Page 16 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

Because, as she’d had ample time to think about on the plane ride, her expectation when she’d thought realistically about the dreams she’d had that involved marrying this man had returned to the same theme. That the disappointment and dismay at such a union would move in the opposite direction. She’d been certain that the general reaction would have been that she was not good enough for him. That she, in all her usual disarray, would in fact be a disheveled stain upon the Vaccaro name.

If she looked at it that way, this was all nothing short of delightful.

Hewas the mistake.

Clearly his housekeeper thought so. “I will show you to your rooms,” Concetta said to Dioni, shooting that narrow gaze at Alceu. “I can only hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Icertainly don’t know what I’m doing,” Dioni confided to the other woman, who looked shocked that she was speaking to her. “But I hope it involves food.”

Other staff came out then to handle the luggage, all of them staring at Dioni and frowning at Alceu and muttering things beneath their breath that they clearly wanted Alceu to hear. Dioni, meanwhile, wondered why none of them seemed to notice that the sky was a marvelous blue above them. The sunlight danced down into the forecourt, making the stone of this fortress gleam. They were all acting like it was a dark and terrible place when, as far as she could see, it was beautiful.

Even more beautiful than it looked in pictures.

“I hope you’re going to give me a room with a view,” she said merrily as the staring continued and Concetta made no move to lead her off to any rooms. “Not something in the dungeon.”

Nobody laughed at that, so she had to laugh herself.

“There are no dungeons,” Alceu said in a repressive sort of way, though that only made her laugh more. “Most people are wise enough to realize that the whole of Mount Vaccaro is its own prison, long before they make it to thecastello.”

“Of course,” Dioni murmured, though she still couldn’t control the laughter bubbling inside of her. “My mistake.”

What she really wanted was to ask him if she was going to get to spend time in his bedroom, but she didn’t. Somehow she imagined that he would not be receptive to that line of conversation, especially not with an audience.

But she hardly saw the point of marrying the man who’d gotten her pregnant if she couldn’t touch him.

She stopped worrying about that as Concetta, responding to a lifted brow from Alceu, finally led her inside. Because the castle was beautiful from the outside, but she knew full well that the interiors of such places could better resemble the Dark Ages.

But this place was even more gleaming and inviting within.

“Was the castle a hovel, or something?” she asked as they walked through an exquisitely rendered gallery into a hall that was filled with light, making it seem as if they were part of the endless sky.

Concetta frowned at her. “A hovel? Hardly. This has been the home of the Vaccaro family for centuries and they have always liked their comforts.”

“It’s just that if it’s a prison, it’s an awfully lovely one,” Dioni pointed out. “I can’t say that I’m an expert on incarceration, but I’m quite certain I have never seen so many Italian masters gracing the walls of any local jail.”

The older woman glared at her. “Just because something is pretty does not mean that it does not have knives beneath,” she said, in tones of the direst warning. “As you will find out soon enough, when you meet thesignore’s mother.”

“His mother?” Dioni was captivated. “I don’t know why I imagined that Alceu was an orphan.”

“He would be better off.” Concetta sniffed.

And she set off on a twisting route through the castle, delivering Dioni at last to a set of rooms that no one on the whole of the planet would consider anything but gorgeous. Concetta left her there so she could look around—and perhaps freshen up, the other woman had suggested, which indicated that Dioni was as bedraggled as ever.

She didn’t bother to confirm the inevitable in any of the dizzying mirrors.

Instead, she took in the high ceilings and the windows that were like doors, opening up onto the walkable, crenelated walls that functioned more like terraces with parapets set at each corner. She drifted out to stand outside, feeling the wind against her face. Her room was almost at the very edge of the cliff—or more accurately, the place where the castle and the cliff were one. As she looked out, she could see the lush tangle of greenery they had driven through to get here, all the way up the side of the steep slope, so thick that there was no hint of any road. In the distance, the blue of the Mediterranean beckoned, as if to remind her that she was not so far from home, after all.

“We can do anything, you and I,” she murmured to the baby she carried, rubbing her hand over a mighty little kick from within. “Just so long as we can see the water.”

So she felt something like fortified when she turned around and saw what had to be the most beautiful woman she had ever beheld, lounging in the floor-to-ceiling window she’d used as her door to get outside.

She was strikingly voluptuous. And wanted everyone to know it, Dioni could see, based on the skintight gown she wore though it was barely midday. Her hair was jet-black with a dramatic wing of white that swooped low over one eye. Her eyes were a very familiar fathomless bit of darkness, and her lips—which might have seemed stern if unadorned—were painted a shocking red.

“You must be Alceu’s mother,” Dioni said.

Ruby-red lips pursed. “And you must be the sacrificial lamb, led bleating to the altar.”

“Will there be bleating?” Dioni asked. “Things must be different in Sicily. I grant you, a proper Greek wedding certainly has its own interesting rituals. But no bleating, as far as I’m aware.”

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