Page 65 of Modern Romance March 2025 (5-8)

If it were anyone else, I’d almost think I’d hurt him. Would imagine I saw a slight downturn of his lips, a tightening around his eyes. But as this conversation and my past behavior have proved, my interpretations and feelings about Rafe can’t be trusted.

“It has nothing to do with you, Rafe.”Liar. “I just want to move on with my life.”

“Even if we were to proceed,” Rafe says quietly, “Greek courts take an average of a year for a hearing, not to mention another year to make a decision.”

“Yes, but when a close friend of my father’s serves as a judge, matters can be expedited.”

His eyes narrowed. “How quickly?”

“Two months.”

Two months instead of two years. Twenty-two more months of freedom. Of shedding the remnants of who I used to be and embracing who I can become. An entrepreneur, a lover, a wife, a mother.

It’s enjoyable, watching Rafe unsettled for a moment as he processes this revelation. The signs are subtle: a quick blink, the tensing of his jaw that’s barely visible beneath his neatly trimmed beard.

“Is it worth the hassle?”

I used to subscribe to that mindset. Nothing was worth the hassle, especially if it resulted in my mother crying as she apologized yet again for falling asleep that day instead of going outside to play with me like she’d promised. Each teardrop added to the weight of my own shame I’d carried like a yoke around my neck for more than twenty long years until I was drowning in guilt and tears.

After living that hell for so long, calling in a favor from a family friend and going through expedited divorce proceedings seems more than worth the hassle.

“It is to me.”

Darkness shifts in his eyes. Before I can analyze it, the waiter appears with a platter of Coquilles Saint-Jacques and a plate of grilled asparagus on the side. The sea scallops, baked in half a shell and drizzled with Gruyère cheese and cream sauce, smell heavenly.

Yet I can barely stomach taking a bite as my heart gallops in my chest. I’m past the point of wanting Rafe to somehow reveal that he’s missed me. I hate that he’s so close, that we’re sharing what should be an intimate and enjoyable experience between a wife and her husband, but is instead a meal charged with undercurrents of pain and exhaustion.

“What would it take for you to agree, Tessa?”

I pop one of the scallops into my mouth, barely register the delicious taste of shellfish soaked in butter.

“What are you offering?”

His blue gaze narrows. Years of training keep me from rolling my eyes, but just barely. I told him what I want: a clean break. He’s the one trying to persuade me to stay.

“Money. I have over a billion at my disposal.”

I stab another scallop with my fork. “I told you, I have enough of my own.”

“People can always use more money.”

I pause with the fork halfway to my mouth.

“Yes.” I say the word quietly before giving him a small, sad smile. “My father thought the same thing.”

Nolan Sullivan spent his whole life in the shadow of his older sister. An existence that, coupled with my accident and my mother’s choosing to focus her life on me instead of her husband or younger daughter, had fashioned a distant man who found no joy in life. The one thing that made him get out of bed in the morning was money, as if he earned enough of it he might one day also earn his father’s respect. Perhaps even his love.

I’d seen the pleasure on my father’s face, the relief at learning my grandfather had entrusted the firm to him upon his and my aunt’s death. A pleasure swiftly defeated by shock when the lawyer told him how deeply in debt Sullivan Legacy Properties was. I know he’d rejected Rafe’s first offer to simply buy the firm. Had cited that the company had been in our family for four generations. Rafe had countered with his offer of marriage.

He’d talked to me only once after I accepted Rafe’s proposal. I’d been on my balcony, the same place where Rafe had sat and presented his proposal like a business presentation, staring out at the lines and ridges of Drakos Island. My future home.

My father had asked me if I was happy about marrying Rafe. The question had surprised me. My father rarely asked me my opinion on anything. So I’d simply said yes.

“I’m glad.”

And then he’d walked back inside. The last time I’d seen him had been during my wedding reception when he’d sat at a table with my mother with a perpetually full glass of wine in front of him and a glazed look in his eyes.

Probably mentally reviewing the astounding sum Rafe had paid to purchase Sullivan Legacy.

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