Page 173 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

But, as she tucked the box under her arm, the strange formality in her tone had him reaching for her arm.

‘Hey,’ he said, stopping her in mid-stride.

She turned towards him, her eyes shadowed. Something wasn’t right and it was starting to bother him.

He tucked a knuckle under her chin. ‘You know the result doesn’t matter, right?’ he said, forced to expose himself. After all, the chances of a positive result were slim. And he probably couldn’t rely on it to get him what he wanted, even if she was carrying his child.

‘I’ll still want you. Whether you’re pregnant or not.’ He pressed a kiss to her lips.

Her shudder of reaction was like a gunshot to his gut, triggering the familiar arousal, but also making the knot in his stomach return. He forced himself to draw back—not to take more. Not yet, anyway.

‘We make a good team,’ he added, deciding it was time he started laying the groundwork for the proposal he planned to make to her when they returned to Saltzaland.

She nodded. ‘Yes, we do.’

‘I think we should consider making our engagement real, whatever the result,’ he blurted out.

Her brows rose, her face flushing with colour. ‘But…Really?’

She sounded so astonished he was a little taken aback. Surely, she must have realised this was where they had been heading all along? But then he noticed the naked hope in her eyes, that flash of vulnerability and fierce tenderness, and the knot in his gut cinched tighter.

‘Rene, I need to tell you something…’ she began, the emotion in her voice so thick that the fear—she was about to say something she would soon regret—blindsided him.

‘Don’t… Not yet,’ he said, swiftly cutting off whatever she had been about to say as his panic increased. He cradled her cheek, brushed her damp hair behind her ear, the well of affection for her terrifying, too. ‘Let’s discuss the practicalities over breakfast.’ He had to start managing her expectations now if he was going to make this a commitment he was comfortable with. ‘The truth is, though, marriage is the logical next step for me,’ he continued. ‘I need an heir, although not necessarily right away,’ he continued, starting to babble as he watched the joy in her eyes fade and the hope dim. ‘And you have all the assets I want in a wife. Professionally as well as personally. Frankly, it’s a win-win.’

The last of the joy in her eyes died.

He steeled himself against the impulse to pull her into his arms, to apologise for hurting her again. He had to be cruel now, to be kind. He didn’t want to give her false hope—and he didn’t want to lie to her again.

She nodded. But as she walked away from him the empty, uneasy feeling in his gut refused to settle.

He headed over to the guest cottage, to rustle up something for breakfast from the supplies Jevon had left them. But once he got there his hands started to shake—as the uneasy feeling grew.

Because he couldn’t forget the blank look in her eyes, or rationalise the thought that he had just destroyed something infinitely precious without intending to.

* * *

Mel stared down at the one pink line on the pregnancy test kit. And waited, and waited… But no other line appeared. The result was negative.

Her stomach plummeted the rest of the way into her toes.

This was a good thing, and what she had always expected. So why did she feel even more gutted now than she had twenty minutes ago when she’d been about to tell Rene how much she loved him, and he’d stopped her?

She dropped the plastic stick in the bathroom bin, then washed her hands. But as the crater in her stomach grew, she knew why. Somehow or other, without ever consciously admitting it to herself, she had hoped desperately that she might be pregnant with Rene’s baby. So she would have an excuse not to confront the regret—and fear—in his eyes, not to have to interpret what that pragmatic proposal really meant.

‘You idiot,’ she murmured to her reflection, the heartache in her expression only confirming her worst suspicions.

That she had wanted to find a reason to justify allowing herself to fall hopelessly and completely in love with him.

She pressed a shaky hand to her belly. Her empty, unpregnant belly.

To be fair, though, falling in love with Rene had never been a conscious decision so much as an organic development. How could she not fall in love with him, when in some corner of her heart she had always known her feelings for him had never been rational, never been safe or pragmatic, and had always been about so much more than physical attraction.

In the past week, riding on the crest of a wave of his approval and attention, the fierce joy had always been tempered by the knowledge that he didn’t love her in return. She’d told herself that didn’t matter, that it didn’t have to be immediate, that love could always grow, and from the things he’d told her about his traumatic relationship with his father it was no wonder he was so cautious.

But every time they made love—the passion between them only becoming more incendiary and unquenchable—every time she saw his spontaneous smile when she said something he considered witty, every time he challenged and provoked her, every time he asked her advice and listened to her answer intently, she had fallen deeper and deeper into the delusion that somehow she would be the one to break down all those barriers he had been forced to put around his heart long ago.

‘…we don’t want an accidental pregnancy messing with the “true lurve” narrative… We don’t want the press thinking this is a shotgun wedding, ’cos that would be bad…’

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