Page 52 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

‘I’m in your hands, Your Majesties. Though perhaps Her Highness and I could have a discussion in private regarding the arrangements, since I’ve always considered a wedding is more about the bride than the groom.’

Her parents gave each other a quick glance, and to Anastacia a sharp one. Were they thinking to refuse him? How...quaint to believe they had any control over this where he was concerned.

He turned his attention to Anastacia. ‘I suspect the garden would be pleasant enough at this time of the year, Your Highness.’

She smoothed her hands down her dress then stood with only a moment’s hesitation. She looked down at him, her gazing morphing into something flinty, sharp, slicing right into him. He relished it, the flare of fire in her that burned, hinting at the woman beneath. The one who didn’t want to hide. She raised an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth kicked up in response.

‘Are you coming, Mr Lane?’

CHAPTER TWO

ANAWALKEDTHROUGHthe vast palace halls with Aston beside her. He didn’t try to make conversation. There was no flirtation. They moved in silence other than the echo of their footsteps on the polished marble floors. That didn’t stop her body reacting to him. Her mind had blanked the moment she’d set eyes on Aston Lane, the first time since the Spring Ball, in his impeccable dark suit, crisp white shirt and vibrant blue tie, the colour of his eyes. Dressed for business, the only problem being the business washer.

Ana’s thoughts churned as violently as her belly, which seemed as if it contained a nest of vipers, twisting and knotting. Only a short time ago, it might have been her dream for her parents to suggest marrying this man. It was a secret fantasy that had begun the moment she’d met him. Once, all the girls at her school had talked about crushes and practised signatures in the name of whichever boy had snagged their imagination. Back then, she hadn’t understood, marvelling at the choices the other girls seemed to have had. All she knew was that she’d be marrying a prince and he’d be chosen for her.

On meeting Aston, she’d understood the strength of a crush. Thoughts of him had filled her waking moments, her dreams. Love. Marriage. Impossibilities. But what had they hurt? When immersed in those dreams, she’d been the Anastacia before her accident, his goddess. He was the man who’d seen her, craved her. Her fertile imaginings had taken root when she’d been another person altogether.

Now she’d been thrust into a kind of nightmare.

She’d known there was an expectation she’d marry someone her parents had chosen for her, yet seeing Cilla and Caspar fall in love, rapidly, deeply and irrevocably, had planted a seed that perhaps it was something she could have too. That, whilst she might have to marry a prince, there washopefor more than a sterile relationship borne of duty. Something to aspire to.

Hope was such a cruel thing when so viciously cut down. She wasn’t a goddess any more. She was unmistakably mortal, not the woman he’d met at the ball—the woman she’d wanted him to see, to take notice of. That woman was now a ghost. She clenched her fists, nails cutting into her palm. Her parents, she might excuse on a more charitable day. Aston...? She’d always thought of him like the elusive lynx that stalked the alpine forests here—wild and free, impossible to pin down. Somehow those thoughts had given her a futile kind of hope that maybe there was something more for her.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

She realised that she was walking faster now, though his long strides kept up with ease. Yet no speed was fast enough. She wanted to break into a run to escape this. The feelings. The humiliation that she was being sold for a quick wedding like the damaged goods she was.

‘To the maze.’

It was a place she often went to contemplate. Deliberately taking wrong turns, sitting in the garden chairs placed at the dead ends, surrounded by the high hedges. Her parents never understood why she didn’t simply take the shortcut straight to the centre, with its grand fountain and shaded pergola. She believed they missed the point. It was about the journey, not the destination.

‘Trying to lose me so quickly?’ he asked.

‘What if I said yes?’

She arrived at the palace doors and opened them wide. The air was cool, the sunlight sudden and bright. Ana squinted.

Aston cocked his head. ‘That would be disappointing. Since it seems like I’ve only found you again.’

She looked up at him and his intense gaze fixed on her, almost as bright and blazing as the sunshine outside. It was as if he was trying to peer right into the heart of her. She didn’t want to be exposed, for him to witness her cracks, her flaws. He’d only known her as the perfect princess. She feared what he’d think of this changed version of herself.

‘I wasn’t lost. I was right here.’

Except she had been lost. In many ways, she wasstilllost. It was as if she had no tether at all.

‘I was told you were happy with the arrangement. That suited me. There’d been plans for you to marry Santori without a fuss, so it seemed logical to me at the time.’

Logical. She didn’t know why the use of that word in this situation stung. In her fantasies, she’d expected more—for him to want her, to love her. They’d been a safe kind of thing, and she’d known deep in her heart that they were unattainable. Now she only felt disappointment so heavy and oppressive it might crush her. That he was...settling.

Aston Lane was a man she’d always believed wouldn’t sell out or sell himself, and yet he’d done that and bought her in the process, not for love but for some other reason. She’d thought he was a man who struck his own path. Yet he’d chosen a predictable one, in her world at least.

‘How gratifying romance isn’t dead.’

His expression changed to something fleeting, softer. ‘I recognise the error. A goddess like Flora should be nurtured—worshipped.’

They hadn’t even stepped into the sunshine and it was as if she’d gone up in flames, self-combusted at the thought of what his brand of worship might be. Oh, the tempting, tempting words slipping from his tongue... Was it the truth? Or was he like the snake in the garden of Eden, filling her head with pretty lies to get what he wanted?

She stepped through the doorway and down a short flight of sandstone steps to a gravel path. The tall yew hedges loomed large in front of them. The voice in the back of her head wouldn’t stay quiet. What could he possibly want with her? He was a man with the world at his feet. Yet she drove those feet forward to the entrance of the maze, where she hesitated. Aston stopped beside her, his presence palpable, like a living thing it loomed so large.

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