Page 86 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

Aston became deadly still as he regarded her, eyebrow raised. ‘Why would I not? I’d be standing on the top of the world.’

Except, they’d been his brother’s words, going by what his mother had told her. And here she was walking into dangerous territory. It required her to challenge him when it was something she was unfamiliar with, that she wasn’t certain of.

‘Are you sure it’syourdream?’

He put down his cup, placing his napkin in his lap.

‘What is this about?’ The sound of his voice—not just cool, but icy, like a frigid winter wind—should have sounded a warning. She carried on regardless because there was a need inside her to understand, to reduce the panic that seemed to build each day, the more she thought about things. In this case, what she didn’t know might hurt her, especially if it hurt Aston.

‘After you’ve climbed Everest, what then?’

He shrugged in a dismissive kind of way, and she was certain that he wouldn’t stop, that he’d keep exhausting himself, keep going, till one day he climbed the last of the eight thousanders or died. But, if he finished climbing the tallest peaks, what then? Would he be happy?

She wasn’t so sure. Ana knew she put a smile on his face but there was something more, something missing. They might lose themselves in each other’s bodies, might make love for hours, but he remained as remote as the mountain peaks he climbed. He’d been right. Convenient didn’t mean cold. Until Aston, she’d never truly understood how close to the flame she could fly. Then something else welled inside her, a sensation so big and all-encompassing, she refused to name it.

‘Climbing Everest is dangerous,’ she said, trying to tempt him into answering.

Ana realised her error immediately. He pinned her with his flinty-blue gaze. ‘Life’s dangerous. You can cross the road and be struck by a car. You can fall down a flight of stairs and break your neck. Nothing’s guaranteed.’

‘But that’s not placing yourself in harm’s way. How many people died on the mountain last year?’

She knew the answer. Seventeen. She knew the answer for every year for the past ten, the grim toll, the statistics.

‘Stop speaking in circles, Ana. You have something to say? Say it.’

‘I don’t think this will make you happy. I think the thought is making you miserable.’

Nothing about it seemed to give him any joy. It was as if this was a kind of obligation, not a challenge he truly wanted to make his own.

‘What would you know about my happiness?’

She reared back a little. What would she know? It was all Ana thought about. She wanted to wake up to him each day and go to sleep with him at night. She wanted him to be happy withher. Happy with his choices in life. She just wasn’t sure he was. She had to make him see what he’d come to mean to her, because surely that meant something to him too?

‘I’m getting no sense of excitement from you about this. All I feel from you is obligation, that you’re doing something you don’t really want. I’m terrified that’s not going to be enough to get you to the top of that mountain and to keep you safe. And the thought of you not being safe is untenable to me.’

Aston stood, raked his hand through his hair and began to pace. He could see where this was going, as it had before with Michel. An old and familiar story. He’d been fooled into believing that this woman wouldn’t hold him back, yet here they were.

Live for me.

He tried every damned day, living life enough for two men.

‘Are you trying to change me? Because it seems, when I put a ring on your finger, you were happy enough with me then.’

Except that wasn’t true. Their whole relationship had been based on a crumbling foundation. She’d agreed to marry him because she’d been afraid. He’d only proposed to ensure his inheritance. That was the deal. Nothing more, nothing less.

‘Aston, we didn’t know each other. And, now I do, I’m trying to make you see.’

He wheeled round. She still sat at the table, gripping onto her empty coffee cup. ‘What? That you’re yet another person trying to tell me what to do?’

‘Your mother told me—’

‘Ah.’ He could imagine any number of things she might have said to Ana, filling her head with stories over dinner. ‘I see where this is going. What did she say?’

Ana stood now, slowly, carefully, approaching him as if he was some kind of wild animal fighting to break free of restraints. He felt it, the past six months compressing upon him, crushing the life out of him.

‘That your brother had always wanted to climb Everest. A-and I think that’s the thing. You don’t really want to want to do it for yourself, but you don’t know how to let it go.’

Theaudacity. She had no idea how long he’d planned, what it required, what he would sacrifice. How gruelling it would be to make the climb and then to keep going.

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