Page 82 of Modern Romance March 2025 (5-8)

Old anger surges in my chest, then abates just as quickly.

“It is. I utilize an office space.”

“Why?”

Irritated, I moved toward the doors. “Because I do.”

Instead of backing down as I would have expected her to, Tessa turns and moves closer, following me.

“I remember seeing pictures of this place when your father first bought it. Right before…” Her voice trails off.

“Right before he was kicked out of his own company for threatening an old woman and nearly stealing her home from her.” My smile is cold and humorless. “Your point is?”

I know that I’m being abrupt. Even a touch cruel. Despite officially holding the title of wife, however, Tessa does not need to, nor have the right to, know the intimate details of my life.

She tilts her head to one side, watching me, as if trying to decide just how far to push me on this. At last, she looks away with a shrug.

“It’s none of my business.”

“No. It’s not.”

Her head whips around, her eyes widening for a moment before a shutter drops down over her face. I blink. This is how she looked last night in Paris when she first saw me. Distant. Removed.

“Well, I’m sure you have things to attend to. Thank you for the tour.”

She’s dismissing me. Me. I open my mouth to argue, then realize it would only be sabotaging myself. I have an opportunity to exit with no more conversation on a subject that is best left closed.

I incline my head to her.

“Dinner is at seven in the main dining room.”

I turn and walk out. I have plenty of work to focus on. Tasks that need my attention. But as the afternoon progresses, I find myself returning time and again to our exchange. To how quickly I dismissed what should have been a simple question, one that makes even more sense when I take her profession into account. I responded from a place of emotion. I find it odd that after years of suppressing, of existing in a space of neutrality, that Lucifer’s death would shake my ability to stay calm and controlled. Something I will need to examine at a later date as I wrestle myself back under control.

A couple hours later, I closed my laptop and stand. I’ve accomplished a lot. But my focus has been off, drifting on more than one occasion to the woman just one floor down. When I proposed her coming back with me to Greece, I had assumed it would be easy to do the work I needed to during the day and focus my attention on Tessa at night. Instead, thoughts of her plagued me through conference calls, reviewing reports and drafting up several letters of correspondence.

Tomorrow, I decide as I walked through the villa, I’ll go to our office in the city center. Physical distance will be useful. Tonight, though, I plan on continuing what we started when we sealed our contract with a kiss.

Tessa is waiting for me in the dining room. There’s an odd tightening in my chest at the sight of her sitting there, and how right she looks there. For once, the room doesn’t feel like a prison. I sat at that table for far too many events when Lucifer still ran Drakos Development, sometimes with an iron fist, other times with a lackadaisical attitude as he pursued his latest desire, from women to properties to vacations.

When I do finally inherit, I intend to sell all of the properties Lucifer left me. I have no interest in residing in the spaces he lived in, utilized for his years of debauchery and cruelty.

Yet to stay somewhere else feels like a surrender, as if I’m acknowledging his memory affects me to any extent.

“Good evening.”

She looks up at me and smiles. “Hi.”

I sit down next to her. “How was your day?”

She blinks, as if surprised by my question.

“Good. Progress on Juliette’s house. And,” she says with a proud smile, “I made headway on another new client proposal.” Her face falls when she sees my frown. “What?”

“Didn’t you say that you already had a client you were working with after Juliette?”

“Yes, and I actually just got another referral.”

I frown. “How are you going to manage that by yourself?”

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