Page 19 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

But the truth was, a larger part of her was something like tickled that he imagined her life was exciting enough to allow for the possibility of two lovers. Or even more, for that matter. Not for the first time in her life, she wondered what sort of person she would have been if she’d been adventurous. If she’d set off when she was done with school and tossed herself headfirst into the kind of scrapes and mistakes and wild, impractical joys that so many of her classmates had.

Her trouble was, she had always thought that while those stories sounded so exciting when told to her later, the truth of them always seemed to involve sticky nightclubs, gritty, packed beaches in places like overrun Ibiza, and deeply regrettable nights that turned into long, nauseatingly hungover mornings.

It had always seemed a lot more fun to stay home.

But that didn’t make it any less entertaining to imagine herself a different sort of woman. And better yet, to imagine that Alceu thought she was just such a woman. She decided to take the entire line of questioning as a compliment.

“It is a matter of legalities,” he told her darkly.

“I fully understand,” she assured him, with a wave of her hand. “After all, it makes absolutely perfect sense that after having waited all those years to lose my virginity, I would take the loss of it as a starting pistol and hare off into a sea of men, sampling every single one of them that I encountered.”

“New York City is not exactly known as a place of quiet retreat and contemplation,” he replied. Coolly.

“I’m touched that you think I’m so energetic.” She rolled her eyes and decided she would, in fact, have anotherarancini. “But by all means, let’s make sure that everything is nice and tidy and legal.”

“I have already had all the documents drawn up.” Alceu’s gaze moved over her as she chewed, then swallowed. His frown deepened, but she thought she saw a flash of that heat she recognized. Her body reacted as if he’d touched her. “Once the doctors have presented me with the results, I expect that we will both sign, and we can then marry. I have the priest ready to go, tomorrow morning.”

“I thought this would all be a process.” Dioni ordered her own body to behave. It did not. “Don’t banns have to be read, sacraments discussed, conversions suggested?”

“I think you know that the rules are not the same for those who can afford to change them,” Alceu told her. “A sad but true fact of the world.”

“So, if I’m following,” she said, staring at the bright, fresh fruits that made her second plate so happy, “the intention was to end your bloodline with you so that you could make certain that no more abuses of power occurred. Unless and until you discovered that you could use that power for your own whims.”

“Yes, Dioni,” Alceu said, and this time, there was something in his voice that made her shiver into a kind of watchful stillness, different from that other kind that glittered her up and changed everything. “You’ve caught me. I am, like all of my ancestors I so despise, little more than a hypocrite. Nonetheless, we’ll be married in the morning.”

“This is all very romantic,” she said after a moment, and it was more difficult than before to find that lighthearted tone. But she managed it. She popped a bit of the fruit into her mouth and told herself that the first hit of tart sweetness was just the serotonin booster she needed. “My heart is aflutter.”

She thought he would turn and stalk off at that, but he didn’t. Instead, he moved closer, coming out from the shadows of the castle into the bright, direct light on the terrace.

And he kept coming until he stopped at the edge of the table, so that she had to crane her neck back to look up at him.

Not that doing so was a hardship, but it didn’t help her settle any.

She was sure that he could see the way her pulse beat hard in her neck. The way her eyes blazed a bit, because she couldn’t seem to muster up any other kind of response when he was near. Or maybe it was simply that she had been building towards seeing him these past couple of days, ever since walking away from him in that forecourt. She’d been sensing him in empty rooms. Imagining him up above her in fragrant, peaceful courtyards.

Maybe part of her still believed this was all a dream.

He glared down at her as if he was a breath away from a full-on scowl, so dark and forbidding was his expression, as he reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a small box. Then he snapped it open, placing it on the table between them.

Dioni took her time looking away from the dark magic of his gaze, down to the mosaic top of the table. Where there was a ring nestled in the dark velvet box.

She stared at it.

Not because she didn’t recognize the fact that it was a ring, or understand what it must represent. She hadn’t thought there would be rings. In this strange little situation of theirs, she hadn’t thought aboutringsat all.

But the presence of one, here before her so unexpectedly, made the enormity of what was happening hit home.

“Does it not suit you?” Alceu asked, and his voice sounded...frozen. “I’m certain I can find something more to your taste.”

He reached out as if to snatch the ring back and she moved without thinking it through, slapping her hand down to cover the whole box. So that when he went to take it back, he grazed her hand instead.

And that was a whole different kind of fire, flaring to life inside of her. And jumping between them, she could tell. She could see it in the way his dark eyes gleamed.

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it.” She lifted her palm and peered at the ring again. “I doubt there is anyone alive who wouldn’t like so many diamonds in one place.”

He let his extended arm drop to his side, though she was sure that he felt as caught in this bright little fire of theirs as she was. That he was just as unable to do anything at all but feel the same burn inside, and remember.

“It was my mother’s,” he told her.

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