Page 55 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

‘That’s not all you’re curious about. I can see you have so many questions begging to be asked.’

‘How do you know?’

Most people didn’t glean anything from her. Some unkind people had called her ‘the ice princess’. That had been a carefully cultivated persona. Emotion hadn’t been valued in her family. Ana had learned years before that to get any attention from her parents she needed to be quiet, dutiful. She was their mirror. They wanted only to see themselves when they looked at her. Viewing themselves as perfect, they’d expected the same from their children.

‘A world of thought shows in your eyes. You seem...worried.’

He saw too much. It was as if a hand gripped her throat. Marrying meant there’d be no hiding from him. He’d lay all her wounds bare, wounds she wanted no one to see—particularly him. Because if she showed him her deepest hurts and fears and he didn’t believe her, was disappointed? It would crush her.

‘If I ask questions, will you answer them?’

He raised his eyebrows, as if surprised at the question. ‘Of course. I’m not interested in secrets.’

A tension that had been ratcheting tighter and harder seemed to ease a little, like a garrotte loosened at the last moment, allowing her to take a breath. She didn’t know this man, not really. Yet he seemed willing for her to know him. And there was one question her ego had been pressing to get an answer to.

‘Why marryme?’ He climbed mountains into the clouds whilst she was so...earthbound.

Aston quirked one dark, strong eyebrow. ‘Whynotmarry you?’

Ana crossed her arms. ‘That’s no kind of answer. You promised.’

He blew out a slow breath. ‘You’re a princess. Our mothers knew each other. There’s a family connection. You understand marriage for practical reasons, not love. Ergo, you’re perfect.’

It all sounded so sensible, as her parents had claimed:this is a sensible choice. Yet her body carried the evidence of her imperfections which her mother couldn’t let her forget. And she’d rather stopped wanting to be sensible...

‘What if I don’t want to be the perfect princess any more?’

‘Who do you want to be instead?’

Wasn’t that the question? ‘I—I don’t know.’

It hurt to make that admission, the uncertainty of it. She wanted so desperately to discover herself, but didn’t know how. So much of her life had simply been dictated to her.

‘No matter what you say, you’ll always be perfect to me.’ He looked down at her with his brilliant blue eyes, the colour of alpine gentians that dotted the mountains in spring. Something about him in that moment seemed so serious and solemn. Had she been a romantic any longer, she might have believed him.

Ana shook her head. ‘You don’t know me at all.’

He didn’t deny it. ‘There are other considerations.’

‘Which are?’

‘Do you remember the Spring Ball? How we danced?’

She’d been thrilled each moment in his arms at the strength of him. How safe she felt. How desired and desirable. Telling him as much might leave her exposed. When so many people had tried to strip her down to her essentials, she still wanted to keep some things close.

‘I danced with many people that night,’ she said, as if the time spent with him was of no consequence—another lie she told to protect herself.

Whilst she’d danced with many, she only remembered one. As long as she lived, she’d never forget how it had felt to be in his arms, which made this situation even more dangerous. He wanted the woman she’d been. That woman had been a fantasy created by others, like her own fantasises about him.

‘Perhaps I should remind you.’ Everything was hushed here at the centre of the maze, protected from the real world by the high hedges. The only sound aside from their voices was the twitter of birds in the shrubbery and the tinkle of the water from the fountain.

Aston stood back and gave her some space. ‘Care to dance?’

CHAPTER THREE

‘CARETODANCE?’

Memories came rushing back of a magical night when, for a few breathless moments, Ana had allowed herself to believe anything was possible. Aston held out his hand, palm up. She looked at it, recalling the way it had felt against her skin—not soft and weak, but the hands of a man who knew hard, physical work. Hands that, in the midnight hours, she’d dreamed of having on her body. It was so tempting to touch him again.

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