Page 107 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

She didn’t know how she’d endure the scathing insults. Not now.

Before their night together, a part of her had revelled in standing up to his loathing and matching it with her own.

Too much had passed between them since to find that revelry again.

Thankfully, any talk over the rest of the evening was Switzerland in its neutrality. Shortly after the Rosaria conversation, his parents disappeared to mingle with other guests, their seats taken by a steady stream of famous faces wanting a few minutes with Diaz, most barely hiding their interest at the woman who’d supposedly tamed him.

If only they knew the truth, she thought miserably. She hadn’t tamed him. His love for their daughters had; a love that had seen him settle for and make every effort to build a relationship with his nemesis for the sole reason that she was their mother.

Her tenterhooks sharpened on the drive back home.

She wished they were flying back in the helicopter.

They sat positioned as far from the other as humanly possible, just as they’d done when Diaz had jumped into her taxi after she’d told him she was pregnant.

She sensed his brain whirling through the long silence. Was he condemning her in his thoughts? Remembering all the things he despised her for? Hating her all over again for his sister packing a bag a week after her overdose and, instead of going to the rehab facility Diaz had arranged for her to stay at to straighten out, losing her head and accusing him of being a control freak and saying that she wanted to live the life she wanted and not the life he wanted.

The life Rosaria had wanted included all night partying and as many drugs as she could consume.

‘You want to control everything,’ Rosaria had raged at him. ‘Well, you don’t get to control me any more. This is my life and my choices and if you don’t like it you can go to hell. I’m not going to that stupid facility—the only person there’s anything wrong with isyou.’

Even then, Rose had felt a stab of pain for him. Even when he’d blamed her for the life and choices his sister had made.

What had Mrs Martinez been thinking when she’d asked them to marry? Had she really thought fourteen years of bile and acrimony could be consigned to history?

It made her want to weep to remember how her heart had swelled in those months when it had been just the two of them and his grandmother. The months Rose had managed to fool herself that their long history of bile and acrimony could be finally put to bed.

They’d pulled together and worked as a unit to ensure Mrs Martinez’s final months were filled with love and care.

Rose was so lost in her thoughts that she blinked in surprise when they turned into his long driveway.

The driver opened their doors.

The silence that had consumed the drive home broke when they walked into the villa to the sound of one of their daughters’ cries.

They raced up the stairs.

Hearing them, Giselle, one of the on-duty nannies, appeared from the nursery. She had a wailing Amelia in her arms.

‘What’s wrong?’ Rose asked, taking her daughter and cradling her to her chest, her heart rate trebling at Amelia’s obvious distress.

‘Teething,’ Giselle said with kindly authority. ‘I’ve just given her some baby paracetamol and put some of the teething powder on her gums. She should settle soon.’

‘Go back to bed,’ Rose told her gratefully. ‘I’ll look after her.’

Carrying Amelia into her old bedroom, Rose sank onto the rocking chair. Her daughter was already quieting.

After hanging by the door watching them, Diaz came into the room and crouched down to stroke Amelia’s hair.

‘I’ll stay with her until she goes back to sleep,’ Rose whispered.

He glanced up from their daughter’s flushed face and gave a short nod. ‘You’ll wake me if you need me to take over?’

‘I will,’ she promised, blinking back tears.

They’d had that same innate understanding when they’d cared for his grandmother. There had never been a need to discuss any of it. Their minds had been in complete alignment.

He kissed Amelia’s forehead then straightened. ‘I’ll have a glass of water brought to you,’ he told Rose.

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