Page 34 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

But he didn’t do a thing to stop it. He sat there, watching this calamity approach him as if he had no choice at all but to let her change him.

Changeforher, something in him suggested.Try that.

He didn’t want to try anything, but as he sat there he could feel the whole of his chest begin to ache. He opened his mouth to make all of this worse—

But at that moment, the door to the library swung open.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Concetta said in her very formal housekeeper’s voice, which would have been surprising had he cared about anything but his wife. “You have some visitors.”

Alceu glanced over, already disinterested. Beside him, one hand on her belly and the other brandishing one of her books, Dioni looked up—and then went still.

And for a moment, they both stared as the apparition of the doorway slowly resolved itself into two distinct people.

A man. A woman.

Both of whom stared back at them with similar looks on their faces. Shock, first and foremost.

A kind of dawning horror on one, a considering sort of recognition on the other.

Then it all seemed to flare into temper, like an electric charge that made the whole castle seem to flicker in its wake.

“What,” bit out Apostolis in a clear fury, taking in his sister’s rounded form and then turning his gaze toward his best friend, his gaze a mix of outrage and betrayal, “in the bloody hell is going on, Alceu?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

DIONISHOTTOher feet, swiftly if not at all elegantly, because she had never seen that look on her brother’s face before.

“What does it look like, Apostolis?” she demanded, something like a sob constricting her chest. Because she was terrified that he might rush Alceu at any moment, turning this into something violent. And then what would she do? The very idea of the two men she loved most in the world at each other’s throats made her feel sick, and yet, hadn’t she known all along that this moment would happen—sooner or later? Wasn’t that why she’d run off to New York City in the first place? She tried to draw Apostolis’s attention, scowling at him. “And why are you asking him? I am very clearly the one pregnant.”

Her brother turned that arrogant, astonished, furious glare on her. “This is impossible. Tell me I am misunderstanding what I’m seeing, Dioni. Tell me this cannot be what it looks like.”

Beside him, Jolie murmured something that Dioni couldn’t hear. And she wanted nothing more than to look at her friend to make certain that they, at least, were all right, orcould beall right—but she didn’t dare look away from her brother.

Her heart sank as he continued to glare at her. That sob in her chest started tohurt.Because she had spent all of her life being protected by Apostolis. He had cared for her. Looked out for her. He had always treated her as if she was a kind of delight to him, a light in an otherwise dark family story. He had protected her all these years, and never once in all that time could she recall him being anything likedisappointedin her.

She did not think she could bear it.

But she was not a little girl any longer. She would always be his little sister but she was fully grown, married, and soon to be a mother. Shortly she would be raising her own child and the truth was, though she loved her brother dearly, he had not been her parent. He had shouldered those responsibilities in many ways, yes, but he should not have had to take care of her like that.

That he’d had to do so anyway didn’t change the facts of things.

Or how those facts had changed.

And Dioni was a woman, not a child, who had astonishingly vast love inside of her for her husband that she would not get over no matter how angry Apostolis was about it.

None of this was his business, though she wouldn’t have minded his blessing.

And even as her heart sank, another part of her was glad, because now he knew. And now Jolie knew, too. Whether it was painful or not in this moment, it was a relief. Everything was out in the open and that meant there’d be no more hiding—the way she’d been doing since not long after the night of her brother’s wedding. And had certainly been doing since she’d come to Sicily.

Almost, something in her whispered then, as if Alceu had intended to keep all of this a secret all this while. Because she didn’t think he’d had any plan in place to introduce the fact of their marriage and impending parenthood to anyone, not even Apostolis, at any point. If he did, he’d never mentioned it to her.

Maybe they had both wanted to preserve Apostolis’s good opinion of them as long as possible.

But she couldn’t worry about that now. She kept her gaze on her brother and reminded herself that this needed to happen. She regretted that they had to go through this first, but it was the only way.

Alceu was Apostolis’s best friend. She was the little sister she suspected he still saw as a girl. There had never been any version of this moment that wouldn’t come with tension.

Dioni opened her mouth to lay it all out for her brother and her own best friend when, beside her, Alceu stood. To her surprise—and, she could admit, a rush of pleasure—he wrapped his hand around the nape of her neck.

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