Page 121 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

All her pulses were racing.

The first cards had been dealt. Rose looked at hers and looked at the table cards. Her hand wasn’t as bad as the hand she’d been dealt the last time she’d played poker but it wasn’t a good hand. She didn’t care. She wasn’t here to win money.

She was here to win her husband.

She pushed all her playing chips into the pile. ‘All in.’

There were audible gasps from her fellow players.

Only the Greek player, number seven, matched her. He had a royal flush.

Ten million euros poorer than she’d been ten minutes earlier, Rose smiled gracefully and got to her feet at the same moment the door opened. She’d played her cards with perfect timing.

Head held high, she strolled past the remaining players, all gawping incredulously at her, towards Diaz.

Only when she stood before him did her performance come unstuck and her feet glue themselves to the floor.

His shoulder was propped against the doorway as if he’d fallen into it.

The green eyes that had only looked at her with love for so long she could no longer remember what his loathing had looked like locked onto hers. His handsome features were taut, his chest and shoulders rising and falling in rapid motion.

There was no way of knowing how much time passed before he straightened and stepped aside to let her through the door.

Without exchanging a word or a glance, they crossed the casino floor.

This time, it wasn’t to the administrative offices that he led her. This time it was to an elevator.

Still without either speaking or looking at the other, he pressed the button and in silence they rode up to the penthouse.

Inside his private suite, Diaz slumped against the nearest wall and closed his eyes.

He wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t dreaming. To dream, though, you had to sleep, and he couldn’t sleep. Hadn’t slept since the night he’d drunk himself into a stupor.

He felt like he was in that stupor again.

A warm hand touched his cheek.

He held a breath he couldn’t exhale.

A warm hand palmed his other cheek.

The soft swell of breasts pushed and rose against his chest as the clasp on his face tightened and then the softest lips in the world brushed fleetingly against his mouth.

Heart thumping intolerably, still unable to breathe, he opened his eyes.

Big blue eyes bored into his.

The softest lips pulled into the softest smile and then she lifted onto her toes and pressed her mouth to his, fingers sliding across his cheeks and ears to bury into his hair as she seduced his lips apart and her sweet tongue slid into his mouth in a slow, deeply passionate kiss that spoke more eloquently than words ever could.

‘Love me, Diaz,’ she whispered.

He gazed into the eyes brimming with the same love and desire consuming him in its flame, and brought his mouth back to hers. ‘Always.’

* * *

Diaz carried Rose to the bed they’d failed to reach before their desperate hunger had overpowered them. She was perfectly capable of walking. He just wasn’t capable of letting her go. He needed to keep the physical connection, a shadow of fear in his head that she would disappear if he stopped touching her.

She cuddled tightly into him. Her silky hair tickled against his throat.

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