Page 122 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

The enormity of what she’d done was just starting to penetrate. What it meant…

He hardly dared believe what it meant.

‘I love you,’ she whispered.

He tightened his hold around her and pressed his mouth tightly to the top of her head. ‘I love you too. So very much.’

But their love had never been in doubt.

‘Where are the girls?’

‘At home with the nannies and staff.’

‘You’ve employed staff?’

She wriggled free enough to raise her head and brush his cheek. ‘I didn’t need to. You’ve already employed enough of them.’ She kissed him gently. ‘They’re at home in Spain, waiting for theirmamiandpapa.’

He stared intently into eyes brightening with a lightness he hadn’t seen in them for so many years. ‘Rose…’

‘I’m really sorry, but I’ve not got any choice,’ she interrupted. ‘We have to move back in with you, I’m afraid, as I’m now officially skint. That hand of poker was the last of my money and now I can’t afford to run the house in Devon and am at the mercy of your generosity to feed myself.’

Incredulity meshed with the spark of realisation.

She sat up and threaded her fingers through his with a beam. ‘Yes, Diaz, I have instigated things so you have no choice but to take me back, and as you have to take me back, we might as well stay married, so I’ve sent instructions to cancel our divorce. If you want to divorce me then you’ll have a proper fight on your hands because I’m not going anywhere.’ She lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed it. ‘I’ve been in love with you for so long I don’t even know when it started, and I’m not going to spend the rest of my life in purgatory just because of our past. You’re the one who said the past doesn’t need to determine the future, and I’ve decided our future is going to be together.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve decided?’

Her beam widened, the whole of her face as bright as the lightness in her eyes. ‘Yes, but you decided it first.’

‘I did?’

‘Yep. Remember you said that thing about me deserving the world? Well, you’re my world, so that means I deserve you, which means you’ve got to take me back, whether you like it or not.’

He groaned. ‘Rose, it was never about me. I never wanted to let you go.’

The lightness dimmed a little but the brimming love didn’t. ‘I know. Because you’re selfless when it comes to those you love. And you said something else too, about my father’s neglect not screwing me up, but in a way it did. Not like the number your parents did on you, but I think it’s made me more self-protective. I learned when I was little that the best way to stop someone you loved from hurting you was to build barriers. My father and I will never have a proper relationship partly because I’ve never let my barriers down for him—I wanted him to knock them down and force the relationship, and it took a long time to accept that he never would.’

Gazing into the eyes that still contained the last vestiges of disbelief, Rose pressed his hand to her breast and flattened it right where her heart was beating its love for him. ‘I was so terrified of falling in love with you again and being hurt by you again that I couldn’t see over the barriers I erected to protect myself. I was too frightened to dare trust you again or see you were no longer hiding from your feelings for me and that everything you were doing was for me.’

The hand not pressed against her heart lifted and stroked her chin. The smallest smile of belief began to form.

She leaned down and kissed him. ‘It’s always been you for me,’ she whispered. ‘When you’re not with me, all the lights go out. I don’t want to be in the darkness any more.’

His green eyes were intense with emotion. ‘I swear I will never do anything to hurt you again.’

‘I know,’ she said simply.

‘You are my life, Rose. My heart. My soul. My everything.’

Every atom of her body filling with sensations that fizzed like fireworks were being let off in her, Rose fused her mouth to Diaz’s and, wrapped tightly in his strong, protective arms, let the light fill them both.

EPILOGUE

Rose’shandswerespread over Diaz’s naked chest, one of his hands clasping her hip, the other cupping a ripened breast, eyes locked together as she rode his thick length, moaning at the pleasure saturating her.

Feeling the sensations tighten, she ground down harder, chasing the release that would shatter her into the most glorious pieces.

She would never, ever get enough of their lovemaking, and when her release finally came, Diaz, holding himself back as he always did, let go too, thrusting up and gripping her hips tightly as he climaxed deep inside her with a shout of her name.

Unable to flop and collapse on top of him as she so loved to do, she eased herself onto her side and cuddled into him as well as she could.

Holding her securely to him, Diaz bent his head for a kiss and placed a gentle palm on her swollen belly.‘Te amo,’he murmured into her mouth.

She smiled sleepily. ‘I love you too.’

Their fourth baby woke from its slumber and kicked against his hand.

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