Page 133 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

She felt physically sick.

‘What?’ she asked, pitching her trembling question at the figure who was now standing several feet away, looking...

At least he looked as if he was in pain, she decided, studying the darkness along the sharpened contours of his face. Hearing the breath whistling in and out of his parted lips. Pain was the least he deserved, she concluded, shaking with reaction.

‘Sorry,’ he said, in response to the voice in his head that was telling him he was a total fool in reacting to some misguided sense of chivalry.

Things changed, things moved on...they were both consenting adults.

She was a virgin.

That incredible fact alone should have put her out of bounds, but at some primitive level it aroused him more.

The idea of being her first lover...

He had never been anyone’s first lover.

‘That shouldn’t have happened.’

It was the timing that was wrong, not the action, he decided. She still thought they were engaged. She thought that she was kissing the man she was going to marry.

No way in the world could he rationalise that.

Clemmie hid her profound hurt at this fresh rejection beneath a surface layer of anger.

‘Well, it did! Was all that just to prove you don’t have a problem?’ Her eyes blinked wide, the sensual haze clearing as she bit out furiously, ‘You don’t want me. You are a piece of work,’ she declared hotly, feeling the sting of utter humiliation.

She jumped down from the table, waiting a moment for her shaky legs to steady before she looked at him.

‘What is wrong with me? Am I just a total—?’

‘Nothing is wrong with you. You are...’ His nostrils flared. As he covered the space between them he fought the urgent need that was taking bites out of his control. ‘A virgin...’ he said accusingly.

‘Yeah? So what? Hasn’t it come up in conversation during our engagement?’

He took a deep breath and took his hands off her shoulders, not really sure how they had got there. Desire was roaring like a furnace out of control, kept in check only by the knowledge that he was taking advantage of her ignorance. That she had bought into a lie.

Hurting her, taking advantage, was a low he could not sink to. So before his need outweighed his conscience, he knew he had to speak the truth.

The truth could not hurt her more than continuing this charade to its inevitable conclusion.

‘There has been no conversation.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There is no engagement.’

It took several heartbeats for this information to penetrate the sensual thrall she had sunk into, then a few more for her to fight her way clear of it.

‘I don’t understand...’

‘You haven’t forgotten we’re engaged because we never were.’

She shook her head, as if she was trying to make sense of his words, looking so vulnerable he felt worse than ever.

‘The ring...?’

He had lied to her. The one person she had believed would never betray her had.

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