Page 157 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

She felt her throat tighten suddenly, and slid her hand over her abdomen. It was rounding more day by day, making its presence felt. Inexorably, unstoppably...

She became aware that Vincenzo was saying something, setting his beer glass back on the table.

‘It is hard to lose a parent at any age,’ he was saying, and there was a quality to his voice that made Siena look across at him. ‘I, too, lost my father at eighteen—a heart attack. My mother died when...’

He paused, and she had the impression he had stopped himself. She looked at him questioningly, sympathy in her eyes.

‘She died when I was four,’ he said.

‘That is very hard,’ Siena said slowly.

It seemed strange to think of Vincenzo as a child—as having a family at all. Hadn’t he said he had ‘none worth mentioning’? But if both his parents were dead...

We have that in common.

It was a painful thing to share...

Vincenzo was frowning. ‘I don’t have many memories of her. Just one or two. And they may be from my father telling me about her. It’s hard to say.’

‘Do...do you have any siblings?’ Siena heard herself asking. ‘For me, it was such a comfort to have my brother, and he to have me.’

Vincenzo gave a shake of his head. His expression had tightened. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Which was one of the reasons why my father—’

He broke off, and Siena looked at him questioningly again.

‘Why he wanted to remarry.’

‘Did...did he remarry?’

‘Eventually.’ Vincenzo’s voice was even tighter. ‘I was thirteen.’

She was feeling her way forward. To hear Vincenzo open up like this was strange...

He wouldn’t do it if we weren’t in this situation. And nor would I.

But maybe it was important that they were doing so? Knowing more about each other. Coming to terms with each other.

‘Did...did you get on with your stepmother?’

Something hardened in his face, making him look the way he had that nightmare day in his office, when she’d blurted out that she was pregnant.

‘No.’

A single word. He reached for his beer, took another mouthful. Set down the glass with a click.

‘Nor did I ever consider her my stepmother—nor do I still.’

‘Still?’

He gave a shrug—a dismissive one. ‘She took herself off when my father died...set herself up in a villa on Lake Como.’

Siena spoke slowly, carefully. ‘That sounds...expensive.’

Vincenzo’s eyes flashed. ‘She took my father for everything he had left,’ he bit out harshly.

In the silence, things reshaped themselves in Siena’s head.

Things were making sense...

---