Page 141 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

She grabbed a cardigan, threw it around her shoulders, slipped her feet into flat pumps, and went back out. She didn’t know what Vincenzo wanted to say to her, but she knew she had to be ready for it. She nerved herself accordingly.

He was by the sitting room window, looking out, his face in profile to her. He looked severe, but as she came in he turned. Whatever he was thinking, she didn’t have a clue.

He nodded, in lieu of saying anything, and crossed to the door, holding it open for her. She walked through into the entrance hall, opening the front door, picking up the handbag lying on a pier table next to it. They didn’t speak as they went down to the lobby, nor as they went out onto the pavement. The sun had gone and it was very slightly chilly. She was glad of the cardigan.

He still didn’t speak, and neither did she, as they paced beside each other heading for Holland Park Avenue.

The restaurant, looking swish enough for Vincenzo, was on their side of the busy road, and this early in the week was not full at this hour. She took her place at the table they were shown to, and then the business of presenting menus and ordering drinks took place, so it was some minutes before they were left alone.

Vincenzo glanced at the closed menu, but did not open it. Instead, he looked across at her. His face still had that reserved expression on it, now even more pronounced, and Siena felt a sudden shaft of apprehension. Whatever it was he’d come back to London to tell her, it was not going to be good. Nothing he ever said to her was good...

As she braced herself, Vincenzo’s inexpressive gaze rested on her, quite unreadable. Then he spoke.

‘I owe you an apology,’ he said.

Vincenzo saw Siena’s eyes widen. Whatever she’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that. But then, he thought sardonically, that was hardly surprising. Had he not resolved to say it, he wouldn’t have expected it himself.

‘I owe you an apology,’ he said again. He kept his gaze levelled on her. ‘It has been owing to you,’ he said, ‘for some time.’

He paused, as if he might be waiting for her to sayWhat for?But that look of surprise was still paramount in her widened eyes.

‘I have behaved badly to you, for which I apologise.’

He took the slightest of breaths and kept going. This had to be done.

‘My reception of the news you came to tell me in my office was not acceptable. I apologise for it completely. Unreservedly.’

There was silence. Complete silence.

Then Siena said slowly, ‘You came to England to tell me this?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

The slightest frown creased her brow. ‘Why?’

‘Because,’ he said, ‘my apology has, as I say, been owing for some time.’

The frown did not lighten. ‘Why now?’ she said.

His right index finger smoothed along the length of the knife at his place-setting. He was trying to find the words—first in Italian, then in English—that would answer her question. They did not come easily. But they came all the same. Feeling his way with every one of them.

‘Because...’ He spoke carefully, feeling his way with every word, conscious of the tension in his voice, his jaw, his throat—his expression. His eyes were levelled, by an act of explicit will, on her closed and shuttered face. ‘Because it was holding things back—holding us apart. Because...’

He made himself go on in the same tight and guarded tone, saying what had to be said, what needed to be said, what was necessary for the future that only the words he was saying now could create. A future that had to exist. Because it was the only one that would do any justice to the reason she and he were yoked together as they were.

‘Because without it, it will be impossible for us to have any kind of...acceptable relationship within the situation in which we both find ourselves.’

A glint was suddenly in her eye. A steely one.

‘Do you mean it?’ she asked. ‘That apology?’

He would have had to have been deaf and stupid not to hear the edge in her voice—and he was neither. And he would have had to have been stupid indeed not to know that only one answer was permissible.

Whether or not I believe it myself does not matter. All that matters is the fact that it is the only means to the end I have to achieve.

‘Yes,’ he said. He paused, his eyes still levelled on her. ‘Do you accept my apology?’

For a moment her face was unreadable, her eyes masked now. Then she spoke.

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