Page 120 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

‘So are you…although you look like you haven’t slept in a month.’

‘More like a week.’

He climbed up the steps.

His baby sister gazed up at his face. He gazed down at hers.

A moment later the years of their estrangement melted away under the force of their embrace.

* * *

Diaz strolled through the Michelin-starred restaurant of his Viennese hotel. He noted with unsmiling satisfaction that every table was occupied, the hum of chatter only slightly higher than the specially chosen melodious background music. A number of diners were taking pictures of their food. Their expressions suggested their social media postings would be favourable. As it should be.

In the kitchen, ordered chaos ensued. The head chef, whose famous name was on the restaurant door, noticed Diaz’s appearance but was too busy to do anything but nod an acknowledgement. As it should be.

In the spacious lobby, he descended the stairs two at a time to the basement, and swept past the doormen and into the hotel’s real money pit. The casino.

Almost nine o’clock on a Saturday evening and already the atmosphere was thrumming. Where the music in the restaurant was kept low-key to enable his diners to relax, the volume in the casino was upped, the tempo fast. In another hour, all the gambling tables would be full and would remain full until the early hours. People would have to wait their turn to play on the slots. As it should be.

Everything in his business empire was exactly as it should be.

It was only in Diaz’s heart that everything was wrong.

Before heading to his security hub, he checked his phone in the faint hope he’d missed it vibrate a message.

Nothing. No reply to the message he’d sent Rose early that morning in reply to her own message. It had been a sweet message saying she hoped his visit to Rosaria had gone well and asking if he still planned to come to Devon after Vienna.

He could not credit how badly he missed her.

It was all he could do to get out of bed each morning.

He could no longer give his soul to have her back. His soul had gone. All that was left was emptiness.

‘Has it started?’ he asked, taking his usual seat in The Hub.

‘Four minutes,’ Jorge replied, not looking up from the screens before him.

Diaz skimmed with disinterested eyes the fool currently being welcomed by Stefan, the evening’s host. ‘The usual faces?’

He barely registered the hesitation before Jorge answered. ‘Yes.’

‘Okay. Coffee?’ He was off his seat and heading for the nearest coffee machine before Jorge could answer.

Coffee made, he placed Jorge’s in front of him and took a sip of his own, wishing it were a large Scotch or bourbon.

Had to maintain the façade that everything was business as usual.

The players had taken their seats. Two tables. Eight players per table…

A jolt of electricity zinged through his veins. He blinked to clear his vision and moved his stare to a different monitor, which was fixed, face on, on players three and four from table one. Player three was a slender woman with long, dirty blonde hair worn loose around her shoulders. She was wearing a sparkling gold strappy-sleeved dress, high breasts showing just a hint of cleavage.

His throat ran dry.

As if sensing his attention, player three lifted her stare to the monitor Diaz was watching her through.

* * *

He’d seen her. She could feel his stare on her.

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