Page 134 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

“You really cannot be here,” he says, and he is moving again, coming toward me with a frown on his face, and still I wait.

Because surely, any moment now—

And I watch this happen, too. The way his gaze moves over me, almost greedily, something I recognize because I feel it too.

But I can see when his eyes move over my belly, and then back.

And it is just as satisfying as I hoped. As I imagined. As I dreamed. He stops walking, almost as if he slams into an invisible wall.

He is staring at my belly. I lift my hand and smooth it over the jut of my belly, outlining its shape. He makes the faintest sound. A groan or a prayer, I can’t tell.

Slowly, almost painfully, he raises his gaze to mine.

“Oh, yes,” I say with a soft kind of intensity that isn’t quite malice, but isn’tnotmalice, either. “We have many things to discuss. Your real name is the least of it.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Heushersmeout of that room and the music he played seems to hang about us in the bright sunlight that pours in through the arches and paints the courtyards we pass in gold. There is something thunderous about the way he strides through the house, though I get the impression that he is keeping an eye out for something as we go.

Perhapssomeone.

A terrible suspicion begins to take root inside of me.

I read about him. I read every article I could find, though many were in translation. One thing I’m certain was never mentioned in any of them was a wife.

But then, this man is not like some other noble families I’ve encountered. They come complete with PR teams, social media managers, and a robust internet presence. Everything I read about Taio suggests that he prefers the family name to carry the weight.

Meaning, I realize with a sickening feeling of dread deep inside of me, he could absolutely be married. With twenty children, for all I know.

For the first time in a long, long while—since I lived in my stepmother’s house, to be precise—I feel something like shame wash over me.

And I am more shaken than I would like as he leads me into a book-lined study and shuts the door behind us. Tightly.

“You should be off your feet,” he mutters at me, and herds me into a deep leather chair.

I would object, but I can’t seem to find the words.

“Are you married?” I demand instead, before the wondering eats me alive.

He stops still in the center of the room, halfway to the seat opposite me. He turns and stares down at me with something like amazement. “Am Imarried?”

There is a kind of fury in his tone. It feels like a lash, but I can’t let that deter me.

“You heard me. Are you married? Do you have children?” That one hurts, but I don’t back down. “Are you a cheater in addition to being a liar and a con man?”

Taio lets out a sound that is technically a laugh, but I do not mistake the bitterness in it for anything like humor.

“No.” He bites off the word. “I am notmarried.How could you think—”

He slashes a hand through the air, cutting himself off, and I find myself holding my breath at the look ofoutrageon his face. And something in his eyes that almost makes me think that I’ve deeply offended him.

I don’t understand, but I can taste the urge to apologize on the tip of my tongue. I don’t know how I keep myself from it.

He continues to the chair across from me and throws himself into it, and I’m convinced that he looks…wounded, somehow. For there is something hollow and raw in the way he looks at me, and it fuses with that ache inside me, and I worry for a wild moment that I might actually burst into tears.

I don’t. Somehow I don’t.

Taio slumps in his chair, as if my appearance here has taken the starch out of his spine.

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