Page 160 of Modern Romance June 2025 5-8

Micha squinted in the morning sun. ‘Gio knew he wasn’t well and he was desperate. He wanted to see you married to Maria. He wanted that damn company to stayin the familyand was willing to do whatever it took.’

‘Including paying Ivy off?’ he said. ‘Is that why she’s here? Is she going to collect money from the will or something?’

‘What?’ Micha asked, confused. ‘Imbecille. She said no,’ he announced, pulling the sleeves of his shirt down by his cuffs.

‘She said no.’

‘Antonio, how is it that you have a multinational corporation, when all you do is parrot what I say?’ Micha demanded as if he were thick. ‘She said no, I left, that’s it.’

‘How much was she offered?’ Antonio asked, his eyes closed, as if that would somehow soften the blow of his monumental misjudgement of her.

‘Half a million.’

Breath shot out of his lungs. He’d only given her half that much to marry him in the first place.

‘She said no?’ Antonio repeated. ‘Why?’ he asked incredulously.

‘You will have to ask your wife,’ Micha said disdainfully.

‘Half a million,’ Antonio repeated, stunned, opening his eyes to find Micha looking at him accusatorily.

‘Yes. Half a million. And I know how much you paid her, don’t think I don’t. I also know what she could have done with that money too,’ Micha warned, and Antonio was struck by the sense that Micha Rufina knew more about his wife than he had seven days ago. ‘I’d not really thought you were a bastard, until then,’ Micha said, shocking Antonio with the vehemence in his tone. ‘She deserves better than you. And one day I hope she finds it.’

With that parting shot, Micha left Antonio reeling.

Something was different about Antonio when he came to find her later that morning.

‘We’re leaving,’ he announced in a clipped tone.

She looked up at him, immediately worried. ‘Has something happened?’

‘No.’

‘Did I do something wrong?’ she asked in a whisper, aware of the attention his behaviour was drawing.

He simply stared at her, his expression heated but unreadable.

‘What about the assessment?’ she asked as he led her away from the courtyard where the little group of children she’d been playing with were waving after her. ‘Do we need proof that I was here?’

‘There’ll be photographs. We have done as was asked. We can now truthfully say that you have met my family. You certainly seem to have made an impression,’ he said, opening the passenger door of his car for her with more force than was strictly necessary.

‘Antonio—’

‘Not here. They are still looking,’ Antonio said of his family, some of whom she saw pretending not to stare when she cast her gaze back to them.

It nearly gave her a headache, having to spin the threads of lies into a rug thick enough to stand on. She didn’t know how Antonio and Maria had grown up like this. Micha too. Ivy wasn’t quite sure how he’d fitted into their childhood—clearly, at some point there was a severed connection. And she couldn’t help but think that Gio Gallo was the hand that had wielded that knife too.

And not for the first time, she found herself thinking uncharitably of the man whose hand reached beyond the grave and into the present to achieve his own ends. Yes, she understood wanting to protect family—after all, she was here precisely because she had wanted to help Jamie. But at some point people had to live their own lives.

Did you?

The question caught her by surprise. Hadshelived her own life? Losing her sight and her flat after the accident had thrown her off her path. But now? What did she want for her life now?

Antonio manoeuvred the car down the gravel drive, away from his mother, who had come to stand at the front door to bid them farewell, the same unreadable expression on the older woman’s gaze as worn by her son. They might not be blood, but their bond was irrefutable.

‘I believe he needs more.’

Her words echoed in Ivy’s mind on a loop. She felt the same way, but she just didn’t know what it would take for him to feel that way too. And right now? Tension coiled like a rope through the body of the man beside her, the sleeves rolled up on his forearms revealing the power he used each time he changed gear.

---