Page 105 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

She didn’t want things to change.

Her small chin firmed; it didn’t have to. She took a deep, sustaining breath and her nostrils flared—not to smell the damp winter air that had entered the hallway, but the crisp, masculine scent that clung to his tall, lean person.

She paused to allow her heartbeat to return to normal and the skittering tingle in her belly to vanish, the tendrils of heat under her skin to cool. None of these things happened, but she stubbornly clung to the belief that they would.

‘Are you ready?’

She was ready, but his impatience triggered a belligerent defiance in her—because his impatience belonged to a man for whom people were never late. It was the impatience that came with having people arrive early—she was betting he didn’t notice—and the impatience that came when people were always eager to please.

She really hoped that when he did marry it would be to someone who would not encourage these traits, though it probably wouldn’t be. He’d marry someone who told him he was perfect; that was the way of the world. Oh, she knew he’d said he would never marry, and with his parents as an example she understood where he was coming from, but she was sure that one day he’d meet someone who would shake his certainty. Someone he would walk through fire to be with.

She repressed a little sigh and lifted her chin. Before the inevitable perfect, pouting wife turned up he was still her best friend.

‘Actually, no,’ she lied, embracing the illusion of control as she slanted a sweet smile up at his startled face.

She watched as his initial shock slid into a semi-amused dark, appreciative glitter that said he knew she might be and probably was winding him up. They’d always verbally fenced, and until she’d felt it again she hadn’t realised how much she had missed the buzz that was now in her blood.

At the foot of the stairs she paused and swung back, very aware of the eyes that were following her. Her bouncing curls followed her impetuous action before falling across one narrow shoulder.

‘I am grateful,’ she blurted suddenly.

His brows lifted and a lazy half-smile tugged one corner of his mouth into a fascinating smile. ‘It doesn’t show.’

‘Allow for the fact I’ve just put everything in the wrong recycling boxes.’

His brow arched. ‘Deliberately?’

She pushed out a scornful snort. ‘Don’t tell me you’d know a recycling box if it bit you on your...’

Her eyes dropped and she felt the scorch of heat on her cheeks before she fixed him with a glower, to show she had not been thinking about his excellent behind.

‘Consider this a learning experience,’ she told him. ‘Imagine that not everyone has people arriving early with smiles fixed on their faces, saying what they want to hear...it will make you a better person, Joaquin. Seriously, though, this is a nice thing for you to do. You are really helping me out of a bind.’

‘I feel sure you would have worked something out.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I would have. But travelling with you beats hitching.’ The dimple in her right cheek deepened.

Before he could ask if she was actually serious about the idea of hitching—he’d put nothing past her—she had whisked away, taking the stairs three at a time.

She hadn’t lost weight—she’d always been slim and she still was—but the curves of her body seemed more defined than he remembered. She was, he decided, searching for the right word and finding it,sleeker.

She made him think of a sleek cat, all supple curves and claws. The rear view of her bottom was pretty spectacular too, he observed objectively.

‘Go through!’ she yelled over her shoulder.

After a moment, he did. The options were limited. The only open door was at the end of the narrow tiled corridor, all the other doors along the way were closed, complete with locks.

He had walked the length of the kitchen he’d found himself in when she reappeared, breathless, fighting her way into a boxy quilted jacket. She was showing a different view of the jeans, and also a tiny sliver of smooth belly as she got her arm stuck half in and half out of the sleeve as it tangled with the oversized blouse.

‘Let me,’ he snapped out, annoyed at the effort it took to raise his eyes from that satiny sliver of bare flesh.

Her eyes lifted as she shook her head to dislodge the curls, revealing her green eyes, pale aquamarine. ‘I can manage.’

He arched a brow and shrugged.

Clemmie always had been incredibly stubborn—to an irritating degree. And that much at least had clearly not changed. His wide brow furrowed as he tried to pin down what the elusive change was.

Nothing as obvious as her skin, which was still translucently pale. Her stubborn little chin was still stubborn, and her mouth was still too wide for her small heart-shaped face. The green eyes, their irises rimmed by black that defined the colour, were still slightly slanted.

---