Page 198 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

And once again two tears rolled down her cheeks. She was married to Dominic Estefan, not in the way she’d once imagined and hoped, but legally married.

It wasn’t the way she’d always imagined, it might be a faux marriage, but once this deception was over and she wasn’t needed any more, and once she’d returned to Melbourne to resume her average unglamorous life, she’d remember these moments for ever. The tenderness of his kiss, the gifting of the diamond earrings. Both things Dom hadn’t had to do—and yet he had.

It was only when she turned to walk back down the aisle on Dom’s arm that she saw the photographer clicking away, capturing it all, and cynicism kicked in again. Okay, so the earrings were a nice thought, but the kiss was just as much performance art as the dinner kiss, fodder for the photographers. Even if it had been the best kiss she could remember.

God, she was a sucker.

Her cynicism hit pay dirt when they moved to the terrace with the famous Bellagio fountain as backdrop for the money shot, and still, in spite of her cynicism, Mari found it impossible not to buy into the fantasy. The setting was so fantastical, so magical, that it was impossible not to be carried away by the moment. Dom was in high spirits, so different to how he’d been after they’d landed. From relief or something else? Mari couldn’t tell, but he looked as if the weight of the world had lifted from his shoulders.

The photographer clicked away, Dom and Mari together in front of the fountain, Dom’s arms around her, Mari’s arms around his neck, when Dom suddenly dipped her low to one side. She looked up at him in surprise at the sudden move—she knew she was safe; he wouldn’t let her fall—but she hadn’t been expecting it.

‘Are you happy with your wedding, Señora Estefan?’

He was so unexpectedly light-hearted that Mari couldn’t help but answer, ‘I can honestly say it’s the best wedding I’ve ever had.’

He chuckled, his eyes locking on hers, before he brought his smiling lips closer.

Mari’s focus was torn between watching his eyes and his mouth. She wanted to drink him in, all of him. And damn it, if Dom was after a money shot, she wasn’t about to object.

Not if it meant he would kiss her again.

She could act as much as he could.

CHAPTER TEN

TWO HOURS LATERthey were back on the plane and winging their way towards San Sebastián. Mari’s head was spinning, jet lag tugging at her senses. While Dom with his boundless energy continued to work, she snagged the bedroom for some more sleep. But this time she set an alarm on her phone. She wasn’t about to be woken by Dom again.

Not that sleep came easily.

She was a married woman.Again.And she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Married but not married. A wife and yet not really a wife.

When she’d married Simon she’d felt—nothing. Not delight, not relief, just a feeling of numbness, that this was the life she deserved, that she would be the sandwich-cutting wife of a small country town clerk for life. Oh, her grandmother was beside herself, and Suzanne thrilled to be her bridesmaid, and those things had permeated the numbness she’d felt, massaging the misgivings she’d had.

She’d so firmly believed that all she’d needed after her disappointment and despair was the love of a good man and a sensible marriage. It might have been a sensible middle-class marriage, but the good man turned out not to be, and as for love? ‘You’ll grow to love him,’ her grandmother had assured her whenever she’d expressed her doubts. ‘Give it time, you’ll grow together.’

But for all her grandmother’s assurances, love had never come into it, not on Marianne’s part. And instead of growing together, they’d grown apart.

Again, she’d been a wife, but not really a wife. Not a life partner, but a housekeeper, cook and nanny rolled into one.

Memories and feelings so different from the first time she and Dom had made love. That had been a revelation. Not only the smorgasbord of new sensations and new emotions but the knowledge she was no longer a virgin. She’d guarded her virginity through her high school years. She’d always promised herself that she would never squander it, that she would share that special moment with a man she truly loved. That man had been Dom, and the act itself momentous. She’d half expected choirs of angels and a host of trumpeters to herald the news on high.

And now she was married to that man.

It should have been a cause for joy. Once upon a time it would have been a cause for joy. Now it was just a cause for regret.

The plane landed around ten a.m. at Hondarribia airport, where they were whisked away by a waiting limousine direct to San Sebastián, some twenty-five kilometres away.

‘We’ll go by the villa first,’ he explained, ‘and give my mother the news. Then we’ll head to my apartment to freshen up, if you need.’

If she needed? Sure, she’d slept on the plane, but nowhere near enough given her tangled thoughts, and right now she was all kinds of confused. They’d departed Melbourne at eight a.m. and arrived in Las Vegas at eight a.m. the very same day. If that hadn’t been mental enough, after a whistlestop Las Vegas wedding, they’d been back on the plane by two p.m. Eleven hours later it was apparently mid-morning, and her body clock was complaining about too many time zones in too little time, the jet lag starting to drag.

‘Sounds good,’ she said, covering her mouth while she yawned.

‘And Marianne?’

‘Yes?’

‘This is important to me. I want my mother to be happy for whatever time she has left. Don’t ruin it for her.’

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