Page 2 of Modern Romance June 2025 5-8

He grasped her wrist to pull her arm from around his neck. He didn’t like to be fawned over in public, or in private for that matter.

The truth was, he should never have started his affair with the socialite two months ago. But that had been the day his business manager had informed him that Isla de la Luna, the exclusive resort Montoya Investments had bankrolled in the Balearics, which was due to open at the end of the summer, had received some unfortunate publicity from an article comparing his father’s decision to run off with some British whore fifteen years ago and Santiago’s inability to commit to one woman.

It was at that point he had decided he needed a wife.

Santiago had quickly discarded the idea that Gabriela might be a suitable bride, though. Sleeping with her had not been particularly memorable, plus she was even more petulant and entitled than his sister Ana. She would make a terrible role model for Ana, whose volatile emotions reminded him far too much of their mother, and who clearly needed the guidance Santiago would require his wife to provide. But when he made that ultimate commitment, he needed to choose a woman who would excite him enough in bed that he would not be tempted to stray… As his father had.

Ana’s latest school expulsion had made Santiago determined to find a suitable bride before his sister returned to school—if he could find a school that would take her. Telling Alejandro of his intentions, though, had been an avoidable mistake.

‘Our affair is over, Gabriela.’ He’d tried to let her down gently, but she did not appear to appreciate subtlety.

‘I see.’ Gabriela blinked, her eyes sheened with hurt. He dismissed her reaction. He had not given her cause to expect more—they hadn’t slept together in weeks.

‘I must escort you home now. I have to return to thecastillotonight to deal with Ana—and it’s a two-hour drive.’ The De Montoya ancestral home was a place he hated to visit—the cruel memories of his childhood always there when he returned to the Castillo de las Vides—but he would need to find someone to watch over Ana for the summer now, before he returned to Madrid to locate a bride.

He cupped Gabriela’s elbow and steered her through the crowd of people supping vintage cava and waxing lyrical about unimpressive art, determined to escort her out of the gallery before she made a scene. He did not need more headlines in the Spanish press about what a heartless bastard he was.

A crowd of onlookers was waiting in the plaza to greet them. Although held back by security guards, the crowd surged forward, holding their phones up to take intrusive shots. The limousine he’d had waiting pulled up.

But as the chauffeur opened the back door, Gabriela tugged her arm from his grasp.

‘Would you mind if I took the car home alone?’ she asked, her eyes misty with emotion. ‘I doubt you want to witness me falling to pieces over something that meant nothing to you.’

‘Of course,’ he said, despite the inconvenience.

He kept a sports car at his penthouse apartment a few streets away. He would not be able to work on the drive to thecastillowithout the chauffeur-driven limo as he had intended, but having to deal with his ex-lover’s tears would be a great deal more inconvenient.

After the car drove away, he was contemplating how the hell to get past all these damn people with their phones in the air when he heard a panicked cry—which diverted everyone’s attention.

‘Thief!Ladrón!Stop him—he’s stolen my bag!’ a female voice shouted in a mix of outraged English and Spanish.

A man, no doubt the thief, shot through the crowd carrying a pack, followed by a girl. She wore sneakers, a T-shirt and denim cut-offs, which showed off her toned legs as she headed towards Santiago. Her short chestnut curls bounced as she ran, surrounding a face which looked young despite her fierce frown.

He caught a whisper of her scent—like the wild summer flowers his mother had loved—over the aroma of heat and garbage from the square. But as the girl shot past him, he clocked how fast she was moving.

Is she mad?

If the girl caught the thief, he could become violent. Barcelona’s pickpockets usually had no desire to tussle with their victims, but only a week ago a tourist had been stabbed on Las Ramblas during a street robbery.

A fierce protective instinct struck him in the solar plexus as the girl sprinted after the thief into the labyrinth of dark alleyways, away from the open plaza.

You little fool.

Santiago tugged off his suit jacket and slung it to one of the guards. ‘Hold this!’ he shouted in Catalan.

He sprinted after the foolhardy girl—leaving the square, the barrage of phone cameras and quite possibly his common sense behind him. He was no woman’s knight in shining armour, just ask Gabriela, but even he wasn’t cynical enough to do nothing while a girl Ana’s age risked injury or worse over a lost bag.

CHAPTER TWO

Cerys pumped her legs, her lungs working overtime as she entered the narrow side street.

She kept her gaze fixed on the man fifteen yards ahead of her, and her bright blue rucksack as it bobbed past the dwindling crowds of people. And tried not to think about Álvaro De Montoya’s son—and the forbidding frown on his devastatingly handsome face—when she had sped past his nose.

The rucksack held everything she possessed, including her phone.

Why hadn’t she paid more attention?

Her lungs heaved and her legs began to ache. She darted past a rubbish cart and swung round a corner, gaining ground. Her pack weighed a ton, and the thief was flagging. She could catch him, if she just kept running…

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