Page 144 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

Where was your concern for her fragile status a few minutes ago?

Ignoring the sarcasm of his internal critic, he made an attempt to return a little normality to the situation.

‘Your mum texted earlier, to say she’s left some food. I’m sure it’s a banquet, knowing your mum. It’s in the fridge and just needs heating up. We could sit in the kitchen.’

They had shared many meals at that table, or at least its predecessor, over the years.

‘We could open a bottle of...’

He paused and backtracked, thinking,Skip the wine. He suspected his nobility would not withstand alcohol—or for that matter, her smile.

But she wasn’t smiling at him.

The sparkling contempt glowing in her wide green eyes was sending a very different message.

‘Wine might not mix with your painkillers,’ he said.

‘I’m not taking any painkillers.’

His rejection felt like the ultimate gut-punch.

He was talking about food.

Metaphorically, he had swatted her away like a bug.

‘I’m not hungry,’ she said coldly.

Actually, she was. But it was the principle of the thing. He’d seduced her with... Well, without doing much at all. And now he had turned off the sexy seductive stuff like a tap.

‘Where are you going?’ he demanded.

She turned, her eloquent brows swishing upwards. ‘Upstairs—do I need to ask permission?’

He gave a weary sigh.

‘Fine. I’ll heat up the food.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

HEHEATEDUPthe rather delicious-smelling casserole that had been left in the fridge. He laid two places at the kitchen table—not the old scrubbed one that his mother had thrown away, but something designer, involving a ‘river’ of green epoxy between two slabs of oak.

He hated to admit it, but he quite liked it.

Possibly because he found himself comparing the colour of the epoxy with Clemmie’s eyes.

He poured himself a glass of red wine and waited.

After twenty minutes he was on his second glass and he decided to eat.

The food was wasted on him. He stirred it around his plate. There were things aside from food that man needed to survive and stay sane, and Clemmie had lit a fire in him that still flamed hot.

He left the food on the table and wandered through to an opening that his mother had had cut through the wall to the orangery. Fortunately, the orangery itself had escaped the tweaks that jarred in so much of the rest of the house.

It was filled with light from the massive south-facing floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on a Gertrude Jekyll–inspired garden, complete with manicured hedges and a long ornamental pond with fountains and carp.

His footsteps echoed in the cavernous green space as he walked across stones worn smooth with age. They were still warmed by the original steam pipes, and the air was scented by the exotic plants that spilled out of raised beds. Rows of orange trees in deep ornamental tubs still lined the stone walls which were covered in carefully trained vines that provided a healthy crop of grapes. The trickle of water from several pools added to the soothing atmosphere.

Joaquin didn’t feel soothed.

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