Page 126 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

‘Megan, I don’t want to be beholden to him in any way at all! I don’t want his money—and I don’t need it!’

If I take any money from him at all he’ll just feel it proves that’s what I was after all along, and I won’t give him the satisfaction of despising me for it!

She made herself take a steadying breath. Getting upset wasn’t good for the baby. She reached for her mug of tea—but before she could lift it, the flat’s doorbell rang.

‘I’ll get it,’ she said, standing up. She was dressed, and Megan was still in her dressing gown.

It was probably a delivery, and some other resident had obviously let them in at the main door on their way out.

She unbolted the security lock and opened the door.

Vincenzo Giansante stood outside.

For a moment, Vincenzo thought she was going to pass out. Instinctively he reached for her arm to steady her as she visibly swayed, slumping against the doorframe. He felt her jerk violently away, stumble backwards. Heard her give a strangled cry.

A voice called from the room beyond the hallway.

‘Si, who is it? Si...?’

Someone was emerging into the hallway—another female, wearing a loosely tied dressing gown and with messy hair.

She gave a gasp as she saw him. Frozen in the doorway.

‘Get out!’

The words were hurled at him—but not from the woman in the dressing gown. From the one now slumped against the wall. The woman he had last seen stalking out of his office as he dismissed her from his presence.

She looked white as a sheet, except for two spots of high colour in her cheeks. Absently, with a part of his brain that was completely irrelevant to his purpose, he registered that she was making him want to look at her just as powerfully as she had the very first time he’d laid eyes on her that fateful evening.

An evening that had brought him here, now, right in front of her.

He ignored her hissed and equally irrelevant outburst.

‘Where can we talk?’ he demanded. ‘Privately.’

‘I said, get out!’

He ignored her again, turning his attention to the woman in the dressing gown, who was looking as if she could not believe her eyes. He smiled inwardly, grimly, and entirely without humour. He could see a sitting room of sorts behind her—that would do.

He turned back to the woman he had flown from Sardinia to see.

‘I want this settled,’ he said. His voice was quelling. Intentionally so. Necessarily so. ‘And I want it settled now. You, or your representative, have made an allegation and threatened me with damaging publicity. You will either withdraw or substantiate your allegation. Which is it to be?’

She didn’t answer him. Instead, her face contorted again. ‘I have absolutely nothing to say to you! Nothing except get out!’

Vincenzo drew in his breath sharply, ignoring her imprecation, walking into the room beyond.

He heard the woman in the dressing gown speak, her voice urgent. ‘Si! This is it—he’s here now. God knows how... He moves fast—including finding out where I live, because how else is he here? Look, let’s just do this! Commit to nothing, just hear what he’s offering, then hand the whole thing over to lawyers to hammer out so it’s watertight.’

Dark rage fleeted in Vincenzo’s eyes. Rage had filled him from the moment he’d heard his media comms account director say her name. It had brought him here and he would not be leaving. He watched, his face stony, as Siena Westbrook walked into the room, the other woman’s hand propelling her.

He threw a quelling glance at the other woman, who lifted her chin and crossed her arms assertively.

‘Whatever you intend saying, you’re saying it in front of me as well,’ she said fiercely. ‘It was me who talked to your media comms guy yesterday—and I meant what I said. I promise you that!’

He made no reply, his eyes going to the woman who’d confronted him in his London office last month with the claim she had made. The claim, his expression tightened, that she must now either prove or withdraw.

His eyes rested on her for a moment. Did she look pregnant? No more than she had in his office. She was wearing jeans now, with a baggy tee shirt—both cheap. Her hair was in a plait, and she wore no make-up. Two spots of colour still burned in her cheeks. Her eyes glowed—but only with anger. Absently he noticed that they were still that same dark blue-green that had so intrigued him that fatal evening at the Falcone...

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