Page 192 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

He’d taken her down to the forest floor and when he’d pushed inside her, he’d felt as if he’d come home almost.

Christ.

He could go over the guest list again and find out who she was, but there had been something magical, mystical even, about not knowing. As if finding out who she was would break a spell.

Fanciful even for him, but perhaps it was best if what happened at the bacchanal stayed at the bacchanal. After all, he knew how passion played out. Eventually it died, no mysteries left, and cue the boredom.

He didn’t want that to happen.

Dominic sighed again, took a deep breath of the dawn air, then pushed himself to his feet. His ridiculous laurel crown had come off at some point in the night and he found it under a fern. He picked it up, settled it on his head, found his toga and threw it over his shoulder. Then, not far from the bed of bracken he and the nymph had slept on the night before, he found the remains of more white fabric. It was not one of the togas or tunics that had been issued to the guests.

It was a white nightgown. And was ripped right down the front.

Which meant only one thing.

The woman he’d spent the night with in the forest had not been one of his guests at all.

CHAPTER THREE

MAUDEPAUSEDAmoment along the forest path that ran up the side of the hill and took a breath. It wasn’t steep, but she’d experienced a distinct lack of energy for the past couple of weeks and it was annoying. She’d be turning over earth, or raking leaves, or doing any one of the thousand tasks involved in managing the grounds of Darkfell Manor, and she’d suddenly find herself needing a lie-down.

Normally, she was fit and had boundless energy, so it was puzzling.

Or rather, it wasn’t puzzling, not if she really thought about it, but she didn’t want to think about it, and so puzzling it remained.

Nothing at all to do with the wild night in the forest five months earlier, where she’d lain in the bracken with the god of the forest.

Thankfully she’d woken up before he had, long before dawn, and had hurried back to the groundskeeper’s cottage. She hadn’t wanted to shower the scent of him from her skin, but her feet had been dirty and she’d been cold, so she’d stepped under the warm water and let it do its work.

Afterwards she’d stood in front of the mirror in the tiny bathroom, gently touching the marks he’d left on her body, her only proof that it had actually happened. She’d let her boss, a stranger, run after her in the woods and she’d let him catch her. Let him take her to the ground and have her.

A reminder that, for one night, she’d been wild.

Her grandparents would be appalled if they knew, but she’d thought then that with any luck they’d never find out.

Unfortunately for her, though, luck wasn’t her side.

It had been six weeks after her last period that she’d eventually taken herself off to see the doctor in the little village twenty miles from Darkfell. The doctor had given her the news she’d dreaded, along with various pamphlets and instructions on what to do next, and Maude had decided that the question about whatexactlyshe was going to do wasn’t one she could answer just yet.

Sonya, her mother, was still in the Earthsong commune, in Scotland, and that was off grid, so she was uncontactable. Not that she wanted to contact her mother, since her mother hadn’t bothered staying in contact with her after her grandparents had taken her away. Even apart from that, there was also the fact that Sonya didn’t know what to do with a baby, especially when she hadn’t wanted the one she’d had.

Maude couldn’t talk to her grandparents about it either. They’d ask too many question about the baby’s father, and the truth wasn’t something she could tell them, not if she wanted the piece of land they were going to leave to her. They’d always been very clear that they didn’t want her going down the same path as her mother had.

There were the other Your Girl Friday girls, but although they were her closest friends—they’d all been to university together—Maude felt weird about telling them. They wouldn’t be judgmental, but they’d be worried and she couldn’t bear the pressure of their concern.

Really, if she told nobody, then maybe she wouldn’t actually be pregnant?

Don’t be stupid. The doctor told you that you are.

Maude sucked in a breath of the rich, forest-scented air and continued her trudge up to the small picturesque waterfall that emptied into a perfect small pool. The waterfall was surrounded by trees and it was peaceful. Grasses and wildflowers grew around it and Maude would often bring her lunch up there for an impromptu picnic whenever she wanted to sit and think.

It was hot for early autumn, and even with the slight bite in the air, Maude was sweating by the time she got to the top of the hill.

Soon she’d be twelve weeks. Soon she’d have to admit to the reality of this baby and, since she hadn’t made a decision earlier, soon she’d have to decide what she was going to do about it.

And him? What about him?

Despite the heat, she shivered.

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