Page 20 of Modern Romance March 2025 (5-8)

Nadia and she running up the stairs to her parents’ bedroom, to find her mother cold on the bed.

Shivers coursed through her, as the past held her in its ugly thrall.

“Nyra?”

Only his deep voice calling her name as if from some great distance could shake her out of the stupor.

When she turned, it was to find Adriano standing at the entrance to the sunroom, as dark and potent and beautiful as the storm outside.

Drenched to the skin in his white shirt and black trousers. His jet-black hair was plastered to his scalp, drawing his angular features into sharp relief. Gray-green eyes swept over her, some unnamed emotion whispering there.

Nyra didn’t think. Just acted on pure instinct and threw herself at him.

He grunted but caught her, his arms coming around her like steel manacles. Holding her as she needed to be held, all the while murmuring in Italian. Words she didn’t understand but had soothed her just like this once before.

In his arms, the last thread of control she held over her fear unraveled. Violent tremors wracked her. A sob fought to be released but if she let it go…there would be no stopping it. She would unravel too and she couldn’t. Not in front of him. Not ever.

“Shh…cara mia. You’re safe,” he said, his mouth at her temple, his free hand clasped around her. “I’m here, Nyra. You aren’t alone.”

Her silent tears soaked into his wet shirt, but at least she held back the sob.

She’d let him hold her just for a minute more, she told herself. Dampness seeped through her sweater and her linen pants, but she didn’t care.

Just one more minute.

She didn’t look up when he lifted her and carried her out into the living room. Like a squid using its tentacles, she clung to him as he barked orders at the staff.

“I’m getting you wet through,bella,” he said gruffly, when she refused to dislodge her arms. Settling into an armchair, he brought her into his lap. “I’m not going anywhere, Nyra. Let me get us out of these damp clothes.”

She tightened her fingers around his neck. The corded column of his neck smelled like bergamot and rain, with a layer of clean sweat beneath. She breathed in a greedy lungful, the scent filling her with warm tendrils of comfort. If she simply held on to him, without thinking, without talking, it wasn’t weak, was it? After all she was pregnant and needed touch.

His large hand stroked down between her shoulders, down her back. “Won’t you tell me why the storm terrifies you like this?”

She stiffened and swallowed the answer that begged to be let out. Like a lazy cat, all she wanted was to bask in the warmth of his body.

Her fear had left her the moment he had arrived. Something deep within her that she couldn’t shake still associated him with safety. A part of her wanted to demand that he join her in bed at night and give her touch—simple or sexual, that it was his duty to do so.

And he would give it, she knew.

Duty was everything to Adriano.

But even the simplest of touches—not even counting sex between them, was a live flame. And now, a slippery slope. She couldn’t risk getting attached to him so deeply again. Not when he might just cut her out of his life at a moment’s notice.

Finally, after what felt like a surprisingly long time for them to respond, the staff arrived with a tea tray and a heap of towels. Without looking at him, she took the towel he offered and buried her face in it. Sliding out of his lap, she patted the front of her top and her pants with it, feeling bereft without his touch.

Adriano unfolded from the armchair and rubbed the towel vigorously over his hair. For a second, she nearly grabbed the towel from him so that she could see to the task.

Instead, she poured hot tea into a cup, just to give her hands something to do. She didn’t like tea, but since she was trying to cut back to one cup of coffee per day, she didn’t have a choice. She didn’t pour any for him, giving in to the peevish urge.

The hot tea nearly burned her tongueandthe roof of her mouth when she took a too-big sip.

All because Adriano had stripped out of his wet shirt and was wiping down his chest. A sight almost worth burning her tongue for.

Thick-ridged pectorals and an equally hard slab of his abdomen dusted generously with hair. His black trousers hung low on his hips as he unbuckled the belt and pulled it off.

The soft whoosh of it filled the room and blistering heat rushed to her cheeks at the memory of that same belt around her wrists and the raw pleasure that had followed.

Her breasts felt heavy and achy, but she put that down to the sudden damp.

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