Page 86 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

Damn Primo Holt for making her behave like a teenager with a crush. And for making her more aware of her isolation and also of how tightly wound she was. She took a deep breath in a bid to force herself to relax. She took another sip of her sparkling wine that she’d carried into the dining room with her—and then promptly nearly spat it out again when she saw the object of her fevered thoughts being directed to the table where she sat and the empty chair beside her.

She couldn’t quite believe it, but the somersaulting sensation in her belly told her he was real. And his scent. Crisp and spicy and earthy.

He was wearing a classic black tuxedo and smiling benignly at her, ‘Hi.’

Then he looked down at her dress and back up. There was very explicit heat in his eyes.

‘You look...amazing.’

Her wish was fulfilled. As if a fairy godmother had heard her thoughts.

There were a million and one reasons why Faye should be prickling at the sight of Primo so improbably here, in Dublin. But the last few moments of self-recrimination had dissolved, replaced by instant pure desire, and Faye was revelling in the very obvious desire in his gaze. Exactly as she’d fantasised.

The truth was she was happy to see him, and she was too surprised to fight it.

‘Do you get a kick out of surprising people?’ she asked.

Primo took a sip of the wine a waiter had just poured for him. ‘Can’t say that anyone has ever inspired me to want to surprise them before...it’s uniquely you.’

She shook her head. ‘How did you even—?’

‘Once the organisers knew that I was your husband they were aghast that I hadn’t been included in the invitation, and were only too happy to accommodate me at short notice.’

‘What about your meetings in New York?’

‘Moved them. Quite easy to do when you’re the owner and CEO of the company.’

Everyone else around them faded away. Faye felt something inside her weaken. Maybe it would be okay to indulge in this...this crazy honeymoon period, or whatever it was, between them. She felt something bubbling up inside her—a lightness she couldn’t repress. And then a smile broke across her face at the fact that Primo had come all the way to Dublin to surprise her.

Primo drew back, as if shocked, and put a hand to his chest. ‘Could that really be a smile?’

Faye made a face then, and picked up a small bread roll as if to throw it at him. But her smile didn’t fade.

After the lavish dinner, Faye and Primo walked the short distance from Dublin Castle back to her hotel on the banks of the River Liffey. He held her hand and she shamelessly luxuriated in the tactility that she was beginning to trust more and more.

She pushed away the voices warning her to be careful.

Dublin was a young, vibrant city, and people spilled out of bars and cafés enjoying the unseasonably warm spring weather.

A few people stopped and did a double-take at seeing Primo in his tuxedo, and Faye couldn’t blame them. He’d opened his bow-tie and the top button of his shirt, and he looked as if he might have stepped off the cover of a book, with his dark golden hair and near-perfect features.

They passed a buzzing gay bar and Faye heard one man say to another sorrowfully, ‘All the gorgeous ones are straight.’

She couldn’t hold back a small laugh.

Primo said, ‘Careful, if the wind changes you might stay like that.’

Still smiling, Faye said, ‘My wee Scottish granny used to say that. Except she was a long way from her actual Scottish roots.’

‘Do you ever go back there?’

She shook her head. ‘No, we really have no links to the place any more—apart from family stories and some very distant relatives. Although I did manage to do a semester at Edinburgh University, which I adored.’

They were at the hotel now, and Primo picked up the key. One key.

Faye looked at him and he said, ‘I upgraded you—us—to the penthouse suite.’

She guessed Mark, her assistant, must have told Primo where she was staying. She had half a mind to resist Primo’s all too magnetic pull, but that would have taken a strength she couldn’t currently muster.

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