Page 50 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

Nausea swamped Lex. He’d put her at risk and hadn’t been there when she needed him. He wanted to reach for her but the look on her face stopped him.

‘How badly were you hurt?’

‘Just bruising and shock.’

‘There’s nojustabout it. Nothing excuses that.’

She nodded, her expression sombre. ‘I knew he’d be furious if he found out about us, which is why I wanted to sneak away. But I never expected he’d react the way he did.’

Portia drew a deep breath. ‘It turned out he had money worries I didn’t know anything about. Apparently we’d been living beyond our means for years.’

‘Don’t you meanhehad been?’

It was true Portia had had the advantage of living in a stately home with private stables. Despite that she’d been unspoiled and down-to-earth, mainly he suspected because of her mother’s influence. Her father, on the other hand, lived lavishly, entertaining and holidaying frequently and at great expense. His costly tastes were only surpassed by his avid interest in horse racing. Had his downfall been gambling or bad investments?

Portia shrugged. ‘I suspect that was one of the reasons he pursued Raine, for her money. He’d hatched a scheme for me to marry someone rich too, to keep him afloat.’

‘So having you run off with a penniless yokel didn’t fit his plans.’ Lex gritted his teeth, horrified that he’d known nothing about this. Guilt crawled through his belly. He’d left believing Portia had dumped him at the last minute, leading him on while laughing behind his back. ‘What happened? I got a text.’

‘It wasn’t from me. I never got my phone back. I spent that night and all the next day locked away downstairs. Then he told me you’d packed up and left.’

Lex still reeled at the revelation she really had been a prisoner. It didn’t seem possible. It shouldn’t have been!

It was no help to recall this had all happened years ago. To him it was fresh news. How could she sound matter-of-fact about it?

All this time he’d thought...

‘That text was so convincing. Itsoundedlike you. Until it got to the bit about not tying yourself to a hopeless case and about the joke having gone on long enough.’

It was easier to stare at the pitiless rain visible in the glow of the lights than look at Portia.

‘You said I’d been good for a summer romance—a bit of rough on the side—but wasn’tsuitablelong-term.’

He remembered every word. They were engraved in flaming letters in his brain. He’d even imagined Portia saying them in that crisp accent of hers.

Now his tortured mind conjured the memory of how her clear voice became endearingly hoarse in passion. His nape prickled, the fine hairs there standing up as sexual hunger stirred.

Some things had changed, but not everything.

There was still something about Portia that drew him at an elemental level.

‘Inever said any of those things! It was my father, or him with Raine’s help. She had a knack for cutting people down to size.’

‘I’m sorry, Portia. Sorry that you had to face that. If I’d known—’

‘You weren’t to know. There’s no point now talking aboutif only.’

Lex supposed it was easy for her to be sanguine after all this time. But it would take him time to process this. Adrenaline beat through his blood, and the need to take action. To make things right.

He turned to see her watching him closely. What did she see? Anger? Resolve? Or was she seeing that summer long ago when love had seemed as natural as breathing, when nothing else had mattered.

She was right. Everything had changed.Theyhad. Their hopes and plans. Even their personalities. He was no longer an impulsive youth who believed in soulmates and happy-ever-afters.

He saw shadows of pain in Portia’s eyes and knew she too had left behind that innocent belief in the power of romance.

‘I take it your father’s plan didn’t work out.’ It can’t have since he was auctioning off paintings.

Why don’t you ask straight out whether she married the man her father had chosen?

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