Page 220 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

He’d have to deliver them to her himself.

Mari’s ultrasound appointment was scheduled, her ride-share booked and expected at any moment. The knock on the door came as a surprise. The drivers usually texted their arrival.

She pulled open the door. ‘Thanks for the courtesy,’ she said, smiling, expecting to see her driver. Except it wasn’t her driver.

‘Dom?’ she said, every cell in her body heading south. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I came to see you.’

Her heart stuttered. Her brain scrambled. Her stomach swirled.

‘Why?’

‘I brought the divorce papers.’

She swallowed. ‘And you couldn’t just have posted them? Like any normal person would have.’

He blinked. Of course, he was far from normal. ‘I could have.’

A car pulled up a little way down the street. Her phone pinged. ‘Oh,’ she said, looking at her phone screen. ‘That’s my ride. I have to go.’

‘Where are you going? I can take you.’

‘Um…no.’ There was absolutely no chance of that. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Why?’ he asked, scowling. ‘Are you meeting a man?’

She scoffed. ‘And if I was? Why don’t you just leave the papers here and I’ll sign them and get them back to you?’ She looked down at his hands, but they were empty. ‘Where are the papers?’

‘In my car.’

Her phone pinged again. Her driver waiting for her appearance, if not a response. ‘Look, I have to go.’

‘And I said I’d take you.’

‘No.’

‘If you want the divorce papers—’

‘I thought you wanted this divorce! It was you who insisted on it.’ Her phone pinged again. ‘Look, I have to go.’ She tried to step past him but he shot out an arm, preventing her egress.

On the street the driver was out of his car and looking towards the pair on the doorstep. She lifted a hand in acknowledgment. ‘I’ll be right there,’ she called.

But Dom turned, saw the driver and was on the path and bearing down on him in an instant. There were few words exchanged, but multiple bills were handed over, and the driver waved, gave a beaming smile and happily drove away.

‘Why did you do that?’ she asked when he returned.

‘You don’t need a driver,’ he said. ‘Not when you’ve got me to take you where you need to go. Now, where are we going?’

Mari recited the address of the clinic without disclosing what it was. Twenty years previously she’d never managed to tell Dom that she was pregnant, let alone with his twins. She’d been eagerly awaiting his return to share the news, to share the joy. But his return had been delayed, first by the death of his father, and then by the increasing responsibilities he’d had to shoulder. She’d tried to tell him by phone, thinking it might motivate him to return, but he’d begged off the call and asked her if it could wait, something was happening, and the precious secret she’d held was never divulged.

Until the day, four months too early, that her waters had broken.

And then Dom had rung to say that he was snowed under with the business, that he didn’t expect her to wait for him, that it wasn’t fair, that she should move on with her life.

And there was nothing left for her to say but to agree with him.

This time she’d vowed to tell Dom that she was pregnant, if today’s scan revealed that all was well. He had a right to know, even if they were divorced. But she hadn’t figured on him finding out this way.

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