Page 33 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

Lexy winced. ‘I could never be competition to a woman as gorgeous as Angeliki Bouras.’

‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I saw you as a beauty from the first moment I saw you,’ Nic disagreed. ‘A beauty with ten times Angeliki’s appeal.’

Lexy studied him in astonishment and recognised that he absolutely believed that, believed that she was way more attractive than his half-sister. Of course she was,nowthat he knew Angeliki was family. After all, Nic was laying it on a bit thick because how good could she have looked after that car accident in Yorkshire? Nose and ears red, face white with shock in the cold?

Nic lifted a folder onto the table and pushed it in her direction. ‘This is the file that my office manager gave me the day before yesterday. It lists your every phone call and includes your letters...read only byme,’ he specified with care. ‘And that’s why I got drunk. After reading those and understanding how alone you felt coping with so much, I was devastated.’

‘I don’t understand. You’re saying that you never received my letters back when I posted them? How can that be? Your office manager? Why would she hold back confidential letters?’

‘Angeliki told her that you were a stalker.’

‘A...what?’ Lexy gasped in disbelief.

‘She persuaded Leigh that you were a stalker by showing her your photo and told many lies that indicated that you were a woman causing me embarrassment. Leigh only smelt a rat when she saw photos of our wedding.’

‘Naïve,’ Lexy muttered weakly, thinking of the icily polite lady she had had to speak to when she had been futilely seeking a meeting with Nic at his office. Leigh had never ever been rude or dismissive but had always remained professional and courteous even if she hadn’t given an inch.

‘No, I think the real problem was that Leigh is kind of motherly with me.’ Nic frowned. ‘She’s known me since I was a little boy coming into my father’s office. When Angeliki told her that a stalker was targeting me, Leigh would have gone into super drive to protect me because she saw that as her job.’

‘Right...’ Lexy’s voice was fading away as the main course was laid in front of her. It looked amazing but her appetite had gone. She sipped her wine instead.

‘So, after Leigh had brought me up to date on what had been happening behind my back, I sat down that night and read your unopened letters,’ Nic admitted.

Lexy blinked, said nothing, but howcouldshe feel when those letters had been written so long ago when she was in a certain frame of mind, adesperateframe of mind? In short, she cringed, gulped more wine, sat silent.

‘I felt like a four-letter word of a guy reading those letters. I... I was heartbroken. I drank a lot that night. I tried to find solace in something but there was nothing there to comfort me. I let you down. Ifailed. I took the risk and got you pregnant and then I wasn’ttherefor you to help, to support,’ Nic recounted in a raw undertone. ‘Nothing I can do or say can make up for those months you were alone. You didallthe right things. You tried to get in touch with me, but Angeliki’s ploys foiled us both. It didn’t occur to me that she had always had access to my phone and had blocked your number. I spent a fortune trying to trace you, trying to find out where you worked, and I failed there as well because I didn’t know something as simple as your surname. That says it all.’

‘That you weren’t thinking any more clearly than I was when we first met,’ Lexy chipped in helplessly, thinking back. ‘I left you to attend that christening and I lived to regret that.’

‘Why?’ he asked in surprise. ‘You had made a commitment and I respected that.’

‘My godchild’s parents had a huge fight during the christening party and split up a few weeks after that,’ Lexy revealed ruefully. ‘And in spite of my texts, I haven’t heard from my friend since then, so, yes, with hindsight I was a fool to insist on attending that event.’

‘But I respected that...your loyalty to your friend. I accepted it because it was the sort of thing I would have done,’ he confessed ruefully.

‘Even though it cost us so much?’ she almost whispered.

‘Yes, because you wouldn’t be the woman I fell in love with if you had behaved any differently.’

‘Think dinner’s over,’ Lexy muttered, her entire attention locked to Nic’s taut, darkly handsome face, because she was barely able to credit that he could speak so casually aboutlovingher. ‘How can you just say that?’

Nic tossed his napkin on the table. ‘I fell for you the same night I met you.’

As he rose from the table, he signalled Dexter and the older man headed for the exit door. Nic searched her troubled face. ‘No pretending now, not any longer,’ he breathed. ‘You’re my ideal woman and I almost lost you. Not once buttwice.’

Lexy was only emerging from her shock. ‘You’re saying that you fell for me that night?’

‘Yeah, I was as seriously uncool and excited about meeting you as Angeliki accused me of being. I was exactly like a dazzled teenager. Apparently, that’s how I was talking about you the day after I met you.’

‘Me too,’ Lexy admitted as he rounded the table. ‘I talked you up to the sky with Mel and then you didn’t phone and I cringed at all the stuff I’d said about you.’

Nic gazed down at her, dark eyes glittering and full of longing. ‘Do you think I could bring those feelings back?’

Feeling cornered, not quite sure how she should feel after that declaration of love, Lexy frowned, only to be startled when Nic dropped down to his knees beside her. ‘I’ll do just about anything. I’m so sorry I trusted Angeliki and lost you. It’s something that I can never make up for.’

Lexy’s hands rose from her lap, unclasped and framed his strong cheekbones, small fingers stretching. ‘But perhaps I can consider forgiving you,’ she said breathlessly, utterly mesmerised by the dark golden, black-lashed eyes claiming hers.

‘Truthfully?’ he exclaimed.

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