Page 124 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

Sleep came before she had decided.

Joaquin chose the room a door down from where Clemmie was and went downstairs. An hour or so and several emails later, he made his way back to the top floor and, seeing the light under the door of his bedroom, he knocked.

There was no reply.

He fingered the card in his pocket that had come with her discharge pack. It listed the signs to look out for with concussion. Scanning them, he figured that checking someone was alive trumped the invasion of privacy.

Calling her name, he pushed the door open. The main light and the bedside lamp were on and the curtains were open. He walked across to the bed—his bed—where Clemmie was lying fully clothed, one arm flung above her head, her face turned into the pillow, exposing the bruised side of her face. Her chest rose and fell with slow breaths. Her colour seemed good.

As he looked down at her the surge of fierce emotion he’d experienced before gathered in his chest and he found himself reaching out, the action instinctive. His expression intent, he brushed a strand of her hair from her cheek, freezing as she shifted and murmured in her sleep.

When her breathing evened again he went to the chair set against the wall and took the folded throw that was there. He spread it across her and walked out of the room.

Twice in the night he returned to check on her. Both times she looked fragile and vulnerable, and he felt a total heel for wanting her.

The first time she was sound asleep.

The second time she opened her eyes and looked at him.

‘Don’t go...please stay.’

He did. Arranging himself beside her, he drew her into his arms and felt her sigh. Even after she had fallen asleep he stayed, stroking her hair. He recognised the irony; he had never stayed the entire night with a woman, and this one he had not even had sex with.

Clemmie was not a woman you just had sex with—she was a woman you made love to. And for the first time in his life Joaquin found himself regretting that he was not a man who made love. He was a man who had sex.

Clemmie awoke confused. She had no idea where she was. And then, as she moved and her bruises made their presence felt, it all came back. Well, not all—and that was the issue.

She sat up in bed and looked down at the cashmere throw that lay across her legs. She genuinely didn’t remember how it had got there. Normally this would have bothered her, but compared with all the other things she had forgotten this was a very small thing.

She had dreamt that Joaquin was holding her last night. A dream so real she had half expected to find him there this morning. It had made her feel safe and warm.

How could her mind blank out sex...making love with a man like Joaquin? A man she had been pretending not to lust after most of her adult life—actually all her adult life. She was living her own fantasy and she had forgotten it!

She eased out of the clothes she had slept in and twisted around in front of the mirror to view the bruises that were developing. There was a particularly livid one along one shoulder, but at least that one could be hidden. Not so the one her cheek, which looked terrible.

She rifled through a bag she recognised—presumably packed by her mum—and was glad to find a selection of toiletries and make-up.

The shower eased some of her stiffness, and a judicious application of concealer on top of her tinted moisturiser improved but didn’t hide her facial bruises.

She knelt on the floor and selected linen trousers and a matching jacket that seemed appropriate for a hospital appointment.

Just thinking about it made her stomach quiver with apprehension. She told herself not to be a wimp and texted her mum before making her way downstairs, using the back route that took her through several interconnecting rooms and down one of the many staircases.

This one led directly to the kitchen, where there was a pile of warm croissants on a tray and the smell of coffee in the air. She poured herself a mug from the pot, buttered a croissant and stood eating it as she looked out of the window, envying the grazing sheep in the field who, it seemed to her, had an inner peace that eluded her.

Yes,she decided, rinsing her mug under the tap.I have definitely lost it. I am envying sheep.

She walked through several rooms to reach the hall and there was still no sign of Joaquin. She was sliding her arms into her jacket when he appeared, dressed in a pale grey suit, a white shirt and, she assumed as a concession to informality, no tie.

His hair was still wet from the shower and slicked back, dark against the even gold tones of his skin. Any cuts on his face had obviously been superficial, because they were scarcely visible this morning. He exuded a vitality that, considering the fact she felt terrible, was almost an insult.

I look like the morning after the night before without the fun, and he looks like a...a...sex god!

The ease with whichsex godhad sprung to her mind deepened her frown and made her blush—an irritating habit she ought to have long outgrown.

She took comfort from the fact that Joaquin couldn’t know why she was blushing, and that it probably just blended into the bruises that the make-up she had applied didn’t totally disguise.

Joaquin glanced at her, frowning in a way that she decided suggested he thought she looked terrible too. She took the silent insult on board and glowered.

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