Page 231 of Modern Romance March 2025 (5-8)

“If he doesn’t contest it, you could be before the judge in a matter of months,” he concluded. He couldn’t read her expression; it was tight, closed. “And it would be over, finally.”

He waited for her to speak for a long moment. When she didn’t he continued.

“My wish—my offer still stands,” he said, simply. “Come with me to England, Valentina. Back to Notting Hill.” His pulse was thrumming in his ears so loud it was distorting his voice, but he ignored it. “We’ll go back and forth—together. And then we can marry—” He found he had to stop to swallow. “If it is still agreeable to you, that is—”

He couldn’t continue. Instead, he drew back, trying to will the blood back from his burning face. Valentina was looking at him steadily, and her face was guarded.

“Desmond,” she said, so quietly that he had to lean in to hear her and again, that delicious scent that was part of her skin hovered around them both.

If he touched that smooth skin the scent would linger in his nostrils well into the next day. He would not. Hecouldnot.

Her eyes were soft and warm and resting on him with an intimacy that he had to face. It had been there almost since the beginning; that had beengrowing, never acknowledged.

“Don’t you see?” she said, gently. She moved close to him, cupped his face in her hands. “This—marriage, Desmond. What do you anticipate it looking like? Is there a possibility that you’ll ever want more than this? And if the answer is no, is that fair to both of us?”

“Valentina—”

“I’m possibly in the most—vulnerable place I’ve been in a very long time. I can’t guarantee I won’t fall in love with you. That’s the problem,” she said. “And if you don’t want that possibility…” She hesitated.

And then he wanted to respond the only way a man who felt the way he did about her should: he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her. And possibly even say the words that were already forming on his lips. He knew in that instant why he’d so impulsively asked her to marry him, to come to London with him. It had little to do with Sheikh Rashid.

It was because he was so very lonely, had been that way for almost ten years, and was half in love with her already.

* * *

Desmond’s face was transformed. It became tense. Unyielding. And at the sight of his changed expression, Val felt her own stomach lurch in anticipation of something she remembered all too well.

Rejection.

She knew the words, and what they would be, even before he said them. And she listened with only half an ear because something hot and loud and painful was roaring in her head. She could see his lips moving but could barely comprehend him—not that it mattered, because she understood his meaning without having to hear the specifics. Her entire being was engaged with keeping her back perfectly erect.

She was only waiting for the excuse she knew was coming.

His voice was tired. All of a sudden he looked years older, and it occurred to Val that she might be looking at the real Desmond for the first time.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said.

Did he, though?

“You’re thinking I shouldn’t have asked this of you,” he said. And then his hands were on her face, stroking with his thumbs, a little at a time, as if he were trying to commit all of her to memory. “I’m not in a place to do that. And to be honest, you aren’t either, are you?”

She shook her head. Partially because she didn’t trust herself to speak, partly because he was right. A lump was threatening to push past her throat into a sob, and she couldn’t do that. Not after he’d opened up to her, been vulnerable with her, and not after he’d rejected her so thoroughly in the same conversation.

“You have,” he said, and his voice was rough again, “captured my attention in a way no other woman ever has. You’re the first person who’s ever tempted me into thinking…”

The silence stretched between them like an abyss, and when Val spoke her voice sounded small and strained, even to her.

“Into thinking what?”

He was chewing the inside of his cheek, the way he did when he was thinking hard about something, and Val felt her stomach constrict and knot up. In the brief time she’d known him, she’d gotten to know his idiosyncrasies so well; Desmond was an open book if you knew how to read him, and that was incredibly attractive. More than the money, the looks or the incredible sex. He’d made her forget every bit of professionalism she’d cultivated and to which she’d clung stubbornly over the years. He’d made her forget the age difference between them, and throw caution to the wind.

She found herself pressing her thighs together to ease the ache; felt a pull of desire so intense it actually hurt. The ghost of a smile skidded across his face.

“You see?” he said.

Though her cheeks burned, she looked at him steadily.

“You’ve already been tied to a man who left you to repay debts he racked up,” he said gently. “You don’t need to carry my baggage too, Valentina. No one does.” His fingers crept down, laced through hers. It was a very long moment before he spoke, and she didn’t try, either.

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