Page 112 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

Again with the word ‘fiancée’.

What sort of world was it when you needed a ring to show you cared? He’d always cared about Clemmie and always would.

He looked at her face and felt emotion swell in his throat. He would have given everything he had in the world to see her open her eyes and grumpily tell him to stop making a fuss.

He could make more money.

There was only one Clemmie.

The last thing that Clemmie remembered thinking was that she didn’t really want to die. Not yet, not here, not now.

She must have said the words out loud, because a reply floated into her head.

‘You’re not dying today.’

The corners of her lips tugged into a half-smile at the memory—or was it happening now?—and then faded.

She was alive, but what if Joaquin wasn’t?

Had she dreamt Joaquin was there?

He was in New York.

Was this New York?

She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt heavy. Finally they budged a little for her, and she looked at her hands, half expecting to see them clutching the car’s leather armrest in a white-knuckled death grip.

Instead, she found that her hands were resting on her chest. She flexed her fingers. Her fingernails were broken and caked with blood. Then she saw the ring, her eyes widening when it caught the light.

‘How...?’

The croak brought the attention of the occupants of the room to her bedside.

There were just two people—a young woman in white scrubs and...

As she identified the second figure some of the fear clenching in her belly let go.

He was alive!

Her head was spinning, but also aching.

Was any of this real?

Had there even been a car crash?

Now she wasn’t sure. Her memory of the events felt like a dream...already fading, vanishing like smoke.

‘Is this New York?’

‘No, we were in my car.’

‘Car? Why am I in New York in a car with you? God, do I look as bad as you?’ Her eyes closed again. A moment later they opened, and she blurted with feeling, ‘You look awful!’

‘You are not in New York. This is Dorset.’.

He watched as she batted her hand at the nurse, who attempted to shine a torch in her eyes.

‘I still don’t know why you are here, Joaquin.’

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