Page 98 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

‘Well, good luck—and have a good holiday.’

Clemmie made her goodbyes and, hunching her shoulders, set off for the walk home. That was one of the advantages of the house-share. She saved on transport costs. The house she occupied with ten other people, who in the agent’s details had been described as young professionals, was within easy walking distance of work.

Another was that against the odds they got on reasonably well—though not all were so young, and ‘professional’ was stretching the point. She spent the ten-minute walk considering this obstacle to her holiday, and by the time she had reached the house and let herself in she had a possible solution in mind.

The house was in darkness, the last of her housemates having left the previous evening. They had all made what the landlord had termed‘alternative arrangements’for the next fortnight—which was how long the landlord had said the decorators would be in.

She reached for the light switch and fished out her phone, unfastening her coat but leaving it on as she walked through to the kitchen.

It was a biggish house—high ceilings, three floors. The sort that had once boasted a cook and a maid. There were few original features remaining, but it did still retain the odd creaking board and dark corner, which were more noticeable when it was empty—like now.

Not an issue for Clemmie. who was not spooked by creaking boards. For the first eight years of her life she had lived in a much bigger and older house, with multiple creaks and even a reputed ghost. She didn’t believe in ghosts and she quite liked creaks.

Someone had left the radio playing, and the invisible news reader, sounding irritatingly upbeat about the situation, was outlining the combination of events that threatened train services this weekend.

Figuring the chances of the weather report offering any light relief were slim, she switched off the news channel and turned to her phone, scrolling until she reached the name Joaquin Perez and smiled to herself.

It wasn’t often that a librarian assistant’s list of contacts included a billionaire hedge fund boss who, among his accomplishments, was the founder of the Perez Investment House.

It was just as well she had his private number and also, just in case, that of his PA, because without them, access to the handsome, newsworthy and much lusted-after billionaire was virtually impossible. Members of the general public did not gain access to Joaquin without being screened by multiple layers of protective security.

It didn’t stop his fans trying. His perfect profile and other parts of his anatomy were frequently the subject of debate among his league of devoted online followers, who often shared crazy fantasies about him. They all seemed to share one fantasy—namely that they were the perfect woman for him and one night spent with them would make him realise this.

Clemmie had shared a night with him.

She had been eleven at the time, and Joaquin a lanky thirteen.

Her expression softened when the memory of him climbing in through her bedroom window slid through her head.

He had responded to her wail of‘It should have been me, not Chrissie!’by telling her she was being an idiot, before pulling the covers up to her chin and lying down beside her while she sobbed herself to sleep.

The next morning he had been gone before she woke and, going downstairs, found her mum asleep, her head on the kitchen table beside an empty wine bottle.

The anniversary of her twin’s death was still tough for them both—it always would be—but these days they got together and shared their memories of Chrissie. There were tears, but there was also laughter.

She was jolted back to the present bya deepvoice with an almost tactile ‘shiver down the spine’ quality.

‘Hold on. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

She hung on. She couldn’t hear what Joaquin was saying but, even muffled, his delivery suggested that any fools within a fifty-yard radius should take cover.

This was a Joaquin that she did not know; she wasn’t sure she’d want to. He was a supremely self-confident person. He had a self-confidence that bordered on arrogance...and actually crossed the line frequently.

You couldn’t simply correlate his confidence with the social position and wealth he had been born into, or the fortune he had made. It was more about self-belief and his total commitment to following through with something he thought strongly about.

He didn’t appear to need the approval of anyone.

More of a people-pleaser, Clemmie envied him sometimes.

‘Bad time?’ she asked.

‘No, Clemmie. I’m all yours.’

Those were words that she could imagine quite a few women heard in their dreams—in a different context, obviously. Because she and Joaquin were not friends with benefits—just friends.

And she liked it that way.

Her brow furrowed as she put her phone on speaker and laid it on the table, freeing up her hands to remove the annoying strands of untameable hair from her face.

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