Page 109 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

‘Except you don’t have one. All right, all right!’ she tacked on quickly, when his expression slid from irritated to thunderous. Marriage was not a subject he was capable of joking about. ‘I think—’

Before she could complete her placatory sentence the tickle in her nose exploded into a full-blown sneeze that was quickly followed by another. One hand pressed to her face, she reached into her bag for a tissue. The contents were in her lap, minus any tissues, when she heard the exasperated click of Joaquin’s tongue.

‘The glovebox.’

She nodded and reached forward. The tissues fell out, along with a small leather box. The gold tooled letters in the aged leather made her brows lift.

His eyes swivelled sideways, and before he could tell her to leave it alone she had opened the box and was viewing the ring that lay inside the cushioned velvet.

Was this why he had overreacted? she wondered. He was already secretly engaged? Or on the point of becoming engaged? Did he not want the world, including her, to know before he popped the question?

‘I wouldn’t have told anyone. Iwon’ttell anyone,’ she mumbled, putting the pain in her chest down to the fact that he hadn’t trusted her with his secret. In fact, he had lied.

‘Tell anyone what?’

‘That you are engaged—or about to be.’

‘Did you not hear a word I have been saying? I am not getting engaged. Will you put the damned thing back?’ he growled.

‘All right...all right,’ she returned, examining the ring, which she had slid onto her finger. ‘She must have very slim fingers,’ she said, hating the unknown woman.

He sighed, barely clinging to his temper. ‘I am not getting engaged.’

‘I’m not going to blab.’

‘Take it off, Clemmie.’

There was a small pause, interrupted only by her frantic huffing. ‘I’m trying to... Butter... Have you got any butter?’

‘Butter?’

‘To grease my finger. Or ice.’

‘For God’s sake!’ he ground out. ‘Just leave it. I’ll—’

Joaquin never got to finish his sentence.

His life didn’t flash before his eyes, but time did seem to go into slow motion. Conversely, his thought processes seemed to speed up, evaluating his options with a cool logic devoid of emotion as the lorry that had careered across the central reservation up ahead maintained its head-on collision course with them and picked up speed.

There was not going to be any last-minute reprieve unless he effected it.

He registered a squeak from the passenger seat. No scream—just a quick, breathy, ‘I’m fine.’

Was that in response to a question he didn’t recall voicing? There was no time to speculate, just sift through the alternatives.

They were limited.

Do nothing. Drive into the steady stream of vehicles on the opposite side of the road. Or hope there was a soft landing beyond the hedge that skirted the embankment.

It turned out there was a ditch.

The car lay at a forty-five-degree angle, its back wheels spinning, the sound loud above the drumming in his ears. He’d turned to Clemmie, with a grin that was fifty percent adrenaline and fifty percent relief on his face, when there was a deafening thunder as the lorry crashed about fifty yards north of them.

He didn’t look to see where. He could see Clemmie’s face and she wasn’t grinning back. She was unconscious, her blood-streaked face ashen.

A hundred lessons in what to do when dealing with a casualty slid through his head. They were instantly discarded. This was not a casualty—this was Clemmie. He struggled to push the emotion away and deal with the facts.

Spinal injuries—do not move. Maintain airway. Recovery position.

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