Page 129 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

She looked at Joaquin, who had been standing still, as he slammed his glass down on a table and flopped into a chair with less than his usual inherent elegance. There was a stunned expression on his face as he leaned back, dragging both hands through the dark hair that had begun to curl on the back of his neck.

‘I really thought I was beyond being shocked, but you...’

His eyes drifted to her lips, to their full, passionate curve, and he shook his head. He had always prided himself on never making assumptions, but in his defence even to imagine that a woman with that mouth beinguntouched...

‘So, I need to know,’ she told him.

He watched as she straightened her spine and lifted her chin, delivering to him aBring it on, I can take itstare. The extraordinary colour of her eyes was emphasised by the dark smudges beneath them.

‘Is it me?’ she asked. Twin circles of colour stood out like flags on her smooth cheeks.

‘Is that a trick question?’

She slung him a frustrated look and gritted her teeth. ‘I’ve never been very... Well, not verysexy,’ she admitted bluntly. Her eyes narrowed when he gave a short laugh. ‘You think that’s amusing?’ she asked, her throat aching and scratchy with hurt.

Thinking of the testosterone-charged fire in his groin, he shook his head before stretching his legs out in front of him and linking his hands behind his head.

It was an indolent pose that sent her resentment spiralling.

‘Sorry...a private joke,’ he said.

‘Were we about to split up when all this happened?’ she hypothesised, thinking that if this was the Joaquin she had got engaged to she was surprised it had lasted at all.

‘That was never discussed.’

‘Am I frigid?’

She ticked the question off on one finger, as though it was high on the list of possibilities she had been compiling. Then she paused and cleared her throat, flashing him an apologetic look from under her lashes.

‘Or is it you...? Do you have issues?’

Too stunned by her revelation to halt her stream of wild speculation, he stood there barely registering the comforting pressure of the small hand that had come to rest on his arm as she’d produced her last theory.

‘If it is you...’ Her lashes came down in a luxuriant protective sweep as she probed delicately. ‘There is nothing to be ashamed of—’

‘Virgin?’

Joaquin spoke the word with the inflection of someone pronouncing a word that had no meaning. Then he shook his head as if he was just waking up, messing up his hair as it he dragged his hand back and forth across his scalp.

‘You are a virgin?How?’ he demanded. ‘Is that even possible? All this rubbish about you not being sexy and asking if you’re frigid... You wonder why I laughed? Seriously—howare you a virgin?’

‘Well, I kind of hoped you would have the answer to that one. I assumed that... Well... I thought it was a subject that would have come up between us.’ She looked down at the ring weighing down her finger and tacked on drily, ‘Considering.’

Whathadthey spoken about? It would seem they’d had plenty of time for talking, because they clearly hadn’t been doing anything else, she thought bitterly—which left open only that explanation that still didn’t seem possible to her.

‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Joaquin,’ she said gently. ‘It happens to a lot of men.’

Joaquin shook himself free of his contemplation of her mouth as it finally dawned on him what she was suggesting. He laughed again.

‘This is not a joke, Joaquin.’

‘That is true. I have been called many things in my life, but impotent...?’Only Clemmie. ‘And how wouldyouknow what happens to lots of men?’

The cruel taunt sent a rush of heat under her skin.

‘There’s no need to be so defensive,’ she countered spikily.

Of all the options, this seemed the most likely. She might never have set the world alight with her sexuality, but she didn’t have any hang-ups, and her virginity had zero to do with moral principles. Frankly, anyone who could look at Joaquin and thinkLet’s waitfor a ringhad to have serious issues!

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