Page 183 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

She couldn’t speak—could only sit there, eyes fastened on his. Her heart now thudding in her chest...ringing in her ears.

‘And if you want it,’ he said. ‘That second night with you told me something—blazed it to me!—that I know now I can never deny. And even if you deny it, or do not feel it—which, if it is so, I must accept, cost me what it will—it changes nothing. Not for me.’

His eyes were pouring into hers, and she was reeling from what was in them. The drumming in her ears was making her feel faint...or something was. But she must speak. Shemust. No matter what it cost her to say it. To dare to say it...

‘But for me,’ she said, and her voice was so low it was almost a whisper, ‘it did change everything. Oh, Vincenzo, what is this “one more thing” that might be between us?’

Anguish was in her eyes, in her face, as she asked him. Asked him the question she could now dare to ask him—risking all.

He gave a slow, grave smile. Lifting his strained features. Transforming them.

‘You know its name, Siena, and so do I. So say it.’

But she could not. Could not speak at all. Could only let her hands cling to his, her heart thudding in her chest like a hammer.

‘Then I will say it for you,’ he said. ‘It’s the missing piece. We started with desire—instant, blazing and consuming—so strong, so powerful, that we both did something we had never done before to consummate it. And then we jumped straight to parenthood. But we missed out the bit in the middle—the bit that binds the one to the other. I thought... I thought we had had found it, that night in Devon, but—’ He broke off, his voice twisting. ‘When I woke to find you gone—’

Words burst from her.

‘Vincenzo, it’s why I fled from you! I couldn’t bear it—couldn’t bear the realisation! Couldn’t bear that it might mean as little to you as our first night together!’

A rasp broke from him—remorse and self-castigation.

‘That first night was just desire! Because I would not let it have a chance to be anything more! I feared it—I admit that now. It was only when we had to spend time with each other, because of what that first night had created, that it started to grow. So slowly at first... And then—’

He lifted her hands, clasped them in his, raising first one to his lips and then the other.

‘But on our second night...ThenI knew—oh, Iknew—’ He took a breath—a ragged one. ‘I knew, Siena, that I had come to feel for you so much more than mere desire.’

He paused, her hands pressed in his, his eyes pouring into hers. And they were telling her what he now said in words, his voice softening, catching.

‘Love, Siena—that is the missing piece. Love that leads from desire to what we have now. Binding the one to the other, bringing us together, now and for ever.’ His gaze went to the crib at her side. ‘With our son. Our precious, beloved son...’

Tears were sliding down her cheeks. Tears that spoke of so much. Of love given—with anguish in her heart—as she fled his bed after that night in Devon. When she had known that she had fallen in love with him...when she had known that to him she was only a woman of fleeting desire and unwilling parenthood.

Her tears were for hopeless love, and the anguish of her months away from him, alone and pregnant, knowing that for all her days, the rest of her life, she must share the child she had conceived with a man who would only ever desire her...and nothing more.

And now she felt her heart blossom and flower, and sweet, sweet air fill her lungs, dissolving the unbearable ache in her throat. And now her fears, her anguish, had vanished, were no more, and never again would be. For now the love she had thought only she felt was his too—for her. Love given and returned...

She said his name haltingly, through the tears sliding down her cheeks. He lowered himself beside her, leaning over her to kiss them away softly, gently, tenderly.

Lovingly.

‘No more tears, Siena,’ he said, kissing the last away.

‘It’s my hormones,’ she said, and her voice held a shaky laugh through the tears.

‘And love, Siena. Love—what else?’

Through the mist of her tears she saw his eyes were moist, as they had been when their precious son had been placed in her arms.

She gave a choke, words falling from her. ‘I left you that morning in Devon because I could not bear that after such a night you would think it a mistake...regret it as you did our first night! I could bear it that first time, but not again—not when I awoke in your arms and knew that I was in love with you. And that is why...why I have kept away from you...kept you away! Because I could not bear to know that at best you would never want from me anything more than desire, and at worst...not even that. All these months without you have been agony—agony because I knew that I had fallen in love with you, and that for the rest of my life it would be a torment to have you being the father of my baby but never anything more!’

‘And that is what I thought I faced too!’ His voice was rough with emotion. ‘These last hellish months, with you keeping me at bay, when all I wanted in the world was to come to you, be with you, stay with you—’ He broke off, taking a ragged, razored breath. ‘Damnable! That’s what it’s been! Damnable to know that I loved you and you could not bear me near you. Damnable to think that I would have to face all the years ahead, sharing with you our son—but nothing else! Damnable to think that one day you would find someone to love of your own, and I would have to stand aside and let it happen! Damnable!’

A sob broke from her. ‘Oh, Vincenzo—what fools we’ve been! Whatfools!’

She gave another choking cry and held him closer to her yet, her lips pressed against his. Emotion was pouring through her, filling her to the brim, overflowing...

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