Page 239 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8
Her lips parted in surprised, and her eyes looked at him as if to say, ‘do you mean this?’
It was something. Not enough, but a start.
He grabbed her hands, lifting them towards his lips.
‘In Italy, all that pretence fell away. We could no longer spin the lie that we were just sex. There was nowhere to hide. No way to disguise what we were feeling. At least, that’s my interpretation of it.’
She bit into her lip and suddenly, Dante felt as if he might have sprinted so far out on a limb that couldn’t actually support him. It was entirely possible that she didn’t feel the same way about him. That he’d been wrong about everything. But that didn’t matter. He still needed her to know how he felt. Because Charlotte deserved to know that she was loved. That to someone, she was the most important, vital, necessary person in the entire universe and always would be.
No matter what happened, he needed her to be free of the misconception that she was unlovable. If he didn’t give her that, at least, he would always, always regret it.
‘You are the sum total of everything. Everything I want in life. You are my love, my beating heart, my burning breath, my waking thought, my dreams, my need, my all.’
She closed her eyes as she let out a small sob and somehow, without her saying or doing anything to signal that she was agreeing with him, he justknew. In that way one knows how their other half is feeling. He dropped to his knees, right there on the sidewalk, clutching her hands.
‘Charlotte, what I would like, more than anything, is for you to marry me. Not for your father’s business, not for my grandmother’s sake, but because you feel exactly as I do. As though there is no life you want to lead that doesn’t have me in it. Because you want to be my wife, as much as I want to be your husband. Because we’re made for each other, my darling, and always will be.’
Her tears splashed against the back of his hand and he laughed softly, because she was nodding and laughing then, through the tears, and saying something that he was pretty sure was, ‘Yes, Dante, yes. Of course I’ll marry you. Of course I love you.’
He stood up and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her into the sky and kissing her then. Kissing her hard and fast and with all the love that was throbbing through his body. And then, he lifted her, cradled her against his chest and began to walk back to their home. Kissing her. Holding her. Knowing that he would never, ever let her go now. They were utterly, perfectly. Finally just as they were supposed to be and Dante wouldn’t have changed a single damned thing about it.
Chapter Fourteen
For as longas she’d known Jane, Charlotte had always understood that one’s happiness directly affected the other, and when she went back to the flat, several days after Dante’s declaration of love, because she needed fresh clothes, it was to find Jane huddled up on the sofa, surrounded by an absolute sea of used tissues, ashen and, well frankly, a mess.
Jane.
Her Jane.
Jane whom she’d presumed had stuck to their arrangement and come home and simply gotten on with her life. Jane whom she’d been wanting to tell her exciting news to, just as soon as she was ready to step out of her love bubble and incorporate someone else into it.
Jane who’d gone to Greece to do Charlotte a huge favour and was now absolutely, completely destroyed.
The first thing Charlotte did was message Dante:
Change of plans. I have to stay here a couple of days.
Dante had responded, I’ll come over.
She’d replied, And risk this lumpy bed?
Anything for you.
Charlotte had taken one look at Jane and known there was absolutely no way she couldn’t make Jane her complete and utter focus. She and Dante had their whole lives to live and Charlotte would never be able to forgive herself if she didn’t find a way to fix whatever had gone wrong for Jane.
Only Jane wouldn’t talk.
She was almost catatonic.
From time to time, Charlotte was able to get some toast into her, or a cup of tea, or a glass of wine, but only if she sat there beside Jane and kept reminding her to lift whatever it was to her lips and eat or drink.
Finally, a few days after Charlotte had come home and found Jane like this, her best friend had come out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, sobbing and started to talk.
She told Charlotte everything, body wracked with the force of her grief, as she explained how quickly she’d realised that Zeus was so different to what they’d imagined. How gentle and kind he’d been to her. How much he’d brought her back to life. How much he’d fooled her into thinking he was her safe place and always would be. How she’d fallen in love with him. And finally, how cruel he’d been to her on their last morning together.
Oh, Jane hadn’t called him cruel. She’d berated herself over and over, for how much she’d deserved it and how she only hoped he would be able to find happiness, but for Charlotte it was like a red rag to a bull.
She could hardly see straight she was so incensed.
