. She couldn’t help but feel an ominous weight beginning to bear down on her. If she were prone to superstition, she might think the storm was in some way a warning, but she had never been one to believe in mystical signs, and so she pushed the feeling away and stepped into the kitchen without any intention of letting a simple storm ruin her mood.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ITRAINEDANDit rained, so that as they sat down to a simple yet luxurious lunch of grilled just-caught fish and boiled, salted crabs, they had to halfway shout to hear one another. But despite how she fought it, there was something about the rain, its ancient reliability perhaps, the fact that like the oceans and the skies, the passage of time did nothing to change it, that got under her skin. As they sat and talked about things that were unimportant but not uninteresting, like their childhoods, the schools they’d attended and friends they’d cherished, and where they’d gone on holidays and what those experiences had been like, she had the strangest sense that the rain was almost washing clean their history and renewing it with moments like these. She wouldn’t let it change what she wanted from this marriage, but it was impossible not to enjoy it.

She found herself smiling, and laughing, more than she’d ever thought she would when alone with her husband, and somehow, without the usual passage of the sun through the sky, time became strangely amorphous, so when Rosie happened to glance at the clock and saw it was nearly six, she gasped. ‘It’s so late,’ she said, staring at the scraps of their lunch and aghast to realise they’d been sitting for hours while the storm raged.

‘Got some place you need to be?’ he responded, arching a brow.

Heat flushed her cheeks. ‘Well, no, not for a few days, I suppose.’ But she frowned then, because her clarity had only hardened during this week, and there was no longer any doubt left in her mind. ‘But I should tell you, I don’t think we need to take that long.’

He began to clear the plates. Such a routine gesture, and yet his back was ramrod straight and there was a tension to his shoulders that made her wonder if he was as casual about this as he was evidently trying to be. ‘Oh yeah? Why is that?’

‘Because I know you’re going to be a great dad, and I know we can make this work.’ She toyed with her fingers, ignoring the icy fear that stole through her, the idea of being fated to a life like her mother’s. For as long as she could remember that idea had stalked her, the belief that if she were ever to get greedy and hope for children of her own, she’d be similarly cursed. It had been one of the points in favour of her previous engagement—her ex-fiancé had despised the idea of having children and swore he’d never change his mind. He would never have asked her for a baby. He had been focused on his career and his career alone. Nothing on earth would have induced Rosie to have children withhimanyway. But Sebastian was different. The whole situation was different. What she also knew, but didn’t say, was that if her worst fears came to pass, she trusted Sebastian to remember her to their child. She trusted him to do what was right. Conceiving a child was still terrifying, but it was no longer something she dreaded, as one might the prospect of stepping off an abyss into a shark-infested ocean.

‘Are you saying you’ll do this?’

She nodded slowly. ‘Yes.’

‘And this is your choice, Rosalind? I will not have our baby be something you regret.’

‘I told you, I don’t regret our marriage.’

‘You should.’

Something sparked inside of her. ‘Don’t ruin this moment,’ she said quietly.

He placed the dishes in the sink, then turned back to face her. ‘I need to be sure.’ He strode across the room, catching her wrists and lifting her hands between them. ‘You were pressured into marrying me. You might not regret it, you might think the reasons you cling to for accepting the deal matter, but that doesn’t change the fact you were pressured. I would not ever want you to say the same thing about this baby.’

She nodded and wished she wasn’t feeling the sting of tears in her eyes.

‘This has to be a decision you are making for the right reasons.’

Her heart twisted over. His concern for her was well beyond what she’d expected, given how important this child was to his claim to the throne.

‘It is,’ she promised him. And it was. This baby would be a gift to all of them, and she knew that no matter what, even if it meant her worst fears came true, that the safe delivery of their child would be worth any sacrifice she might make.

How was it possible that she already loved a baby which was very much just a concept? There was still so much to happen before then.

Lightning cracked, close to the house, and she jumped a little. A frisson of something ran the length of her spine. Adrenalin? Fear? Courage? Exuberance?

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