Page 133 of Modern Romance March 2025 (5-8)

“Get dressed.” Atlas caught his sister by the shoulder and steered her from the room, nudging her toward the end of the hall and pulling the door closed behind him without looking back at Stella.

She clutched her stomach, feeling sick and humiliated and scared. Had that man said the police were on their way?

She peered out the door and saw Atlas had his back to her as he stood in the doorway to another bedroom. “Sober up andgrowup,” he ordered.

From another part of the house, there was a confusion of drunken giggles and terse responses.

Stella seized her chance to slip down the stairs and into the staff closet, where she jammed her feet into her boots and yanked on her coat. As she stepped outside, she could already see the flicker of blue lights bouncing off the snowcapped roofs below.

The photographer had been joined by another. They were smoking and one perked up when he saw her. “What’s going on in there, love? Big party?”

Thankfully, Stella’s hat was in her pocket. She jammed it on her head as she veered down a back lane to avoid those men and the approaching authorities.

It was a frigid walk home, one filled with shuddering cold, distress and disappointment and confusion. Would she have given herself up to Atlas if his sister hadn’t interrupted them? She hadn’t dreamed that kisses and sex could feel like that. She’d felt helpless, not against Atlas, but against herself.

This was how it happened. This was how women found themselves in the snare of child-rearing and dependence. She was lucky his father had put a stop to it, she supposed, but she still felt denied and humiliated.

As if that bitter walk home wasn’t punishment enough, she received another blow at dawn. Her roommate shook her awake and waggled her phone in front of her.

“What the hell happened last night? We’ve all been fired. We have to be out by nine.”

CHAPTER ONE

Present day

COMING TOZERMATThadn’t been Atlas Voudouris’s idea and he already regretted agreeing to it.

Iris, his soon-to-be fiancée, had set it up. After dating for several months, they had needed a holiday away from their families and social circles and the prying eyes of gossip rags to discuss their future.

Iris’s friend owned a group of chalets here, and in return for extending them a complimentary stay, Atlas would owe the man a favor. It was exactly the give-and-take connection he was marrying Iris for. He had no objection to that, especially because the paparazzi hadn’t figured out yet where they’d gone.

Staying in Zermatt also allowed him to reach out in a very casual way to a sticky business contact, one who happened to be staying in Cervinia, on the Italian side of the Alps. Atlas had been trying to partner with that man for two years, but had barely managed more than an introduction. If he could finally grease those wheels, it might be worth the discomfort of being here.

But being here was uncomfortable. He couldn’t deny it. He’d been agitated since their arrival last night, unable to sleep because he kept bumping up on a memory he’d been trying to shake for five years, one where he had behavedjust like Daddy.

He’d made a pass at a woman who was too young for him. Maybe she hadn’t been as inexperienced as he had initially judged her. She had been passionate as hell, completely undermining his good sense, but she had been in trouble with the law and she’d been one of the staff at the rented chalet.

That was close enough to messing around with a taverna owner’s daughter to make Atlas want to go back in time and kick himself.

Which was impossible, obviously. Instead, he walked around with a splinter he couldn’t dig out from under his skin. She wasn’t even here! Young people moved through ski resorts like migrating birds, landing for a season before moving on to greener fields.

He didn’twantto see her. As of last night, he and Iris had agreed to become engaged, likely to marry within the year. They would announce it in London this Saturday.

Oliver would be smugly pleased. He had handpicked Iris for Atlas, which rankled more than it should. Iris was charming and intelligent and beautiful. It didn’t matter that Atlas wasn’t particularly attracted to her. Passion was not something either of them expected from marriage.

They each had their own reasons for agreeing to it, though. For Atlas, it would give him a clear line toward taking the helm at DVE, the global conglomerate his father currently headed. Oliver’s family had started DVE as a publishing enterprise two hundred years ago. Through the twentieth century, it grew into a media and broadcasting powerhouse, but would have collapsed under the tech revolution if not for the clothing line Oliver’s wife had started before she died. The Davenwear athletic and wearable tech brand had propped up the rest of the company, thanks to Atlas’s fame and his sister’s notoriety. Once Atlas began climbing the ladder within DVE, he’d diversified into green and renewable energy, among other forward-thinking interests.

Taking over at DVE was more than a claim of his birthright—which was what Atlas’s mother had urged him to do when she had sent him to his father at fourteen. No, after nearly two decades of investing every part of himself into DVE’s growth and success, Atlas had earned the top spot. He could wait until his father died, which was unlikely to happen soon, considering Oliver was a very healthy sixty-four, or he could marry the woman Oliver had picked in exchange for Oliver’s agreement to retire.

They would make their announcement at Oliver’s birthday party at the end of the week, putting the wheels in motion for a transfer of power.

I’m getting what I want, Atlas reminded himself.

Yet he remained on edge.

Maybe if they’d gone skiing today, he would have worked out this restlessness. It was snowing heavily, promising fresh powder, but Iris was a fair-weather skier. Besides, after coming to their agreement last night, they’d had some shopping to do.

Atlas could have had the jeweler come to them, but despite five floors and ten bedrooms, the chalet felt claustrophobic. He brought Iris to the shop in the village where she had spent the last hour sipping mimosas and discussing designs with the goldsmith while Atlas mostly stared out the window.

---