Page 93 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

‘The weather is supposed to remain relatively cool and it is never too early to introduce them to the joys of nature.’

He could see the internal war she was fighting, see her scrambling for a reasonable excuse to refuse and coming up with nothing.

No longer looking at him, she gave a short nod of her head. ‘Sure. When do you want to leave?’

‘As soon as we have everything we need packed for the girls.’

* * *

The nature reserve, a thirty-minute drive away, turned out to be a twenty-square-mile wildlife park with free roaming, endangered species living the best lives they could outside their natural environments.

Diaz drove, and in the reserve itself they took a child each onto their laps and pointed out the exotic creatures, some basking in the sun, others hiding in the shade, as they crawled along with the air conditioning keeping them nice and cool.

For the first time in a long time, Rose wished she had her camera to hand. For years, she’d kept it almost permanently around her neck, always ready to take a shot if something caught her eye. Although the park, created out of a former open-pit iron mine, was filled with beautiful and diverse natural colours that contrasted brilliantly with the cobalt sky and had a real air of tranquillity that it would be a pleasure to immortalise in one snapshot of time, it pained her to admit it was Diaz her camera hands itched to immortalise. Diaz, exactly as he was in that moment: sexy, relaxed and engaged with their daughters, filling their heads with knowledge they were way too young to remember. They were too young to appreciate any of it and there was zero chance of them ever remembering any of it, and yet they seemed to be taking everything in, so surely they had to be getting something out of it, whatever that something might be.

She wondered if her own father had ever engaged with her like Diaz did with their daughters. She’d never thought about it before. He’d moved back to his native Australia before her first birthday and while they’d kept in touch over the years, the original intention of him making regular visits back to England to see her had never materialised. Flights from one side of the world to the other were expensive. That was the reason she’d always been given. The reason she’d always accepted. The reason she had no memories of her father in the flesh.

It was painful to admit that if her father had loved her like Diaz loved their daughters, he would have found the money.

Diaz would always be a true father to their girls. He was hands-on with them because he wanted to be. Because he loved them.

He would never do as her father had done. Or as his parents had done to him, leaving him to be dragged up by nannies until he was old enough to be shoved off to an English boarding school. She remembered Rosaria telling her Mrs Martinez had initially moved back to Devon from Madrid so someone was close by if Diaz needed them.

Whether the widowed Mrs Martinez had known she would become his and later Rosaria’s de facto parent was something Rose had never thought to ask. Having known and loved her, she strongly suspected that not only had Mrs Martinez known it would happen but that she’d wanted it to happen, for the children’s sake, so they could have stability and continuity in their lives.

For all Mrs Martinez’s love and attention, it was his parents’ love and attention he’d needed.

Diaz loved their daughters so much that he was prepared to tie himself to his nemesis for life for their sakes, so they could have the full family he’d always craved. And it was for this reason that when they returned to the villa, all Rose’s stuff would have been moved into his bedroom.

Was she being selfish for being so emotionally resistant to his wishes for them to have a proper marriage and be a family? Rose wondered miserably as she made sure to keep her happy face on and pointed to a warthog rooting about, closer to their car than any of the other animals had been.

Once they’d finished driving around the wildlife reserve, they parked up and took a walk around the reservoir to the picnic area. While Diaz pushed the girls in their double stroller, shades on, his height, athleticism and rugged good looks turning heads from all who passed them, Rose found her camera hands tingling again.

It felt strange to be out and about. Since the girls had been born, she’d only left her home for medical appointments and walks along the beach with them. Diaz had come along on a couple of the walks but those had been in the days of newborn baby brain fog and all she’d seen him as was a capable extra pair of hands.

It was frightening how quickly everything had turned around; old feelings and desires resurfacing, old hurts freshly wounding.

And it was terrifying that her awareness of Diaz’s every movement and gesture was more acute than it had ever been.

Even more terrifying that the excitement of what the night would bring buzzed in her pulses at a rapidly increasing tempo.

* * *

The rest of the day had to rank as the longest hours of Rose’s life. She went through the motions of behaving like a functional human being but beneath the skin she was a bag of heightened emotions living on her nerves.

Soon, very soon, she would be climbing the stairs and opening the door to her new bedroom. She would be sharing a mattress and bedsheets with Diaz.

How—how—was she supposed to separate her heart from her body and protect herself? she despaired for what had to be the hundredth time.

‘Do I need to have a talk with my chef?’ he asked lightly, interrupting her despairing thoughts. ‘This is the third meal we’ve shared that you’ve hardly touched.’

That evening they were dining under the stars. Diaz, sitting excruciatingly close to her, had been holding a steady stream of conversation about his plans to open a hotel in Iceland and steadily clearing his plate whilst Rose pushed the fresh seafood paella around hers.

Beneath the amiable conversation ran a strong undercurrent that pulled and tugged at the nerves in her stomach making it impossible to eat, no matter how divine the food tasted.

So strong were the nerves that she was close to wishing they’d skipped the pretence of dinner and gone straight to bed once the girls had fallen asleep. Got it over with.

It was the thought ofitfeeding the undercurrent. Tugging her nerves into a frenzy.

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