Page 149 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

“In Cap Ferrat,” I guess.

“But that was not far enough. Not for a man like my husband’s friend.” Francette lets out a small sound, like remembered frustration. “When he got too close, I set her up with a lawyer who had been a family friend of my grandmother’s. He helped Amara Mariana to leave Europe. And I have never seen her since.” Her gaze crosses back to mine once more. “So perhaps we were not the friends I thought we were, after all.”

“Or,” I say quietly, “perhaps you were both girls stuck in bad situations who had to make the best of what they had, and decided not to look back.”

I’m startled when I see something warm in my mother-in-law’s eyes. “There are many such girls.”

“Indeed there are.”

And as we gaze at each other in this quiet, lovely room, I think we come to a place of understanding. It feels as close to a hug as I imagine a woman like Francette ever gets.

“When that so-called diary leaked,” she says after a moment, “I was incensed, of course. To imagine that I would scribble such things into a diary at all, then leave it to fall into the wrong hands… Theinsult.” She presses her lips together again. “I assumed that a dignified silence would make it go away, as it should have. But it didn’t. And I will tell you, since I am told you are good at finding the truth of things, that I have always supposed that this was an act of revenge by that same friend of my late husband’s.”

I make a noise at that. She nods, slowly. “He is precisely the sort who would wait. And look what he’s accomplished. He has made me look like a bleating fool. He has thrown Amara Mariana’s name all over the papers, hunting her all over again. He has even managed to question my son’s legitimacy. Mark my words, it’s he who is responsible for all of this.”

“Do you wish you could have stopped him then?”

She lets out a bitter sort of laugh, telling exactly where Taio gets his.“évidemment.”

I lean forward in my chair. I hold her gaze, this woman who I understand better than perhaps I should. “Then, Francette, why don’t you be responsible for fixing it?”

Then I hold my breath. She stares at me in astonishment no less arrogant than her distaste.

But this time, she nods her head. “Do you know,” she murmurs, a gleam in her eyes, “I believe that I will.”

Later that evening, I stand out on the usual terrace before dinner, sipping on my drink as I watch Taio and his mother walk through one of the late fall gardens below. She holds his arm. He leans down slightly, giving her his full attention.

I know what she’s telling him.

I see him stop.

I hear his voice on the breeze, raised—but clearly not at her.

And when they embrace, out beneath the wild Spanish sky as the sun goes down, I know exactly what I must do.

I stay where I am. I wait until he comes.

When he does, he looks like a different man, and it makes my heart glad. Or maybe it simply aches for him the way it always does, I can no longer tell.

“My mother is going to take a blood test,” he tells me as he comes toward me. “She intends to settle the matter of the scandal once and for all.”

He comes to me, turning me toward him from where I’ve been standing at the terrace rail, gazing out across this ancient land as the sun drips into orange, then gold. “Are you listening to me, Annagret? At last the cloud will be lifted from the De Luz name. The friend of my father’s who perpetuated this indignity will be held to account, one way or another. You are a magic worker indeed.”

Taio leans in to kiss me, and I should stop him. I know I should, but it turns out that I am perhaps as weak as my father ever was, after all.

It’s a sobering thought.

And it makes my heart hurt even more.

We separate, but I put my hand on the side of his face. He lifts a hand and places it over mine.

And it would be so easy to stay like this. Just like this.

But I love him. And my staying here can only diminish him. The fact that I don’t want that to be true doesn’t make it any less so.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about your family legacy,” I tell him, gazing up at that perfect face. Those etched cheekbones. That deliciously stern mouth. “I understand now, in a way I never could have before. I have no legacies. Only convenient fictions.” I breathe in, hard, then make myself say it on the exhale. “And that is why I will set you free.”

He looks down at me without comprehension. “Set me free? What do you mean?”

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