Page 119 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

‘Did I hurt you?’

He cursed himself for forgetting the damage that was hidden under curls so abundant that the small area where the hair had been cut away to suture a scalp wound was totally concealed.

She shook her head and laid a hand on his arm, her face filled with excitement, not pain. ‘No... No, I remember something!’

He tensed, his expression guarded. The moment he had wanted and also dreaded appeared to be here.

‘What do you remember?’

Would she laugh or would she hate him?

Her nose wrinkled as she put the flashes of images and sensations into words, haltingly at first, and then with more confidence, afraid that if she didn’t share what she was seeing and feeling the memory might vanish again.

‘I was looking out of my bedroom window and I saw someone. I knew it was you, even though you were too far away for me to see your face.’ A little smile flickered across her face as she looked at him. ‘You move... You have a very distinctive walk. So I must have been expecting you.’

He felt the small fingers on his forearm tighten and swallowed. ‘You were.’

She nodded. ‘I remember watching as you got closer, and I remember feeling...’ She pressed a hand to her chest and her wide, wondering eyes lifted to his face. ‘I felt excited and kind ofnervous...’

But it had been more than that. Her forehead furrowed and her eyes half closed as she tried to articulate the surge of emotions she experienced as she relived the moment.

The scene playing again in her head felt like real time, not a memory.

‘Is that it?’ he asked. ‘Or do you remember anything else?’

‘There’s more... I know there is,’ she said huskily, moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue. It was so frustrating. It was as if an open door had slammed in her face, just after she had opened it. ‘But the next part is vivid.’

‘What part?’

‘I ran down the stairs and opened the door. You were standing there, and my heart was thudding and butterflies were kicking in my stomach.’

‘What’s the last thing you remember?’

‘You smiling and me wanting to kiss you so badly that it was an ache. Did I?’

He shook his head. His body had reacted to this artless confidence with painful arousal and a fresh stab of guilt. If he had been able to find the words to bring this charade to a stop there and then, doctors’ warning or not, he would have. He was rarely at a loss for the right words, but he was at that moment. The reason being that his brain was involved in creating a very detailedwhat if?scenario.

What if Clemmie had followed through with the impulse and kissed him?

Would he have kissed her back?

Where would it have stopped if he had explored her mouth and felt her warm body plastered up against him?

The thought shook free the memory that still surfaced regularly, of a very tipsy Clemmie, just eighteen, lying there, linking her arms around his neck and pouting as she demanded a birthday kiss.

He had done the honourable thing and pushed her away. He had seen the hurt in her eyes a little later, when she had been packing up the remains of their picnic. He had walked fully clothed into the lake, hoping an icy swim would relieve his agony. He’d pretended that when he had slipped.

Where was an icy lake when you needed one?

‘No,’ he said.

A sliver of sympathy flickered into her wide green eyes as she studied his face, the lines etched around his dark eyes and the deep grooves around his mouth. It looked likely that Joaquin was suffering the sort of headache that was drumming into her own temples.

‘I wonder why?’ she said, her voice vague, her thoughts drifting as she struggled to retain an interest in anything beyond the distracting pain drilling into her skull.

He realised she remained oblivious to the fact that she had taken the genie out of the bottle. The rules had changed. She had taken away the forbidden, leaving the attractively possible in the vacuum.

He couldn’t stop the what ifs. It had always felt like an unspoken pact, what was between him and Clemmie, and it had been. It was safe that way... But now she had spoken out, in the mistaken belief that those barriers no longer existed.

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