Page 175 of Modern Romance June 2025 5-8

He gestured for her to follow him through a door and Ivy was startled to find herself in an actual court this time, not the judge’s chambers.

It didn’t quite look like the courts she’d seen in TV dramas, but then again, this was South West London. There was no rich mahogany, no barristers in wigs. Instead, there was pine and plain red cotton seat cushions, though Judge Carmondy, sitting in the middle of the raised dais, still wore his black gown.

Simon showed her to a seat behind a table and proceeded to take the one beside her.

‘Where’s Antonio?’ she asked in a whisper.

‘Coming.’

‘Shouldn’t you be sitting with him?’ she asked.

‘No. He fired me and hired me for you.’

‘What? He fired you? Why?’ she demanded, confused and off-balance.

Simon made a quieting gesture as the door opened and Antonio stalked in.

Her hungry gaze devoured him. He refused to look her way, but that only allowed her free rein to indulge in all the things that she’d been missing. Oh, she had been starved of him. She’d nearly convinced herself that she’d imagined his perfection. But she hadn’t. Her whole body hummed in his presence. It recognised him as a part of her and her heart ached even more.

And that hurt made her a little nauseous.

She watched Antonio take a seat on the opposite side of the room, wanting him to look her way. But she couldn’t be sure that she wouldn’t break into a thousand pieces if he did. Judge Carmondy cleared his throat as one of the women in the court announced that they were now in session.

Antonio couldn’t remember ever being more nervous in his life. Partly because until now there had been nothing nearly so valuable to him as Ivy. Asthis.

‘I have received the reports from the assessment from Ms Quell and read over both of your written assessments,’ Judge Carmondy began, peering between his papers and acknowledging Ms Quell, who sat just behind Antonio in the courtroom.

‘Thank you both for your concerted effort to prove that you have taken this matter seriously. It is appreciated,’ he said with a long hard stare at Antonio. Finally relenting, he leaned back in his chair, as if already moving on to his next case. ‘I take it we are ready to proceed with your divorce?’ he asked.

‘No, Your Honour,’ Antonio said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You’re pardoned,’ Antonio replied, confused by the judge’s response.

‘Don’t get smart with me, Mr Gallo. Do you or do you not want a divorce from Ms McKellen? Which I was on the verge of granting, may I say.’

‘No. I don’t want a divorce.’

He felt the shockwaves ripple out from where Ivy, his wife—the woman he loved—sat, but he couldn’t risk looking at her. Not yet. If he did, he might never get through what he needed to say.

‘Explain yourself. Quickly and succinctly, or I shall find you in contempt of court,’ Judge Carmondy warned.

‘I hate paperwork,’ Antonio began.

Carmondy side-eyed him a warning glance.

‘All of it. I hate the things I have to sign as a business owner, I hate receiving it, I hate it as documentation and if I never sign another piece of paper in my life it would make me extremely happy.’

‘Mr Gallo. Get to the point. Soon.’

‘You accused me of not taking this marriage seriously. And I didn’t, Your Honour. You were absolutely right,’ he confessed. ‘Marriage, to me, was just another piece of paper, certainly not holding any greater importance to me than simply a means to an end. My marriage to Ivy McKellen was everything you thought it was.’

He could practically see the steam rising from Carmondy’s ears.

‘Almost,’ Antonio added before the judge could, as he’d threatened, find him in contempt. ‘My dislike of paperwork was hard learned. It started with the biological parents who signed away their rights to me on papers just like these,’ he said, pointing to the file of legal documents on the table in front of him. ‘And then, with two signatures on more paperwork, I was claimed by adoption papers. For a while. Until yet another signature on even more paperwork removed my mother from her husband as his wife, and me from him as a son. My grandfather,’ Antonio said with a rueful laugh, ‘he cut me from his legacy, striking my name from his paperwork. So, Your Honour. I’d like to think that I have, as you would say,just causeto have an issue with paperwork.’

Judge Carmondy acknowledged it with a nod, his hard eyes softening just a little, enough to encourage Antonio to continue.

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