Page 138 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

He scanned her face, frowning a little. ‘How come I don’t know this?’

She laughed softly. ‘Isn’t that the point of this week? We knownothingabout one another, besides the bare minimum. Why should you have known about Robert?’

‘Why didn’t you marry him?’

‘It turns out, we had different ideas about what our marriage would look like.’

‘In what way?’

‘He wanted me to quit my job,’ she murmured.

Sebastian’s expression showed clear surprise.

‘He had a huge role in an international bank, and thought I’d be an excellent asset to him. In the same ways I helped the king, I think he wanted me to help him. I wasn’t interested in dovetailing my professional life to suit his. We broke up.’

‘Did you love him?’

‘I thought we would be happy together. And I thought he loved me, enough to never hurt me.’

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed, and Rosie winced. The statement was too telling, revealed too much. ‘You’ve been hurt before?’

She glanced down at the counter, studying the flecks of white in the marble surface. ‘No.’

‘Then why should you think he’d hurt you?’

She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

He reached across the bench, his finger pressing lightly to her chin, in that way he had that made it impossible for her to hide. ‘You want me to get to know you, but only the parts of you you’re happy to share.’

‘So?’

‘It doesn’t work like that.’

‘It can work however we want it to.’

‘I want you to answer my questions. All of them.’

Imperious. Commanding. Demanding. Effortlessly regal.

Her insides slicked with heat at the tone of his voice, but more than that, at the fact he was willing to fight for this. That he really wanted to understand her and wasn’t just paying lip-service to her condition that they really get to know one another.

‘And I suppose you’ll do the same? You’ll answer any question I might have?’

‘That would be fair,’ he said with a nod of his head.

‘Which isn’t exactly an agreement.’

‘Your penchant for precision is fascinating.’

‘Perhaps it’s that I don’t really trust you?’

‘And why is that?’ he asked, moving around the counter, suddenly standing right beside her, so big and huge, his presence as well as his physicality. ‘Could it be that my dear grandfather has tainted your opinion of me?’

‘Don’t forget, I’ve spent five months married to you and the only interactions we’ve had have been openly hostile. Neither of us has made the effort to be civilised with the other, until now.’

‘Is that what we’re being?’ he asked, a wry smile on his handsome face. ‘I don’t feel civilised, if I’m honest. Right now, I feel about as uncivilised as ever before.’ His hands dropped to her thighs, and she gasped. ‘Does that bother you?’

She stared up at him, her pulse a torrent, and gave in to the instincts that were running rampant inside of her. Slowly, she shook her head. ‘I think you’re feeling exactly as I am.’

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