Page 147 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

‘Hungry?’ He entered the kitchen a moment after her, and when she glanced at him, her heart sped up a little. He had dressed in a pair of khaki shorts and a crisp white polo shirt with the collar slightly lifted. Her eyes devoured him as if she hadn’t seen him in weeks, and the quirk of his lips showed exactly what she was doing. Mortified, she spun away, back to the coffee, trying to kick her brain into gear.

‘I can make eggs,’ he said. ‘Or pancakes?’

She tried to catch her breath. ‘I’m not really a big breakfast person. I’ll just have an apple with my coffee.’

But he came to stand behind her, so close she could feel his warm breath at her nape. ‘You might not normally eat breakfast, but do you usually expend that much energy this early in the day?’

Her cheeks felt as hot as the sun. She didn’t turn around to face him, but she shook her head a little.

‘I’m starving. Eat your apple, if you’d like, but I’ll make plenty.’

In the end, he cooked bacon, eggs, grilled tomato and mushrooms, and it smelled so good that when he offered her a plate, she agreed with a small smile. ‘Thank you. It looks too good to resist.’

‘Hey, that’s just what I was thinking,’ he murmured, winking so she couldn’t fail to understand his meaning. He sat opposite her at the kitchen counter and owing to the width of the bench—or lack thereof—their legs couldn’t help getting tangled. Neither made an effort to move.

Sebastian ate with a kind of gusto that she now realized was inherent in him. No matter what he was doing, he pursued it with all of himself. Defending his mother, building his business, becoming the next in line to the throne of Cavalonia. Making love.

Her fingers trembled a little as she stabbed a mushroom—buttery and perfectly seasoned—and lifted it to her lips. She groaned a little at the delicious taste. ‘You really are an amazing cook,’ she said.

His laugh was a deep, husky sound that pulled at her insides. ‘It’s just a fry-up.’

‘It’s delicious.’

‘I’m glad you like it.’

Their eyes locked and Rosie had the strangest sense that they were caught in a silent communication, as if their minds were speaking when their lips weren’t. She blinked away, looking towards the horizon. Though they were inside, and the house was cool, she could already tell that the day would be warm.

‘A storm is due this afternoon,’ he said conversationally. ‘We should make the most of the morning.’

She was familiar with Cavalonia’s weather system, those summer storms that often seemed to break in the afternoon, or just as the evening wrapped around them. The smell of rain in the air, the electricity of lightning, the bursting of the day’s heat.

‘What do you have in mind?’

‘How do you feel about hunting for our lunch?’

Her eyes flared. ‘Hunting?’

‘Well...’ He grinned in a way that was boyishly charming. Her heart stammered. ‘Fishing, at least.’

‘Oh,’ she said, relaxing. ‘That sounds fun.’

And it did. But not because she had any particular penchant for catching fish, so much as the prospect of spending the morning with her husband was strangely alluring.

She told herself it was in the service of her stated aim, the purpose for this trip: to get to know him better. But there was a part of her that had begun to worry that the time they were spending together was coming to mean more to her than it should. That she was enjoying it more than she ought.

So what?

It wasn’t reality.

It was a fantasy.

A bubble of escapism from her normal life, and their normal marriage.

She didn’t care about him. Or maybe she did care about him, just a little bit, but so what? He was different than what she’d thought, but that just meant she’d been willing to revise her opinion of him. There was no danger in starting to respect the guy, in maybe evenlikinghim a little. What mattered was that she didn’t love him, and she never would. This was a perfectly sensible marriage of convenience with clearly delineated boundaries. They had a contract to that effect, for goodness’ sake. There was no risk here. She had made sure of that!

And yet, was it any wonder that Rosie, who had such limited experience with relationships and affection, should be finding it difficult, at times, to remember that this was really, at its heart, pragmatic? Of course she was. She was only human, and this situation wasa lot. Sebastian was a lot. But Rosie had spent her whole life avoiding entanglements that threatened her ordered, emotionally safe life—and of course she’d be able to do so now. No matter how attractive she found him, no matter how much she enjoyed their chemistry, she could handle this.

Before long, they’d be back in Cavalonia and when they returned to the capital city, everything would be different. Or rather, it would be the same as before.

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