Page 229 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

‘And as it happens,’ he added, ‘I love you.’

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Why should I believe you? It’s just another attempt to keep me close. To keep our babies close.’

‘Marianne, listen to me. Why do you think I delivered those divorce papers myself instead of couriering them? I could have posted them if I didn’t give a damn. I would have. But I didn’t. Because I didn’t want you to sign them.’

She started to protest and he cut her off. ‘And that was before I knew about the babies. I couldn’t bear the idea of being without you. It’s you I came back for. It’s you I want to be with. It’s you that I love.’

* * *

Mari searched his eyes. She so desperately wanted to believe him. ‘How can I believe you?’

His expression softened. ‘Maybe, if you let me show you?’

‘How?’

He reached a gentle hand to her chin, lifting it and dipping his face to her lips. ‘Like this,’ he said. He pressed his lips to hers, so gently, so poignantly that it almost broke her heart at the same time it was tearing down her defences.

He drew back. ‘I love you,’ he said, and that was when she saw the tears in his eyes. Tears that mirrored her own. ‘I’m sorry it took me so long to realise the truth. I’m sorry I caused you so much pain and sorrow. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.’

She blinked away the moisture sheening her eyes as she crumpled his shirt in her fist and pulled him through the door, shutting it behind him as she led him to her bed. ‘You know I’m going to hold you to that?’

‘I want you to.’

* * *

He was naked in her bed, the sheet covering his loins, his beautiful chest exposed. He’d made love to her so tenderly that he’d plucked her heartstrings like he’d been playing a harp, and now she lay panting and satiated in his arms.

‘It’s a miracle,’ he said, ‘finding you again.’

It had to be some kind of miracle. Luck or happenstance didn’t come close.

‘Serendipity,’ Mari said, thinking of the word that had appealed so much to Rosaria, the thought followed by instant regret. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘for making out that I didn’t want to stay for your mother’s funeral. Every time we made love, I knew that I was falling deeper for you. Every time, I realised I loved you and I couldn’t stay, knowing that the longer I stayed, it would only get harder to leave you.’

He looked down at her, his dark brows furrowed. ‘That’s why you were in such a hurry to get away? Because you’d discovered you loved me?’

She nodded. ‘I couldn’t tell you. I dare not tell you. Because I feared that history would repeat itself, because you didn’t want a wife, and I’d end up alone and broken again.’

He dropped his head, pressing his lips to her shoulder. ‘I thought things had changed between us too. I thought things might be different. But I was too stupid to realise what I had. I’d buried my feelings so deep inside me that I didn’t recognise it for what it was. I’m so sorry.’

He rested a hand on the slightest curve of her lower belly, where their babies lay nestled deep below. ‘And here we have history repeating itself, but only the good bits, and you’ll never be alone again.’ He leaned down to kiss her nose, her mouth, her chin, and then he leaned down to kiss the almost imperceptible swell of her belly before lifting his face to hers again. ‘I love you, Mari. I’ve wasted twenty years. I promise never to waste another moment.’

Mari smiled up at him, at this man she’d loved in another life, this man who loved her now, and she believed him. ‘I love you,’ she said, ‘so very much.’

Her heart soared. And it was so liberating to be able to put voice to her emotions. It was so liberating to be able to admit it to the man she loved.

He looked at her, his eyes wide. ‘That’s the first time you’ve actually said the words to me.’

She wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘I know. I promise it won’t be the last.’

‘I love you, Señora Estefan. I love you, Mari.’

She smiled under his beautiful mouth. ‘Marianne.’

EPILOGUE

MARIANNE APPROACHED THEfive-month mark of her pregnancy with mounting trepidation and concern, fearing that the past might revisit her, sending her back into that dark place where she’d been twenty years before.

But her team of physicians and midwives was there to monitor her and assure her all was well. And above all, Dom was there to hold her close through day and night and promise that she would never be alone again.

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