Page 211 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

It was everything she hadn’t wanted and everything she had.

It was agony.

Mari and Dom were both still lying, their limbs intertwined on the bed. It should have been the perfect post-coital moment. That moment of post lovemaking bliss where they just luxuriated in their closeness and the warmth of the intimacy they’d just shared, sharing breath and kisses and the feel of satiated flesh against flesh.

It should have been perfect.

Except Mari knew it wasn’t. Not until she knew.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d gone back to Australia looking for me?’

He stirred next to her. ‘What?’

‘You went back to Sydney.’

He wiped a hand over his face and sighed. ‘My mother told you that?’

She nodded. ‘Why did you go looking for me?’

‘It was a mistake,’ he said, his voice gruff. ‘I quickly learned that.’

And Mari didn’t have to ask him why. Because she knew he’d learned she was married and had so evidently slammed shut the door on her past.

There was no point trying to defend herself. She knew she’d be trying to defend herself against the indefensible.

‘Why are we talking about the past,’ Dom said, reaching for her, ‘when we’re both here now, in the present?’

Again, she thought, so soon? And Mari wasn’t even sure she was in the mood after their latest discussion. Until Dom’s mouth met hers and his hand swept down her side, lighting fires under her skin, and she forgot about the past in the passion of the present.

And Mari gave herself up once again to the pleasures of the flesh. Gave herself up to the pleasures of Dominico. Because that wall of resistance had fallen, and now there was no way she could say no.

Foolishly, naïvely, she’d imagined on a repeat performance, excellent as it had been, that Dom couldn’t take her higher than he had before. She’d imagined that because he was older he would flag. She’d imagined wrongly. She hadn’t imagined a man in his prime who knew how to extract every bit of joy from the act of sex, that he knew how to bestow it. It was like being gifted a masterclass in making love.

It was a gift.

Afterwards she lay panting, the heated passion of their union giving way to the chill of truth. Because now she could no longer fight the truth—the truth she’d been fighting ever since she’d stepped into Dom’s suite at the hotel in Melbourne. The truth that she’d tried to deny by keeping her distance. The truth she’d buried under an avalanche of hatred—hatred that wasn’t entirely as well founded as she’d imagined.

The truth—that there was a part of her that was still in love with Dominico. A tiny part, no more than a smoking spark that had refused to be extinguished, no matter his crimes against her, no matter the passing of the decades. A spark that, if she wasn’t careful, could flicker into life and consume her, as it would if she fell in love with Dominico all over again.

And it terrified her.

Because she knew that it was pointless. That their contract had an end date and that she would be expected to leave. He’d demanded it and she’d been only too happy to agree. She’d promised she would leave him at the first opportunity.

And now she knew she had to, before Dom could get rid of her.

* * *

Marianne was avoiding him. Dom didn’t understand how this could be possible when they spent their nights locked in passion together in his bed. He’d thought things had changed between them since that night on the beach, but time and again Dom went looking for her in the apartment, only to find her missing. At first, he’d assumed she’d gone for walks along the beach. But when he’d investigated further, it was to discover that she’d taken the car to visit his mother. And not just to talk, but he’d learned from her nurse that she’d been reading to his mother too, from the extensive library of books in both Spanish and English that she’d shared with Roberto.

Not that he had a lot of time to worry about Marianne. Between the Brazilian deal coming together and arrangements for the party, Dom had been well and truly occupied.

In fact, it was a miracle they’d been able to pull off the party. Despite the rush, somehow it had all come together—the guest list, the catering and, best of all, the joy of his mother, watching on from her wheelchair. She looked beautiful tonight. Her silvery hair had been gently styled into soft curves that framed her face. Her make-up covered the worst of the dark rings around her eyes and highlighted her noble, high cheekbones. Her lips were painted her favourite shade of red, adding vitality to her otherwise faded features.

The celebration had begun with a ceremony performed by the local priest, blessing the marriage of Dom and Mari. A serious ceremony where the hushed crowd had watched on while they’d exchanged their vows again and the priest had blessed their marriage, hoping it to be full of love and fruitful, and to bear children.

And while Dom knew those words to be empty wishes, through it all, he witnessed his mother looking beatific, sunken eyes and shrunken body in her wheelchair perhaps, but beaming in her lace finery, the party lights reflected brightly in her eyes. She was in her element.

And all the lies and pretence were worth it, he knew. To see his mother this happy, it was right.

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