Page 164 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

And then there were those nightmares. The awful fear in his voice that night, the scars he wouldn’t talk about. What did that signify too? She’d considered him a bully when she was a child, and he’d confirmed as much. But she couldn’t shake the feeling there was more to discover about that boy. She knew his mother had died suddenly of a brain aneurysm when he was still a baby, and that his father had been rigid and autocratic—according to Isabelle, who had met him several times—but why had Mel never considered that might have had some bearing on how Rene had behaved? Or the way he had gone totally off the rails as an nineteen-year-old, as soon as his father had died.

She grabbed the sunscreen she had left by the lounger before her morning snorkel and began to rub it on. The weather had been as idyllic as everything else here—a perfect twenty-six degrees, the sea breezes as invigorating as the tropical showers every afternoon—but her skin was still adapting to the sun after an Androvian winter.

It wasn’t the sun, though, that made her flesh prickle and hum, and her heart skip, when she spotted a lone figure running along the beach.

Rene.

Her heart did another clench and release, while her nipples tightened into peaks beneath the fabric of her bikini.

In running shoes, a loose vest and shorts, his hair damp and his muscles glistening with sweat in the morning sunshine he looked typically gorgeous. And overwhelming.

A hot rush of yearning pulsed in her abdomen, but instead of letting it scare her again she leapt to her feet and waved to attract his attention.

‘Rene!’

He glanced round and sent a brief wave back. But instead of running up the stone steps from the beach to join her on the pool terrace, as she had hoped, he continued running around the point, no doubt to one of the guest houses—because she knew from Marcia he hadn’t been sleeping in the main house.

Another big red flag which she had missed.

Rene wasdefinitelyavoiding her.

She grabbed the silk kimono on her lounger, found her sandals, then headed down the beach steps to follow him.

Time’s up, Rene.

They had seven more days at least before they could take a reliable pregnancy test. And, if nothing else, she wanted to finally know…everything. About the man as well as the boy. All the things she’d let ride or dismissed or allowed him to avoid answering. Didn’t she deserve that? Didn’t they both?

He had always fascinated her, but she’d stopped herself from looking deeper because of her own vulnerabilities—and the incessant yearning she had always struggled to control.

But it was way past time to stop hiding.

She was an adult now, they both were. And what if there had always been more to this relationship than just a physical craving? Things had shifted between them in the cabin. The connection they shared had deepened. But did that mean there could be more to their relationship than just sex?

It still terrified her to hope, to know she might be reading more into recent events—his decision not to sleep with another woman for four years, to stop drinking, to save her from the storm, then protect her from the fallout from those photos and the cruel headlines with the extreme decision to announce their engagement—than was actually there.

But she refused to be a coward any longer. If he didn’t care for her, could never love her, she wanted to know that so she could stop torturing herself with all the ‘what ifs’…

* * *

Once she arrived on the beach, though, he had disappeared. Luckily, the wet sand held the imprint of his tracks, past the rocks, towards the guest house at the furthest end of the estate. She followed his footprints, her determination to confront him building, along with that vague feeling of insecurity.

What if he’d been avoiding her because he was already bored with her?

What if he was angry about the possibility of a pregnancy, however slim?

It wasn’t until she got to the guest villa, artfully nestled in a grove of frangipani and hibiscus, the buds already giving off a sweet subtle fragrance, that the sound of running water hitting stone covered the lapping of the waves against the house’s private beach.

She stepped onto the veranda and followed the splashing sound to the back of the house, her heart stampeding into her throat. And all her erogenous zones.

Was he washing in the outdoor rainfall shower?

Her heart rammed into her larynx, making speech impossible, when she passed the corner of the house and spotted him, standing not ten feet away, with his back to her—his naked body glistening in the sunlight as water cascaded over the sculpted muscles and sinews.

Her gaze devoured the sight—tight glutes, strong back, impossibly broad shoulders, long legs roped with muscle and dusted with dark hair—as arousal barrelled through her system like a runaway train.

She couldn’t breathe. He was so incredibly beautiful, but as he stepped back, out of the water, to squeeze shampoo from the dispenser and began soaping his hair, the rivulets of water drained away from his skin and she noticed the scars, illuminated for the first time in the daylight.

Her heart throbbed painfully, threatening to block off her air supply, as the compassion she had worked so hard to suppress swelled.

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