Page 142 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

‘Yes,’ she said.

Siena heard herself say it, but she wasn’t sure it was real—had she really said it?

But she had, and she knew why.

For the same reason he had brought himself to apologise to her. To make an apology she had never, for a moment, thought to hear.

But he’d made it all the same.

And I have to bring myself to accept that apology.

Because if she didn’t...

Everything that had passed between them since the moment she’d walked into his London office to tell him she was pregnant flashed before her eyes. Every ugly, vicious, biting, hostile expression of enmity and anger. Of bitterness and resentment and loathing.

It was draining from her every residue of the energy she still possessed. Draining her and destroying her...

I can’t go on like that—I just can’t.

However justified her reaction to him...

I have to let it go—I have to.

It was the same sense of deeply unwilling resolve that had gone through her as she had sat by her portfolio, hunkered down on the carpet, her hands cradling the tiny, innocent life within her. It, alone of all involved in the situation, deserved to be their priority.

We’ve got to do this—Vincenzo and I. We don’t want to—we wish each other to perdition. But we can’t go there, either of us. Because it isn’t just ourselves we’d be there...

She heard him speaking now, this man who was the other half of the tiny life growing inside her, depending on her so absolutely.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

The waiter was returning with their drinks. Vincenzo hadn’t bothered with a cocktail—he would drink wine with the meal—and for now matched Siena with her obligatory soft drink. Iced water was placed on the table as well, along with rolls and butter.

‘Shall we order?’ Vincenzo said, opening his menu.

Siena did likewise.

It was a strange moment...a strange atmosphere. So little had been said verbally—but he knew it was more than that. He felt as if he’d gone through a barrier that had not been visible, only tangible. Tension was still making his shoulders stiff, his expression severe, but now it came not from knowing that he had to say what he’d just said, but from not knowing how she would be with him now.

He busied himself scanning the menu options, giving her time to do likewise. Then, seeing her place hers flat on the table, closed his.

‘Chosen?’ he asked.

Memory suddenly hit him. That was exactly what he’d asked her when they’d removed themselves from that party to have dinner at the Falcone restaurant. When both of them had been radiating a force field neither could resist—nor had any wish to resist—and that searing sexual desire had flared between them.

For a second it almost overwhelmed him, the vividness of that memory, and of what it had led to when they’d been alone in his room, desire flaring...blazing to white-hot flame...

He slammed it down. Slammed down the memory as if to crush it out of existence.

Except its echo mocked him. The very fact that memory existed was the very reason he was here now...

With a start, he realised she was speaking.

‘Yes, I’ll have the sole Veronique,’ she was saying.

He nodded, deciding almost at random on the lamb. Then he turned his attention to the wine list. A glass or two would suffice...no need to order a bottle.

‘What will you drink?’ he heard himself asking.

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