Page 21 of Modern Romance March 2025 (5-8)

When he moved toward their bedroom—with their bed covered in his shirts and sweatshirts that she used to drape herself in come night, she waylaid him.

“Your clothes are in the second bedroom,” she said, looking into her teacup. The last thing she wanted was for him to see how weak her resolve was around him.

God, there were months, maybe years of this ahead. How was she supposed to sustain thisI don’t need youact?

Hands on his hips, he turned to face her fully. The definition of his bicep made her want to lick him up.

“I asked the staff to move everything out,” she said, responding to his thunderous frown.

“Why?”

“I wasn’t sure if you might come by in the middle of the night looking for one of your documents. I prefer not to be disturbed.”

He would drop by in the evening—admitting to social exhaustion after a party or a dinner—would drive them both to mindless delirium, and then when she fell asleep, would sit there on the bed for hours into the night, working away on his laptop or reading through documents. His fingers would absently sift through her messy, postsex hair or trail over her bare belly or thighs. Sometimes, he would trace his knuckles over her cheek as she snuggled into his lap sleepily.

Always touching her, even when the sex was over.

As if he couldn’t help himself, the needy part of her whispered.

Then he would wake her up around dawn with kisses and caresses and filthy promises, ruin her thoroughly with his mouth or his fingers or hiscockas he made her say it, then shower and leave before she was even up.

She’d spend her days painting in the sunroom, venture down to the pretty canal district when she got stuck or bored, drink too many delicious coffees and then venture back into her apartment by nightfall, hoping he would show up.

When he traveled, she would stay at the villa with his parents and siblings with the utmost reluctance—the one condition he wouldn’t back down on—counting down every minute to when he would return.

Thathad constituted their marriage.

With hindsight now, Nyra could see it hadn’t really been a marriage in the true sense of the word. But it had felt right. And it had been theirs. A cocoon made of touches and kisses and raw intimacy, hidden away from the world. Not a surprise that it had fallen apart, like a castle made of cards at the first puff of air.

“Or you were making sure that I didn’t accidentally crawl into the bed with you, purely out of habit?”

There was such…caustic heat to those words that she jerked around. Tea spilled over her fingers at the sudden movement.

With a pithy curse, he grabbed the wet towel and dabbed at her fingers in gentle movements. A ribbon of longing whipped through her as she stared down at his bent head.

Adriano was a master at controlling his emotions, always leaving her to wonder what he would say or do next. When he’d asked her to come to Italy with him, as his wife, she’d nearly fainted out of shock. The fact that they were in the middle of a high-stakes game was the only thing that had kept her moving through the day.

Ten tomorrow morning at the chapel, he’d whispered before walking out near dawn.

They’d known each other for three weeks by then and she’d slept with him the previous night. Which had been a revelation in itself. She’d showed up at the chapel, gotten married and then found herself underneath him in the rear cabin of his private jet, before comprehending fully that it hadn’t been a daydream.

She stared at him now as he raised his head, at the vein pulsing in his forehead, at the tight set of his mouth. This was more than he had betrayed in that moment with those photos of her twin splashed across his desk. Did this distance between them cause him as much ache as it did in her?

Her heart gave a thud against her breast, greedily lapping up the fracture in his control. Suddenly, the deep grooves around his mouth, the strain around his eyes became more pronounced to her eyes. “That’s not what I…”

“No,bella?” A scornful laugh twisted his pretty lips. “I guess you were right that we barely know each other. Because the last thing I expected from you was…this passive-aggressive cold frost.”

She went to him then, some foolish emotion urging her feet on. “It’s been a week since you brought me back. I still wake up and wonder where I am. What is it that you expected of me, Adriano?”

“I sent my chauffeur to pick you up thrice for dinner. You refused.”

“I’m not in the mood for company.”

“Just mine,si? Because I know Bruno and Fabi have been here a few times in the last week.”

“Bruno and Fabi didn’t throw me out without a second glance.” She regretted the words the moment she said them.

“Nyra—”

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