Page 42 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

Romano waited as she hesitated in that way she had, of seeming to think carefully about her words before she said them—only this time they came bursting from her lips like a torrent of sweet petals.

‘I admired that man,’ she breathed. ‘I applauded the way you came through all that tumult to survive. But I couldn’t tell you, or show you—because you’d told me not to. In fact, keeping my emotions out of it was one of your stipulations for continuing our liaison. I thought you were being cruel and controlling. It was only as I got to know you better that I realised you were simply being careful.’

‘But not any more!’ he declared urgently. ‘I behaved badly. I shouldn’t have insisted you wear those damned diamonds, I should have let you wear what the hell you pleased, because you are you, and it is you that I love. I love you, Kelly Butler. That’s…that’s all.’

‘No, that’s not all, because I have some things you need to hear, too,’ she whispered, her fingertip tracing the curve of his lips. ‘You need to know that mistrustingyouwas a way of protecting myself, because I was terrified of falling in love with you and getting my heart broken—fulfilling all my mother’s dire predictions about men. But she was wrong, and I’m not frightened any more. I’m free to tell you that I love you, Romano. I always have and I always will.’ She gave a helpless shrug. ‘I just can’t seem to help myself.’

Romano made a choking sound as, tangling his trembling hands in the thick mane of her hair, he drove his mouth on hers—in a kiss of passion and possession he would remember for the rest of his life. He thought about asking her where the bedroom was, though the place was so small he could probably work it out for himself.

And he didn’t want to wait, or delay.

He couldn’t.

He was pulling off her clothes with an exhilaration and urgency which made him feel about nineteen and she was tugging at his shirt with equal zeal. His jeans only made it as far as his ankles and so did hers, their flesh warm and giving where they touched, and he gave a groan of feral bliss as he pushed inside her tight, wet heat.

‘Porca miseria!’he choked out helplessly.

It was over very quickly.

‘Too fast,’ he murmured.

‘Maybe we could do it more slowly next time.’ Snuggling up to him, Kelly yawned, thinking that she’d never been lying half naked on her sitting room carpet with a man before and she was rather enjoying this very different perspective of her apartment.

For a while she stayed there, holding him close and savouring the moment while thinking that life had never felt quite so perfect as it did now. She stroked a stray strand of thick ebony hair away from his forehead.

‘So what kept you?’ she murmured.

‘Hmm?’ He turned a little.

‘Have you only just decided you couldn’t live without me? It’s been six weeks, you know.’

‘Have you been counting?’ he teased.

‘Trying not to,’ she admitted.

He sighed. ‘I had things I needed to do before I came to you.’

‘Things like?’

‘I’ve been to France to stay with my nephew and niece. To get to know them a bit better, as you suggested to me so very vehemently,la mia cara.’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Flo didn’t say anything to me.’

‘I asked her not to.’

‘Right.’ For some reason this pleased her, that for onceRomanowas enjoying his sister’s confidence instead of her. Because that was the way it should be. She stroked his chest with the tip of her finger. ‘What else have you been doing?’

‘Signing the castle over to Floriana and her family.’

‘Gosh. And won’t you mind…letting go?’

He shrugged. ‘Not really. The proprietorial side of my character felt a fleeting sorrow,naturalmente. But you were right. I don’t want to live there permanently and I assume you don’t really want to either?’

Kelly held her breath at the potential significance of this question, but she certainly wasn’t going to bepushy. ‘I don’t care where we live,’ she told him truthfully.

But he didn’t appear to be listening. He was looking at the wall. At the painting she’d done just before she’d gone to art school when he’d cruelly rejected her suggestion of going on a date. Now it seemed that her romantism and disappointment had been apparent—showing in every fine brushstroke of the picture, making the flowers seem especially bright and the sky so darkly sombre. It was a painting of hope and despair, she realised—only now all that despair had melted away.

‘That’s a painting of the school,’ he said slowly.

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