Page 235 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

‘Sorry,’ she said to her friends. ‘I have to go. I need to find out how to organise myself a helicopter.’

Dominic sat in his London office wondering what the hell he was going to do now. He didn’t want to do anything, that was the issue. A couple of months ago he would have thrown himself into a party and taken one, two, or three women to bed, but he’d lost his taste for partying.

He’d lost his taste for anything that wasn’t Maude, and his future looked so bleak he almost couldn’t stand it.

You threw it away. You loved her and you threw her away.

Maybe. Maybe this painful, aching feeling in his chest was love. He didn’t know. His heart had been frozen for so long he’d forgotten what it felt like.

But no, he couldn’t tell himself that. He knew. It was the same helpless pain he’d felt when the man who was supposed to be his father had laughed at his anguish over the stag. Had shrugged when he’d cried over the itemised list he’d been given, all the expenses laid out of his upbringing. His relationship with his father reduced to pounds and pence, to cold, hard money. Dominic had never been given anything freely. He’d always had to pay for it.

She gave you her love freely. She didn’t want anything in return.

He sat back in his office chair, London at his back, and shut his eyes.

He didn’t want to think about Maude and the tears on her cheeks, telling him that she’d fallen in love with him, anguish in her warm brown eyes. She hadn’t asked to be loved in return. She hadn’t asked for anything. It had been him that she had been concerned about, telling him that none of this had been his choice, not her, not their baby...

Pain sat in his heart, eating at him with sharp teeth.

You fool. You bloody fool.

Oh, he knew it. And it was poetic, almost, to finally know what he wanted in life, to finally understand his purpose, only for it to be out of his reach.

He loved her. He loved their baby. He wanted the future he’d been able to see for them both, living at Darkfell as a family.

But he couldn’t have it. He couldn’t bargain for it. He couldn’t buy it, not this precious future. Because in doing so, he’d cheapen it, and he couldn’t bear to do that.

So you’re happy to hurt her instead?

His beautiful wood nymph, crying because she was in love with him, giving him freely what he’d never been given before.

And he couldn’t take it. Because ultimately he was just like his father. Everything was about the deal. Everything was about money. About cold, hard cash and a cold, hard heart. There was no room for warmth or passion. No room for the living, breathing things of the forest. And no room for the little family that might have been his.

He would never sentence Maude to the kind of life he lived, and he wouldn’t sentence his son to it, either. It would kill her, and it would kill him too.

You can change, you know. It’s not too late.

Ah, but that was the kicker, wasn’t it? He couldn’t change, not now. He was too old for that kind of thing, had lived too much of his life in the boardrooms. His heart was nothing but a frozen lump in his chest and nothing was going to shock it back to life.

Just then, his intercom buzzed. ‘Mr Lancaster?’ his secretary said. ‘You have a—wait! You can’t go in there!’

At the same moment the doors to his office were pushed wide and a woman strode through them.

She was dressed in maternity jeans that still had mud clinging to the knees and his green sweatshirt that just about swallowed her. Her hair was loose in wild golden skeins down her back, and there appeared to be a leaf caught in it.

His frozen heart was still and quiet in his chest.

He couldn’t move.

He couldn’t breathe.

It was his wood nymph, come to the city.

She was carrying a bag and as she dumped it on the floor next to his desk, her nose wrinkled. ‘I’m disappointed, badger,’ she said flatly. ‘I was expecting to find you in bed with lots of women. But here you are sulking in your den.’

He had to say something, he had to. ‘Maude,’ he managed, his voice full of gravel. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘What does it look like?’ She surveyed his office and then the view out of the windows. ‘I want you to show me the city.’

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