Page 168 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

How can I bear it?

But it was beyond answering.

Vincenzo pulled the car against the kerb, turned off the engine. He looked at the small terraced house he’d parked outside in this market town in a popular tourist area of East Anglia. He knew what to expect—he had checked it out online, on the holiday letting agency’s website, when Siena had given him her new address. He’d offered to pay for it, but she’d refused. She was refusing all financial support and he had accepted her refusal. As he had accepted everything else...

He felt himself tense. This would not be easy, but it had to be done. Her due date was imminent and he would be here, at her side. Literally so—for he’d rented the house next to hers, also a holiday let, and would stay for the duration. Stay while he could be of use to her.

And then...

No, he would not go there. Not yet.

Impossible to look beyond what was about to happen.

Starting right now.

With a determined movement he got out of the car, walked up to her front door, rapped on it with the knocker. She knew he was coming. He had texted her when he’d set off from London, having flown in the day before. He’d told her his ETA here, then texted again, pulling over on the outskirts of the town, to say he was making his way to her house.

She’d simply texted back:

OK

His mouth pressed. ‘OK’ was not what it was...

But there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing except what she wanted him to do.

Accept her decision.

The one she’d made all those months ago, when she was fleeing from him...

Siena heard the door knocker, tensing immediately. For a moment she did not move. Then, heavily, she levered herself up and out of the armchair she’d sunk into to watch something mindless on TV. It took her a while to get up—it increasingly did now. Ponderously she made her way out of the living room, down to the front door, steeling herself to open it.

He was standing there, tall against the wintry dusk. She felt her stomach clench, her senses reel from his physical presence after so long a time, but she stood back so he could come inside.

For a moment, though, he was motionless. Siena assumed he was taking in just how very different she looked from when he had last seen her.

‘I told you I would look like an elephant by this time,’ she said.

She kept her voice neutral, and so was his reply.

‘Hardly,’ he replied, temporising. ‘But you are very near your time now.’

He walked in. The narrow hallway only just let him pass her. The brush of his sleeve made her stiffen, and as he walked past she caught the distinctive trace of his aftershave. For a second she felt faint with familiarity...with memory.

Memory she must not allow.

Too dangerous.

Too pointless...

Because he is not here for me! He is here only because I am about to give birth to the baby I have conceived. No other reason.

No other reason at all.

And I must have no other reason either! Must allow myself none.

She must match him in the way she was with him now.

‘It still could be up to another fortnight,’ she said, following him as he stepped into the little sitting room. ‘I hope it isn’t, though—I just want it over and done with.’

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