Page 69 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

Thedoorclosed, enclosing them in the cab. A little of the tension contained in Diaz released. Enough to snatch a breath. And inhale a trace of Rose’s beautiful, toxic scent.

‘You think it acceptable to cut and run after dumping that on me?’ he demanded tersely.

The woman who’d dumped the bombshell rested her head back and gazed at the cab’s ceiling. ‘You are hardly in a position to complain about me cutting and running after what you did.’

There was a pounding in his head. ‘So this is payback?’

‘No.’ She turned her gaze to him. ‘Just pointing out your hypocrisy. I left so you could digest what I’d told you in your own time and without my hateful presence there to distract you.’

‘How can I digest that? You tell me you’re pregnant with twins and then you disappear?’

‘I didn’t disappear, Diaz. I left. Even if you’ve deleted my number, you know how to get hold of it and get hold of me. You certainly know where I live.’

The implication being that he’d done the opposite and made it damn near impossible for her to get hold of him. That it was an implication that happened to be the truth did nothing to still the tempest raging in him.

The cab driver rapped loudly on the plastic-glass thing separating them from him. ‘Where to?’ By the impatience in his voice, it was a question he’d already asked.

Rose closed her eyes a moment then gave the name of a hotel in Westminster. The cab set off.

Diaz twisted in his seat to face her. They’d both positioned themselves at the furthest point to the other. He made an effort to speak in a cordial tone. ‘You’re staying in London?’

‘Only for tonight. I’m going home in the morning.’ There was weariness in her voice.

‘I’ll drive you home.’

‘I’ve got a train booked.’ She didn’t look at him.

‘If I drive, we can talk. We have a lot to discuss.’ The lives of the two babies currently nestled in her belly. His babies. Their babies. Created during the one night of his whole life he’d never wanted to have to think of again.

He’d crept out of her bed and walked out of their Devon home with a stomach full of lead knowing he must never see her again.

How could he have not considered the possibility that their carelessness—hiscarelessness—could have had such huge, life-changing ramifications?

‘And many months to discuss it,’ she said.

‘Months? Rose, you’re pregnantnow.’ In the blink of an eye, the future he’d created for himself far from the toxicity of all the feelings she evoked in him had been ripped away. Far from excising her from his life for good, he was going to be tied to her for ever.

He’d despised her from the start. It had been irrational then, he understood that now, but his grandmother’s Devon house had been the one place that had felt like home to him. The one place he and Rosaria could simply be. Their parents’ home—and he used that word loosely—in Madrid had felt more like a high-end, stylish museum than a place to live and relax. Like many high-end museums, visits were by appointment only, even for the fabulously chic owners’ children.

Diaz’s fabulously chic parents had sent the usual driver in the Bentley to collect their two children from their respective hideously expensive boarding schools, and the two Martinez children had been driven to their grandmother’s full of plans for how they would spend their summer. Diaz had seen it as his responsibility to keep Rosaria entertained. Keep her safe. Her uncomplicated adoration of him had made him feel like a prince in comparison to how their parents’ indifference had made him feel.

And then they’d arrived and discovered a new housekeeper had replaced the retired Joan. A new live-in housekeeper with a skinny daughter in tow who was a similar age to Rosaria. That had been it. His little shadow had left him without a thought and attached herself to Rose, and,Dios, had he resented Rose for it. Resented that this stranger had treated the place he’d considered his home as her home. Resented, too, his grandmother’s obvious adoration of this wild child who’d had no volume control, a seeming allergy to footwear, never walked when she could skip or run, and whose presence had infected the entirety of the one place he’d felt he belonged.

Diaz liked to think he’d have got over his irrational resentment if she hadn’t become such a bad influence on Rosaria, an influence that had grown as the girls strode through adolescence. If not for Rose, his sister would still be a part of his life, not living in a hippy cult in Nevada, poisoning her mind and body with all manner of drugs and refusing to take his calls.

It was almost beyond credulity that the wild child who’d led his sister astray would be the one to lead a clean adult life. He almost wished he had evidence that she’d never really changed her rebellious ways and so could go for sole custody, but having lived with her for months while they shared the care of his dying grandmother, and having watched her like a hawk throughout, he had to accept that, in this regard, Rose had changed.

Besides, if he was to try and take the children from her, his grandmother, may she be resting in peace, would see that he was sent to hell for it. He knew damn well she was already looking down on him with sorrow that he’d never intended to keep his marital promise.

His grandmother had always been blind to Rose’s faults. Always forgiven and excused every transgression.

‘Indeed I am,’ Rose agreed. ‘I’mpregnant, not you, so don’t think you can start throwing your weight around.’

‘I don’tthrow my weight around.’

She speared him with a stare.

‘Don’t give me that look,’ he said angrily. ‘I don’t know what you want from me but—’

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