Page 144 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

He heard the words fall from him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SIENA’SEYESFLASHEDto him.

‘You have another name for it?’

She didn’t say it angrily—she wasn’t going to get upset. But she wasn’t going to whitewash it either. ‘Mess’ was—bluntly and bleakly—the only word for the situation.

His eyes were levelled on her. She could not read them.

‘I think,’ he said, and his voice matched his eyes, his expression, ‘that we must find one.’ He paused, his eyes still on her. ‘Because it is not...helpful to call it that. To think of it as that.’

She saw him take a breath, a thin one, and it pressed his mouth for a moment before he went on.

‘We must get beyond it.’

His eyes dropped from her and he reached for his wine. For the second time that evening Siena wished she had a glass of wine to turn to as well. Instead, she took a mouthful of her soft drink, slightly effervescent. Memory shot through her of how the mousse of the champagne she’d knocked back at that fateful party had filled her mouth...her senses...her blood... Loosening her inhibitions, making her impulsive, adventurous, daring...

Reckless.

Landing her where she was now.

She set down her glass with a click, eyeballed Vincenzo.

‘How?’ she said bluntly.

There was a careful, watchful air about him as he answered her.

‘We have made a start,’ he said. ‘I have given you an apology that you have accepted, and we are dining together in a civil fashion.’ His mouth twisted suddenly. ‘That is a definite start. Something to build on.’

She kept on eyeballing him. ‘And just how,’ she rejoined tautly, ‘do you intend we do that?’

She could feel the tension building inside her again. She didn’t want it to.

And now he was answering her, and she knew he was picking his words carefully.

‘We should get to know each other better,’ he said.

Siena’s eyes widened. ‘Really? Don’t we know enough? The essentials? You are rich and I am pregnant. Isn’t that what it boils down to? For you, at any rate.’

It was her turn to twist her mouth.

His expression changed again. As if what she’d said so bluntly had been more blunt than he would have preferred.

‘I have already apologised to you on that score,’ he said stiffly. ‘So perhaps we could move on from there?’ His tone was pointed.

‘Move on to where?’

‘As I say, to knowing each other better,’ he replied.

She sat back. ‘So, what do you want to know?’

If it helped to stop her tension rising, then she would go along with him. Maybe...

He lifted a hand slightly. ‘Well, I made a start, asking you about your work. You chose not to answer me.’

She gave a shrug, helping herself to a bread roll. She was hungry suddenly. ‘Because there isn’t much to say. I don’t have a glittering career—unlike Megan.’

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