Page 99 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

The clasp of her fingers tightened. Her voice dropped even lower whilst growing in fierceness. ‘He’s the reason why I will never stop you having a relationship with our daughters. Whatever happens between you and me, Diaz, I don’t want them growing up without a father. They need you, and the reason you will never understand your parents’ selfishness is because you don’t have that gene in you—you proved it a hundred times over with your sister and grandmother, and you’ve proved it a hundred times over with the girls. You put their needs first and you always will.’

Moved beyond belief at this assessment from the woman who not even an hour ago had accused him of bullying and blackmail, it was a long time before Diaz felt capable of clearing his throat to speak. ‘And what about you,mi corazón? Do you think there will ever come a day when you need me too?’

Her fingers tensed in his before she slowly pulled them away. Instead of pulling away altogether as he braced himself for, she shuffled closer to put her head on his chest and wrap her arms around him.

‘I don’t know,’ she said starkly. ‘There are times when…’

Her voice caught.

He pressed his mouth into the top of her head and held her close. ‘When what?’

She shook her head. ‘I won’t make any promises other than to try. Just… Just try to be patient with me in return.’

CHAPTER NINE

Afteradayspent as a family at one of Valencia’s foremost art galleries, Diaz as adamant about it never being too early to introduce the girls to culture as he’d been about nature, Rose kissed her babies goodnight.

Since living in Spain, she’d got into the habit of changing for dinner each evening. Nothing formal like how Diaz’s parents, who—surprise!—had cancelled their visit again, liked to dine. More slightly dressy-casual. Clothes she’d prefer not to have splattered in baby milk or sick. Clothes, it pained her to admit, she could imagine Diaz peeling off her.

In the dressing room they shared, she rifled through her abundance of drawers, shelves and rails and tried to dampen the panic nibbling at her chest at how important their evenings alone together were becoming to her. How she would put the girls to bed with a quivering of anticipation low in her belly, not just of the pleasure that would soon be hers but what came before it, the shared meal and idle conversation. His company.

And yet for all the surface harmony currently existing between them, an undercurrent of tension remained, much faded but still there, the sense that one wrong word could bring everything crashing down.

The biggest eggshell for Rose was his sister.

The biggest eggshell for Diaz, she was certain, was her continued refusal to kiss him on the mouth.

In many ways, the marriage they were slowly creating together was the fairy tale of her dreams coming to life, but, as she knew to her cost, believing in fairy tale endings with Diaz ended in destruction.

He must never know how desperately her senses yearned to be filled with his dark taste.

Everything he was doing here, all his thoughtful gestures, everything, was to satisfy his craving for them to be a family. Nothing more.

Without the girls, she wouldn’t be here, she thought bleakly. Diaz would have filed the divorce papers. She would have spent the rest of her life without seeing him again.

None of this was about her. It was all about Diaz wanting the real family he’d never had, and she must never let herself forget that, and when he joined her in the dressing room and gave her the smile that never failed to make her heart bloom, she had to ground her bare toes to the floor to stop them skipping to him.

* * *

Diaz didn’t know which of them reached for the other first. He had no clear memory of climbing on top of Rose but knew he must have done because he awoke to the most incredible sensation of being inside her and her soft mews of pleasure soaking into his ears.

Opening his eyes to early morning dusk, he found her half-open eyes already on him, sleepy sensuality blazing from them.

The hand clasping the back of his neck skimmed up, fingers diving through his hair.

He could kiss her now, he thought dimly as he continued the deep, slow rhythm they’d found together. She would accept it. The sweet tongue that had once danced with such passion against his would…

She raised her thighs, deepening the penetration to levels beyond pleasure. It was all he could do to hold on.

Kiss me, he silently willed.

Eyes still fused together, she tightened the clasp on his head and lifted her face, but the ultimate fusion he craved remained as out of reach as ever when she pressed her cheek to his. Clinging to him tightly, her breaths now shallow pants, she ground her groin to his, her body demanding more and more until convulsions thrashed through her and his name echoed as a whisper on her tongue as she dragged him over the edge and into oblivion.

* * *

The sun rising high above them was growing in strength. Even though they were slathered in factor fifty, sun hats on and covered from neck to ankles in all-over swimsuits, Rose sighed to know it would soon be time to take the girls out of the pool. The shade keeping it cool and adding protection to their delicate skin was lessening, Diaz chasing it as he pushed them through the water in their baby floats. She didn’t know which sight made her heart sing the most—Diaz’s tanned perfect body glistening with water, his handsome face alive with joy, or the gummy beams of delight on their daughters’ faces. Their love of the water was wholly down to their father.

The first time they’d taken them into the pool, both girls had screamed in protest. Where Rose had been ready to put an immediate stop to it—nothing could freeze a mother’s heart more than her babies’ screams of terror—Diaz had been entirely unfazed. Each morning, before the sun got too hot, he’d carried them on his lap into the shallow end and gently dipped their tiny toes in the water with crooning encouragement that there was nothing to fear. And look at them now, only twelve days from that first disastrous attempt!

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