Page 119 of Modern Romance March 2025 (5-8)

“Well, we know Katie’s story has a happy ending. Mine may not.”

My mother is the one to reach across the table this time and grab my hand. “No matter what happens, enjoy the time you’ve had. Don’t focus exclusively on the bad. I missed out on twenty-one years because of that.”

“So did I.” I take a deep breath. “And maybe Rafe won’t be a part of my future. But I’m not ready to give up yet.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Rafe

I’M SITTING INa plush gray chair, staring out over the sea, when James calls me.

“Your brother is here, sir.”

There’s a muffled growl on the other end of the line.

“Pardon, sir…brothers.”

I arch a brow. “Michail?”

“Yes, sir.”

The last thing I want is to have both my brothers here. Especially Michail, who I’ve seen all of two times since learning of his existence. Once at Lucifer’s will reading and the other at Gavriil’s wedding, where we exchanged mutual looks of extreme dislike before continuing on to opposite sides of the celebration. He believes Gavriil and I are just like the man who seduced and abandoned his mother. I know it’s unfair, but when I learned my father had another son, one just a few years younger than me, I had felt betrayed. Deceived. Ridiculous, I know, but it doesn’t stop the feelings.

“Send them up.”

Easier to tell them to get the hell out of my house in person. And Michail strikes me as the person who would have no problem bullying my butler with his immense size and glower that matches mine in intensity.

Less than two minutes later, the door slams open. Gavriil strides in.

“There you…” His voice trails off as he takes in the room. “What the hell? I thought you were selling the place.”

“I am.”

Although it will be hard to let go of this room. The room Tessa decorated for me.

A week after she left, James appeared upstairs in my office, looking as close to concerned as I’d ever seen him.

“Sir, there’s a group of people here who says they’re under orders from Mrs. Drakos to update the master bedroom.”

I’d nearly told him to dismiss them. I wanted no memory of Tessa, nothing of her in this house to haunt me.

But a deal had been a deal. So I’d simply told him to let them in, so long as they kept their activities to the master bedroom. I’d avoided that section of the hall while they were here, and five days after they left.

Until one night, when I had to go downstairs to fetch something out of the vault and passed by the gym. Glimpsed my reflection in the mirror and immediately saw Tessa lying limp and satisfied in my arms.

I couldn’t shake her; the sound of her laugh, that occasional floral scent that seemed to appear out of nowhere. I thought I was going mad at times.

I walked up from the lower level and went straight for the master bedroom. If I confronted what remained of her in this house, faced it down and showed myself I could stay strong, then I could move on.

And then I’d opened the door and walked into my own private paradise.

Still the same ivory walls. Still the same vivid blue curtains. But instead of the heavy, claw-footed furniture trimmed in gold brocade, Tessa had swapped it out for soft grays that reminded me of a misty morning on the sea, and clean lines that appealed to my sense of efficiency. Plush rugs covered areas like the floor beside the bed, no longer a four-poster but a massive king with a gray headboard.

But of all the things she’d included, my favorite had been the art. Paintings of the sea, of the olive groves. Artwork, I’d realized, of the villa. Of Corfu. I’d called up the person who had left a business card behind and learned all of the paintings were done by local artists.

I hadn’t slept in here yet. Hadn’t been able to bring myself to. But I spent countless hours in this room, drawn to it in both calm and tumultuous moments over the past week.

Gavriil turns in a circle. “This is… Did Tessa do this?”

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