Page 67 of Modern Romance March 2025 (5-8)

I square my shoulders, raise my chin and look him straight in the eye.

“I want you to be my first lover.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Rafe

AWAITER PASSES BY.The couple behind me are talking about some tour they went on that failed to meet their expectations. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a boat cruising down the Seine, its upper deck crowded with tourists.

The world marches on despite my wife asking me to take her virginity in exchange for delaying our divorce.

A virgin.

Knowing how closely Maeve Sullivan monitored her daughter, it shouldn’t be a surprise that my twenty-eight-year-old wife is a virgin. But sex is not something I’ve given much thought to where Tessa was concerned. It was something I deliberately didn’t think about. The difference in our ages, the sweetness of her personality that contrasted so sharply against the cold darkness of mine, made any type of physical attraction seem obscene. Having Tessa agree to the “in name only” clause of the contract had been a relief, even if the thought of her taking a lover after two years left me unusually ill-tempered.

It had been the right thing to do. I wasn’t going to consign her to a lifetime of no physical intimacy. Not when I had resolved to let her live her life and not dim it by subjugating her to my cold, barren existence.

My shock shifts, melds with a dangerous possessiveness. The same possessiveness I experienced when I saw her with Nathan rears its head once more. Heat fills my veins as blood rushes straight to my groin. I go hard in an instant at the thought of having Tessa in my arms, undressing her, being the first to ever see her, touch her, taste her. Need to take what’s being offered, to satisfy the hunger I had denied far longer than I had realized—

Paúo. This right here is a reason why such an insane proposal is out of the question. I’m not thinking with my brain.

I pick up my glass so I have something to hold on to, something tactile I can focus on.

“Is this a joke?”

“I think I would have remembered losing my virginity,” she replies wryly.

If I’d thought my irritability at the possibility of her taking a lover down the road bad before, it’s nothing compared to now. Thinking about another man daring to touch her, let alone look at her…

Thankfully our waiter interrupts my devolving thoughts with the third course: duck fillet, shallots withcaillettesausages, and a mustard sauce. I stare at the food, at the artistic swirl of mustard on the edge of the plate, at the sprinkling of some dark purple powder over the duck that makes the colors of the food pop against the white plate.

The details swirl, blend together as her words echo in my mind.

…my first lover.

I pick up my fork, wielding it like a weapon against the insanity she has just proposed.

“What would be the terms of such an arrangement?” I finally ask.

She shrugs.Shrugs. I’m not prone to emotional reactions. But less than an hour ago I was tempted to commit murder. Now I’m tempted to reach across the table and shake Tessa by the shoulders.

I should have stayed in Greece.

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

Ah. I mentally pounce on the bit of logic she dangles in front of me. She threw something out, a wild idea she knew I would never pursue, so that I would agree to an immediate divorce.

“Once you come up with terms I can review,” I reply, calm now that I have a better understanding of the reason behind her request, “then I’ll consider it.”

Her eyes widen. “Do you ever just go with the flow?”

“No.”

Disappointment clouds her face. She looks back down at her plate. For the first time in a very long time, I regret my lack of spontaneity. My inability to let myself feel. That a childhood filled with pressure and anger and cruelty molded me into the man I am today. One who can’t forge stable, long-lasting emotional connections with anyone. Hard to do when I have almost no emotions to give.

Case in point: Drakos Development. The company everyone assumes is my end goal. My reason for existing. Except in the wake of Lucifer’s death three months ago, I’ve been left with a horrible realization.

It means nothing to me. The company I was groomed to take over, the one I have dedicated almost every moment of the last forty-one years of my life to, is nothing more than something to occupy my time. Without Lucifer dogging my footsteps, watching with bated breath for his firstborn to fail, I was motivated to work, to pursue, to lead.

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