Page 43 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

But you did. And you almost wanted to again.

Because just for a few moments when they met again, she’d looked lost and distressed. As if the past had meant something to her. As ifhe’dmeant something to her.

She took you in once and she was trying to play you again. Of course she was distressed, coming face-to-face with you out of the blue.

But Lex couldn’t dismiss the nagging feeling of unfinished business. There were things he wanted to know.

He’d never been vengeful, and even at the time when his world crumpled, he hadn’t completely blamed Portia. She’d only just turned seventeen to his nineteen. Lex had told himself he shouldn’t have been surprised that she’d turned out more like her awful father than he’d believed possible.

Yet her betrayal, and more—her scorn—had hurt.

Almost as much as discovering how his mother had lied to him all his life. So many wasted years...

Logic told him Portia’s betrayal had been ultimately a good thing. He was better off without her. And yet...

He shook his head. It didn’t matter what she’d done, he shouldn’t have lost his temper. He’d learnt in business that revealing emotion was a weakness an opponent could use against you. He’d let anger take over in London.

Did she guess how hurt he’d been? Had she silently laughed at him?

Or had she regretted their parting, now she saw he’d become a man of wealth and power?

The Oakhursts had always valued prestige and money.

Lex raked short fingernails across his scalp, trying to break the cycle of fruitless thoughts.

He shouldn’t have threatened to destroy the painting. He wasn’t into empty threats. But at the time it had been imperative that she not guess the rush of emotion that had led to his bidding.

He’d seen the painting in the catalogue and been determined to own it. If old man Oakhurst was in such financial difficulty he had to sell off his precious possessions, how fitting if Lex acquired one of those once closely guarded treasures. The supposed ne’er-do-well bastard son of a shiftless gypsy, the old man had called him.

But Lex hadn’t bought it merely from a sense of one-upmanship. It had been a little over a decade, yet something in him had softened, yearning, when he saw that painting.

Because it had taken him back to that halcyon time with Portia, brief but oh-so-sweet.

Thatwas why he’d told her he intended to destroy it. Because he couldn’t let her guess he’d acquired it out of sentimentality.

He no longer believed in youthful dreams. Looking back now, it was remarkable he ever had. It was only with Portia...

Lex turned and strode from the room. He had work to do. He needed to focus on the present not the past, and on his plans for the future.

Three weeks later he returned to Mayfair.

Ostensibly he was here to view the sculptures in an upcoming auction. But the tingle of anticipation at the base of his spine as he strode into the hushed, plush reception area had nothing to do with art and everything to do with the prospect of seeing Portia.

He’d resisted, just, hiring someone to investigate her. There must have been significant changes in her family if her father was selling off possessions. But pride halted him. He wasn’t interested enough in the Oakhursts to spend good money researching them.

A phone call from his PA to the auction house, confirming Portia worked there, didn’t count as an investigation.

A job in a prestigious art auction house was exactly the sort of work young aristocrats dabbled in. Whatever changes there’d been, her father was still pulling strings, getting his girl a job where she wouldn’t get her hands dirty. Where she’d be bound to meet therightsort of people.

Lex’s lips drew back in a sneer. Funny how the right sort of people were only too ready to welcome him these days. Money talked.

But his derision couldn’t cloak a singular, disturbing truth. That three weeks ago, seeing Portia for the first time in over ten years, Lex had felt something he hadn’t experienced in years.

He’d refused to find a name for it, choosing to tell himself it was simply a lingering remnant of old emotions, dredged up in the surprise of meeting her again. But it had unsettled him, so he’d made his way back to London to prove that this time when he saw her he’d feel nothing.

Then he’d walk away and never see her again.

‘Mr Tomaras, it’s a pleasure to welcome you back. You’re here to view some pieces?’

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