Page 46 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

Portia shouldn’t be doing this. She should have turned back when they stepped out of the lift into a hushed corridor that led, not to public rooms but to private suites. But she’d stood mute as Lex used a swipe card to let them into a magnificently appointed suite.

Because she needed to do this. Needed to set the record straight.And then walk away.

But as she watched Lex’s long-legged stride across the room, the sharp, achingly familiar angle of his temple and jaw, her breath hitched in her chest before finally escaping on a long sigh.

She didn’t want to walk away.

Even though she’d managed it a few weeks ago, she wasn’t sure she could do it now. Then his barely disguised anger had simmered between them, and her guilt.

But today it felt different between them.

It felt as it had that summer when she turned seventeen. The spark between them. The communication that went beyond words. The flare of heat. The breathless passion that opened a whole new world to her.

You’re kidding yourself. There’s no going back, even if you wanted to.

But she could at least set the record straight. Didn’t they both deserve that?

‘What will you have?’

Lex turned towards her, phone to his ear, and even from a distance the intensity of that stare made her shiver. She told herself it was because she was cold and damp.

‘Hot chocolate, please.’ She caught his flash of surprise before he turned back to the phone, placing the order. Maybe these days he only drank champagne and expensive wine.

Too wired to sit, she paced the length of the room. It was large, superbly furnished and with multi-million-dollar views over the park. It had all the elegance of a grand country home where exquisite taste blended with comfort. Luxurious rather than brazenly opulent.

Like Cropley Hall had been in its heyday. How completely circumstances had changed. This world was Lex’s now while she struggled to make ends meet, living in a tiny shared flat.

But she was proud of making it on her own. Her father had expected her to return home with her tail between her legs.

Portia’s skin prickled with awareness. She sensed Lex approach though his footsteps were silent on the plush carpet.

It was one of the few things about him she’d forgotten. The fact that even though he wasn’t in her line of sight she could pinpoint exactly where he was, as if some internal radar were attuned precisely to his presence.

Right now he stood less than an arm’s length behind her left shoulder as she looked out at the dripping green park.

Heat sang in her veins and she found herself rubbing her hands up her arms, disturbed by her reaction.

‘You’re cold? I’ll turn the heating up.’

‘No, I’m fine.’ She felt her cheeks burn and busied herself removing her rather shabby, old coat.

‘Let me take that.’

She shook her head and moved away, draping it over the arm of a chesterfield lounge. ‘It’s okay.’

That way she could grab it if she needed to make a quick exit. Whenever he got close she felt jumpy. Aware.

Maybe this was a bad idea after all. But she was no coward and she’d wanted, for so long, to clear the air between them.

‘So you don’t live in London?’

Obviously not, since he was staying in a hotel. But she needed to break the gathering silence.

‘My home is in Greece.’ His voice was deeper than she remembered but still had the ability to make her nerves twitch and her insides tighten. ‘But there was something that needed my attention in London.’

He doesn’t mean you. He’s a businessman. He’s probably here for commercial reasons and happened to stop by the saleroom. He didn’t even know you’d be there.

That was a relief. Portia could tell him the truth about that long ago night and then they’d go their separate ways. This would be the last time she’d see him and, she told herself, it would finally lay the ghost of their doomed relationship.

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