Page 3 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

‘Ah. So that’s why you’ve got a face even more like thunder than usual. Aren’t I showing the correct degree of appreciation, Romano? Do you want me to bow and scrape to you and simper my thanks?’

‘I want you to shut up for a while, if such a thing were humanly possible.’

‘I’m surprised you’re talking about being human, when everybody knows you’re the devil incarnate,’ she mumbled.

But Romano’s retort died on his lips, his gaze reluctantly drinking in her appearance despite the fact that she was wearing little he found commendable. Her striped sweater made her look like a cartoon character and her jeans were surprisingly practical and sturdy. And yet… How could she manage to make such a commonplace outfit looksexy? ‘You’re soaking,’ he observed unevenly.

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Where are the rest of your clothes?’

‘In the car.’

‘I didn’t see a car.’ He frowned. ‘In fact, I didn’t hear a car.’

‘No. It conked out, halfway up the drive.’

‘Conked out?’ Despite his fluency in four languages, the English colloquialism was unfamiliar to him.

‘Broken down. It won’t budge. I ran over something in the road and I think I’ve done something to the wheel.’

‘You think?’

‘Okay, I have!’ she shot back. ‘We don’t all have limos on tap, you know! The satnav stopped working and I got hopelessly lost. Even if the roads weren’t currently looking like rivers—this is a godforsaken place to find.’

‘It’s a castle on top of a hill—how hard can it be?’

‘A few signposts along the way might have been helpful!’

Softly, in Italian, he cursed. ‘Give me the car key and wait here,’ he ground out, grabbing a jacket.

Kelly told herself she was glad to see the back of him as he took the key and slammed the centuries-old door behind him, even though the back of him was almost as tempting as the delicious front of him. The journey here had been an absolute nightmare—like an animated version of the worst kind of fairy tale. Tall, creaking trees. Perilous drops into unseeable forests. A castle she had never liked, which had risen up before her, vast and daunting. And then, waiting inside was the ogre. The beast.

Except that he was neither of those things.

She fanned her face and tried to get her breathing back to normal, but it was a big ask, because how could anyone ever act normally when Romano Castelliari was around? That had always been her problem when he had been in the vicinity. There was something almostdangerousabout his beauty which set him apart from other mortals. His muscle-packed frame—all six feet plus of it. His eyes as dark as a starless night. Eyes which seemed capable of looking into your very soul—which was total fantasy on her part, because he’d never looked at her with anything but contempt.

She remembered the first time she’d ever seen him. She’d been peeping from an upstairs window at school when he’d arrived to take his sister out for lunch, in a shiny black car, with a chauffeur at the wheel. Had he known she was watching? Was that why he glanced up, dark eyes narrowed, his black hair ruffled in the light breeze? But that first sight of his face had come as something of a shock, for he had none of his half-sister’s sunny expression. She remembered thinking how cold his features looked. How hard and forbidding. But there was something about the sensual curve of his lips which badly made her want to kiss him. And just like that, she had lost her heart to him even though a man like that was never going to look twice at a schoolgirl, despite the fact that she’d been nearly eighteen and just about to go away to college.

Was that why she had taken to dressing up like an amateur seductress every time she saw him and making out as if she were always on her way to a party, much to his sister’s amusement? Because Flo had known the truth. That Kelly was the person least likely to have a wild social life. Not that Romano had appeared to notice her, no matter what she wore, or how she behaved. Which was why she had mistakenly brought things to a head and asked him if he fancied going to the pub for a drink on the last day of term, wearing a tarty outfit she’d borrowed from one of the other pupils. Hadn’t shedeservedthe derisive curve of his lips which had followed?

‘Go away, little girl,’ he had drawled contemptuously and she had done just that, hurt and humiliated.

Stop it, she thought distractedly. Juststop it. Romano Castelliari’s gorgeousness had never been in any doubt and she’d left behind her hero worship a long time ago. Good job too, because, judging by his behaviour since she’d arrived at his castle, he was still a judgemental snob and control freak. Nothing has changed, she recognised. He still doesn’t like you. And you don’t like him. End of story.

And hadn’t she got other stuff to think about? Scary, urgent stuff. Like, how was she was going to scramble together enough money to pay her rent now that the restaurant she worked in had finally gone bust? The part-time job didn’t pay much but it just about supplemented her meagre takings from the market stall.

But it was still a constant juggle, keeping all the balls in the air, and now one had come crashing down, she wasn’t sure how she was going to manage in the short term.

In an attempt to distract herself from the teeming of her worried thoughts, Kelly wondered where everyone was. Cocking her head, she listened for sounds of life but she could hear nothing other than the crackle of flames and the howl of the wind. Come to think of it, she hadn’t noticed any other cars when she’d been banging on that ancient door for what had seemed like hours, had she? A flicker of apprehension whispered over her skin at the thought of being alone in this vastcastellowith the Italian billionaire, but her musings evaporated when Romano reappeared a few minutes later, removing his dripping jacket and depositing her battered suitcase on the flagstoned floor.

‘Did you get manage to get it to start?’ she questioned.

‘No,’ he snapped.

‘But it’s a hire car,’ she wailed, thinking about the damage clause in the contract she’d signed.

‘I’ll make sure it’s moved off the road tonight,’ he said, from between gritted teeth. ‘And get someone to look at it properly in the morning.’

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