Page 50 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

“We should go,” Lynna said. Was it just him that she sounded a little robotic?

But he could hardly worry about that, as he had to yet again clear his throat to speak. “Yes. We should.”

* * *

Family.

That word echoed through her, in Henry’s Welsh accent that reminded her of her father, maybefeltlike her father’s word now, rattling around inside her head.

There’d been a timefamilyhad been in her future plans. Find a good husband—a kind, good, affable man like her father. Have a few children.

Then… She didn’t want to think ofthen. The disillusionment of who her father had become, tangled indelibly with his untimely death. Then there had been no point to her plans. The only thing with any meaning was to take care of Mother and Rhys. That had been enough.

Itwasenough. Because this fake marriage she’d engaged in was a sham, not some chance at a family. She didn’t care for Athan, and that would be the only real way to start afamily.

So why that little moment in time seemed to nestle into her brain, she did not understand. Did not want to. It had to be boxed away with all the rest.

Once the year was up, all these things she didn’t want to deal with wouldn’t matter anymore, and she’d never have to handle them. They were irrelevant blips in time, best disregarded.

She had a subdued lunch with Athan. They barely spoke. They didn’t really need to. The entire purpose of her being with him today was simply optics. That whatever stories might abound—online, in print, in whispers—she was by his side.

And anyone who had once supported her father could be by his side as well. It was a symbol, and it did not require more than just being here. She told herself this was fine, because of course it was, and there was no reason to feel any concern or worry over the fact he barely spoke.

No innuendo. No sly jokes. No smiles meant to make the heat creep into her cheeks. He ate as though the weight of the world rested on his shoulders, and she could not stop thinking about the wordfamily, and the way his parents had failed him.

She didn’t absolve him—he had made mistakes as an adult, and even if they came from some trauma as a child, that didn’t mean he hadn’t done harm. That didn’t mean there was forgiveness to be had.

“Would you like to return to the office, or home?” he asked her when they were walking out of the restaurant.

“I think I should return home to prepare for tonight’s dinner,” she said, feeling formal and stiff.

He nodded, and so they got in the car and he began to drive.

Home.Hishome. Not hers. Ms.Carewnot Mrs. Akakios, even if she’d now allowed too many people to call her the latter today.

The car ride was silent. She supposed he must be in his own mental world of wheeling and dealing and coming up on top when it came to his father’s horrible schemes. Just as she was in her own mental world of…confusion and frustration andnothingshe liked.

So she would go back to the Akakios home, and calm and silence her thoughts with the restorative act of cooking a meal.

Not long before he would turn into his own drive, he spoke. With no preamble, he simply offered: “I called my mother earlier.”

She didn’t immediately respond to this. She turned to study his profile. He had a vague frown on his face, and she wasn’t altogether certain that he’d really planned to tell her that.

But it stirred something inside of her. A frustration. An anger. Even when she told herself he deserved anything he got, the idea his mother could be the person doing it just made her angry. No matter how she tried to stop or push away that anger.

“And what was her excuse for this attack?” Lynna asked, frustrated with her own bitterness. She slumped back in her seat and told herself to stopfeelingso damn much.

He sighed. “Constantine paid her to.”

Lynna shook her head. She should have known, and still it stoked her anger only higher. “But…surely she has no loyalty to Constantine. Her loyalty should be to her son.”

“I chose Constantine over her. Why shouldn’t she do the same?”

The words didn’t make sense, no matter how she turned them over, and his vague frown but otherwise blank expression did nothing to help clarify it to her. “What do you mean?”

“When they divorced. I was given the choice who I wanted to spend the majority of the year with. I chose him, not her.”

The shock of it wound through her like a blow—though she didn’t,couldn’tcare. Except… “You were a boy.” And she remembered him as the boy he’d been when his parents had divorced. He hadn’t yet hit his growth spurt, and yet because he was older than her, she’d seen him as a kind of…giant. If not in stature, in who he was.

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