Page 249 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

He sat down at the table, feeling tense. Feeling…no connection to the woman sitting across from him. Why was he here?

“Yes. You were.”

She took her sunglasses off. Her blue eyes matched his, and they were unreadable. Did she feel anything looking at him?

“I came to tell you that I am angry with you.”

“Did you?”

She took a sip of her water.

“Yes. You abandoned me. When I was a child.”

“I did,” she said. And for a moment, he thought he saw a sheen of tears in her eyes. But just like that, they were gone. “Adonis, I made a decision. And whether you believe it or not, there’s no negotiating custody with royalty. I decided to make a different life. But the life had to be separate. It was a decision that I made.”

“Do you ever regret it?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “All we have is the life we chose to live. Regrets don’t solve anything, do they?”

Except, they did. Because he had them. Because he hurt. And he wanted her to hurt alongside him.

Because he… He wanted to know that everything he had done over these last years had made an impact on her. Had made some kind of difference. And he realized that was…a truly pointless sentiment to carry around inside of him. To wish pain on somebody because they had made him feel wounded. Maybe it was fair, maybe it was even understandable. But… Why?

“Are you saying my father wouldn’t allow you to see me?”

“Adonis, do you want your relationship with your father to change?”

“He’sdying,” Adonis said. “That will change things anyway.”

“And all you will have is your memories. What’s the point of damaging them?”

“The point is, that I would know the truth.”

“Of course he wanted you to have the ability. That was how he presented it. And he didn’t want to see me. I hurt him. But the end result was our total estrangement. But I accepted it. And because of that, I have to own the pain that it caused. I suppose.”

“We can make a decision about whether or not we see each other now,” Adonis said.

“Of course. You never seemed as if you wanted to.”

“I didn’t. I wanted to hurt you. The way that you hurt me.”

“Adonis,” she said, looking down, and then back up. “You never hurt me. You were a child. And you were caught in the middle of something complicated. Seeing you in the headlines, I hoped that you were having a happy life. I enjoyed seeing pictures of you. And I liked to think that perhaps you had a little bit of fun because of me. I know you didn’t get it from your father.”

That rocked him. Took a knife and twisted it in his chest. His mother had made up a story that made her feel better, about what he was doing. He had been acting out because of her.

But not for the reason she thought. And he didn’t feel any triumph over any of it. He didn’t want to have hurt her, actually. Because what he was staring at was the impossibility of two people who hadn’t been able to deal with themselves on a deep enough level to stop their actions from hurting their child. From hurting themselves. His father had been sadder for having lost his mother. His mother had been…sadder for having lost him.

And Adonis found he didn’t have the stomach to try and make anything more painful. Suddenly, he felt like a burden was being lifted from within him. He didn’t look at his mother and see somebody shallow. He saw a beautiful, fragile woman who had done her very best to construct a new life with the tools she had been left.

Wasn’t that what they all were doing?

Him. His father. Stevie. Weren’t they all just trying their hardest with what they had been given?

Except… He had chosen fear. And that was very like his father. When he could’ve opened things up, changed them, to make his wife happy, to make there be a two-way relationship, he hadn’t done it. Because he hadn’t been able to get past his own pain, and hadn’t Adonis just done the same to Stevie?

“I’m getting married,” he said. “And I want you to be there.”

His mother looked shocked. “I thought your engagement was off.”

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