Page 157 of Modern Romance June 2025 5-8

She turned to face him. ‘Do you want to get married?’

He watched her carefully. ‘Iammarried,’ he said slowly—as if wary about where this could be going.

Ivy bit back an impatient sigh. ‘One day. Not to Maria. If that was all sorted out, would you want to get married? To someone you fell in love with?’ she asked.

He huffed out a laugh.‘Non è possibile.’

‘Of course it’s possible,’ Ivy shot back, trying to hide her frustration.

‘No, Ivy. I won’t get married. A ring? A vow? A piece of paper? Meaningless. In my experience, paperwork is no guarantee of feelings, oflove, ofsafety,’ he said scornfully. ‘It didn’t mean anything when my mother’s husband legally adopted me, and it didn’t mean anything when he then went on to divorce her,’ he said, as she tried not to flinch at the vehemence in his tone. ‘So, no.Non è possibile,’ he repeated, stressing his previous words.

Ivy opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off.

‘Would you like to use the bathroom first?’ he offered politely, as if he hadn’t just ripped open a wound for her to see.

She hovered, wondering whether to press the issue, but the determined bent to his gaze told her it was a fool’s errand. She slipped into the en suite bathroom, went to the sink and braced her hands either side of it.

Her heart ached for him. For all the things that he’d not said and for the things that he had. In that moment, she thanked God for Maria, that she had been there for Antonio, and that his mother had loved Antonio enough to stay. Ivy understood why he was so determined to help Maria inherit Gallo Group now, and she silently promised to do whatever she could to assist them both.

Rolling her shoulders, she stepped beneath the blissful jets of the shower, lathering soap to wash away the imprints of sadness and hurt for Antonio, who was now old enough to look after himself.

She wondered what he was doing right this minute. Pacing the room, checking his phone? Getting ready for bed…? Soap bubbles slid over sensitive skin, and pulse points throbbed in places she’d nearly forgotten. In her mind, she saw him unbuttoning his shirt, the way he’d done by the pool the other day, and shivered. She felt his hands around her waist and trembled.

She shook her head. This was madness. She shouldneverhave asked him to stay. She’d get out of the shower and tell him she’d made a mistake. He’d understand, she knew he would. She dried off and stepped into her silk pyjamas, jaw clenched with tension, want in a turf war with need inside her chest. She’d just tell him she’d been feeling overtired and now that she was in the room he could—

She opened the door to find Antonio, eyes closed and arms crossed behind his head, already in the bed—his clothes in a neat pile on the chaise longue.

Oh.

Her breath stopped in her lungs.

He wasn’t asleep. She knew that much. But he was shutting her out. She stole one last moment to take him in. The bulge of his biceps, the breadth of his chest, the whorls of hair that dusted pectorals and bisected abdominal muscles. Her hungry gaze gathered as much of him to her memory as it could.

‘Get into bed, Ivy,’ he ordered, his eyes still closed.

Mortified, her cheeks on fire, she slipped beneath the smooth covers on the opposite side of the bed to him. More aware of her body than she hadeverbeen before in her life, she gripped the edge of the mattress with white knuckles, hoping that she wouldn’t move from there in her sleep.

She willed her pulse to slow and her breathing to calm and after ten minutes she was nearly there, when Antonio asked, ‘What about you? Would you marry again?’

She bit her lip. ‘No,’ she told him. But for a reason she wasn’t able or willing to put into words just then.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Antonio had wokenthree times during the night. That he’d evenfallenasleep was miraculous. He’d been driven near out of his mind when he’d heard the shower turn on. Images, conjured from a mix of fantasy and memories from their time in the pool, provided such a vivid impression that he’d had to adjust himself in his briefs.

The first time he’d woken, he’d found himself pressed against Ivy’s back, one hand fisting the sheet by his thigh and the other pinned beneath his head. He’d carefully removed himself and retreated to the other side of the bed.

The second time he’d woken to find that she’d turned to face him, her head tucked into his chest, and the arm that had previously been pinned beneath his head was now free to hold her to his side.

The third time, the final time, he’d blinked his eyes open and she was gone. And after a shocking moment of regret, he was relieved. Relieved and thankful. By that afternoon they’d be heading back to his villa, where there were two totally separate beds for them to sleep in.

But that didn’t help his present state of arousal. He cursed, throwing his head back on the pillow. It had been far too long since he’d last shared pleasure with a woman. He didn’t have to rack his brain. He didn’t even have to question when. It had been over six years earlier.

Antonio hadn’t initially intended to keep to his marriage vow to forsake all others, not consciously anyway. Back then he’d still, whether he wanted to admit it or not, been reeling from the discovery that the woman he’d been seeing was more interested in his bank account than his personality. Yes, he was self-aware enough to understand the irony. Poor little rich boy. But she’d hidden it better than the other women he’d encountered in his life. Of course, when Gio had threatened to cut him off she’d disappeared, just like all the others.

That was one of the reasons why Ivy had appealed to him. Because he’d known what she wanted from the beginning. Just the money. The terms had been agreed, there was no ulterior motive, nothing to be uncovered. Nothing to catch him by surprise. He was the one in control. And then, when Gio had cut him off, Antonio had thrown himself into the hard work that was needed to make his business as successful as it was. He’d pulled eighteen, nineteen-hour days, seven days a week, for years. And thinking on it now, this was the longest time he’d had away from work. Ever.

Women hadn’t even factored in those first few years, and then he’d realised that life had just been easier without them in it. Less risk, more reward. But for the first time in those six and a bit years, he knew that taking himself in hand wouldn’t even begin to satisfy the need coursing through his veins, courtesy of his deeply inconvenient wife.

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