Page 86 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

‘Good, because I sent your selection to Spain’s top stylist and asked her to supply you with a wardrobe using that selection as a base guide to follow your own style.’

‘But why? I have my own clothes in my own home.’

Instead of answering, he continued scrutinising her. ‘How did you sleep last night?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘A lot.’

‘I don’t see how.’

‘Just answer the question.’

She had no idea why she felt so reluctant to admit, ‘I slept well, if you must know.’

There was a flickering in his eyes. ‘You slept well. The girls slept well—they were fast asleep when I checked on them before my morning swim. We are all sleeping well. Already you are looking much better in yourself and, I think, feeling better in yourself too.’ He raised an eyebrow, clearly expecting her to comment on his assessment.

‘Yes,’ she agreed with a calm she was not anywhere close to experiencing inside. The fluttering in her belly was telling her loud and clear that whatever Diaz had been biding his time over was about to be revealed. ‘I’m starting to feel a lot more like my old self.’

He nodded slowly, now studying her with an intensity that made the pulse between her legs throb.

How was it possible she could still want him so much that just to be trapped in his stare was enough to fill her with a heat that roused only for him? she thought with something close to despair. So potent was his effect on her that she half wished to still be cloaked in exhaustion and all her senses muted to everything but her babies.

Bringing her here was Diaz’s way of lifting that exhaustion, she knew that with the same certainty she knew her birth date, and it took all her courage to maintain the lock of their eyes. ‘Can you stop being evasive for a moment and give me a straight answer for when we’re going home?’

He gave a long exhale and as he breathed out, his large frame loosened a fraction and the mask he’d been wearing since their arrival in Spain finally slipped off.

Green eyes swirling with a meaning she couldn’t decipher but which made her stomach plunge and her hands grip her arms tight enough to bruise, he quietly said, ‘There is no need for you to meet with your lawyer. There has been no delay. I lied about the divorce papers being filed.’

Head suddenly swimming, her mouth dropped open. Then closed. Then opened again. ‘You did wh…? But…why? Why would you do that?’

His green eyes didn’t so much as flicker. ‘Because I no longer wish to divorce.’

CHAPTER SIX

DiazwatchedRoseabsorb his words.

As hard as it had been to keep his distance from her and by extension their daughters these last few days, he’d known it was necessary to wait for the Rose he’d known all these years to emerge from the fugue of exhaustion that had cloaked her all these months.

As much as he’d wanted to wait a few days more to get his business affairs in order before having this conversation, one look at Rose had told him the time was now.

She really did look remarkably better, from the colour on her cheeks to the straightness of her back when she walked, but it was the return of the spark in her eyes that convinced him she was ready to deal with what he had to throw at her.

‘You have got to be kidding me?’ she finally blustered. ‘Stop giving me the run-around and file the papers already.’

He shook his head. ‘I appreciate this has come as something of a shock to you and that you will need time to digest it, but I want our marriage to continue and—’

‘We don’thavea marriage,’ she snapped.

‘Then it’s time we did. Our girls deserve to be raised by both their parents.’

‘They already have that.’

‘But not always under the same roof. Not as a real family.’

She visibly blanched but didn’t back down. ‘When you’re around, you spend all the time with them that you want. I have never denied you access or even tried to deny you access. For heaven’s sake, Diaz, I didn’t even ask you to return your keys once the house was put into my sole name. You come and go as you please.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed evenly, ‘but only until night falls and then I’m expected to sleep elsewhere.’

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