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

She hadn’t dared imagine him laughing.

What words would you like me to speak to you, Dioni?he had said, and though the words had sounded as if they should have been a question, they had not been. They were a silken challenge, and there was a different sort of menace in his tone.

She had understood none of it.

What she had understood was that she could not have prevented herself from walking toward him then, or from stopping only when she’d gotten much too close. She had watched his eyes widen in a kind of arrogant astonishment, as those brows of his arched.

It wasn’t that Dioni was bold, because she wasn’t. Her father had often called her his jewel, but it was worth noting that jewel was meant to shine on others. It was not necessarilyin itselfanything more than a stone.

She had never had that sparkle. What she did have, however, was a lifetime spent walking around as her own mother’s murderer. And yes, she knew that no one liked to use that word. It made people uncomfortable. But the fact of it remained.

If she hadn’t been born, her mother would still be alive.

It had been clear to her early on that she could not cringe to and fro, apologizing for the very air she breathed. Dioni would forget to do it, for one thing. And for another, she was the only person who hadn’t actually met her mother. So she could only piece together an idea of who her mother had been.

And inherhead, all was always forgiven. Her mother was perfect and loved her deeply.

But as that was not necessarily true for anyone else who had known her, Dioni had chosen early on not to attempt to reach her mother’s level of perfection. Possibly because she’d always known, even as a child, that it was unattainable.

It was also true that her father had found ways to remind her of that, too.

She’d had no other choice but to become good at living down to people’s lowest expectations. Or as she liked to think of it, simply being who she was, regardless of the judgmental eyes upon her.

The result of that, all these years later, often looked like boldness. But what it really was, she thought now on a relatively quiet street in a very noisy city, was that she simply had nothing to lose.

So six months ago she had tipped her chin back and looked up at Alceu, that mountain filled with impassable ranges and desperately steep slopes, and she had smiled.

Do you know, she’d said,I’ve never been kissed.

I cannot imagine why you would consider that an appropriate topic for discussion, Alceu had replied in frigid tones.With me, of all people.

What if I am expected to get married one day, like my brother? How will I know?

Know what?Alceu had asked, the words bitten off in hard, grim pieces.

Anything,she’d replied blithely.As I told you already, I’ve never been kissed.

She had watched, fascinated beyond measure, as a light she’d never seen before gleamed hot in Alceu’s stark gaze. He had not bent closer to her. He had not moved.

And yet she’d felt as if he’d expanded to fill the whole of her vision.

Let me make certain that you understand, he had said, very distinctly,that I will not kiss you.

But it had washed over her like heat.

And it had been true. He had not kissed her that night.

Sometimes she thought the lack of kissing was her biggest regret.

He had certainly showed her other things, far more catastrophically life-altering things.

But she woke up sometimes in her room here, sirens in the distance and no hint of the sea, and wondered what it would have been like to kiss Alceu the way she’d wanted to do.

Even nowkissingseemed far preferable to what she was actually doing, which was still trundling along down the hard, faintly malodorous street, wishing that she hadn’t told her brother she wanted to live in this great, hard place.

While drawing ever closer to that man at the foot of her steps who looked like Alceu, but couldn’t be.

It justcouldn’tbe.

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