Page 230 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

Then he’d made her show him the forest, listening as she’d talked about it, asking questions and being curious, inviting her passion about the forest to bloom. And it had.

Making love to him on the forest floor, the trees standing sentinel around them, had been one of the most pleasurable and spiritual experiences of her life.

She hadn’t been able to leave him after that.

Learning more about him hadn’t made her any less in love with him, and she didn’t know what to do.

For the first couple of days, she’d looked for excuses to demand a divorce, or just to move away, but he hadn’t given her any. As he’d promised, nothing changed. He came to the cottage at night and then left before she woke up the next day.

He’d mentioned something about a honeymoon, perhaps she might want to go to the Amazon? But she had a feeling that would only make her love him even more and so she’d put him off. He hadn’t pushed.

She’d begun coming into the manor at night, usually to join him for dinner, and they’d spend a good couple of hours there, talking as they ate. He was interesting, had travelled to a lot of interesting places and done some interesting things, and she even found herself fascinated when he talked about some of the new startups he’d been an angel investor in. Plenty of them had been in eco technology, and she’d been surprised when he’d confessed that he wanted to put money into research for new tech that could help the planet and the poorer communities that lived on it.

He wasn’t just some self-absorbed rich man at all. He had a good heart and he cared, and she loved him for it.

It was a problem, that love. She didn’t know what to do about it.

He’d told her love wasn’t a part of their marriage and she hadn’t wanted it to be either, yet that made no difference to the feeling in her heart. She loved him all the same, and a part of her selfishly wanted him to love her in return.

Dominic came into the sitting room and sat down next to her, pulling her into his arms as he did so. He was very physically affectionate; she loved that about him too.

‘You look pensive, nymph. Anything the matter?’

‘No.’

A lie, of course. There was definitely something the matter, but she wasn’t going to tell him what it was. He didn’t need to know and while that selfish part of her wanted more, she had to ignore it. He didn’t want love and she had no right to demand it from him.

You’re being selfish, though. Lying to him because you can’t bear to have that conversation. Because if you do, you’ll lose him. Because you like keeping him tied to you without having to make any compromises yourself.

The thought whispered in her head, doubt eating away at her. It was true, wasn’t it? Shewasbeing selfish. She was enjoying this marriage they’d entered into, where she could come and go as she pleased and have no demands placed on her, where she had him as well as all the freedom she wanted.

It was a business deal for him, and that made it okay, because then she wasn’t a millstone around his neck, dragging him down.

Yet there was a small, painful, honest part of her that wasn’t happy. That wanted more. That wanted that last little piece from him, to be loved as she loved him.

Except she could never ask for that, not without revealing how dishonest she’d been since the day she’d married him.

He’ll never love you anyway, not when no one else did.

She shifted again, that knowledge like a barb sticking under her skin.

‘There is something the matter,’ Dominic said, looking down at her. ‘What is it?’

Maude took a breath. She didn’t want to upset the delicate balance they’d found together with the truth.

‘I’m just thinking about the future,’ she lied. ‘And what it’s going to look like.’

He frowned slightly. ‘Our future, you mean?’

‘Yes. You and I, and the baby. Will I still be in the cottage? Or will we be here? Or...what?’

Dominic shrugged. ‘It’s up to you. I promised you things wouldn’t change and they haven’t.’

‘I know, but...the child is going to find it odd if we’re still in separate places when he gets older.’

‘It’s hardly separate,’ Dominic pointed out. ‘It’s still the same property.’

‘Yes, but you’ve got a foot half in the city.’

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