Page 151 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

He shakes his head, his eyes actually seeming to change color, and it isn’t the sunset. It’s that he’s lost in his memories, like he’s seeing it all over again. “I was standing outside. It had rained earlier that day and it was still cold and moody, even for March. You came out of a taxi at the curb and walked straight past me, then inside.”

Taio focuses in on me and I’ve never seen a look like this on his face before. Notsoft, not really…but open.

Vulnerable,I think.

“I find it hard to believe that I could walk past you and not see you,” I tell him, not exactly surprised that my voice sounds so raw.

“I saw you move,” he tells me. “I saw the way you take up space in the world. You have a specific electricity around you, Annagret. A particular heat. Like a summer storm.”

I want to tell him that he must mean someone else, but I suddenly find that my knees do not wish to support me the way I would like. I go and sit in one of the chairs set back from the railing, feeling shaken straight down to my core.

Taio studies me, and I have no idea what he’s looking for. “You can imagine the temperature of things around here when I was growing up.”

“Chilly, I would imagine.”

“A long, cold ice age, Annagret. It is all I knew.”

He stays where he is, at the rail. I stay where I am, because I’m not sure I could move if I wanted to. But I know that I’m not the only one fully aware of that heat and need that blazes between us, as if any space we even dream to put between us is imaginary.

I was so sure he felt it, too, but hearing him say so feels like a revolution inside of me.

“I have never felt anything like it before,” he tells me. “You were like a bright blast of sun after a cold winter and, at first, I hated it. I tried to stay away. Instead, I kept finding myself back in New York, catching glimpses of you when I could. And I knew that if anyone were to discover what I was doing it would all be ruined. Because how could anyone learn about it and not insist that I stop?” He shakes his head almost ruefully, but there is still that fire in him. “But that was when I began to think harder about theLuc Garnierof it all. I deliberately attempted to track him, this man in your life, or so I thought.”

“You said that took years.”

His dark eyes gleam. “It did.”

“Taio,” I manage to get out. “Do you mean to say…?”

“Yes,” he says swiftly, so there can be no mistake. “It took me three years to decide that the man wasn’t real, and then to plot out a course of action. I walked into your office that morning five months ago knowing full well that you weren’t there. I thought Tess would be easier to get past, and I was right. So I did. Then I waited. And soon enough, there you were.”

He says that almost…reverently.

“There I was.” I can only repeat that. I can’t process it. It doesn’t make sense. None of this does. “But you… You were…”

“You were magnificent,” he tells me. “You did not back down, even though both of us knew there was no such person as this boss of yours.”

I think for a moment that his tone suggests that this is a good thing—for poor, fictional Luc Garnier.

But he goes on. “I was shaken. Perhaps there was some part of me that hoped that once we interacted, this madness would lose its grip upon me. But if anything, it got worse.”

He moves then, something edgy seeming to inhabit him. He stalks toward me and crouches down before my chair.

“That night. You know the one. I thought that I’d fallen asleep. That I was dreaming. That you were a figment of my wildest, most fervent fantasies.” He reaches out and I shiver, then melt, but all he does is tuck a stray hank of my hair behind my ear. “But in my fantasies, you do not stop. You do not stare at me through glass. In my fantasies, you come to me, put your hands on me, and we both burn and burn.”

I can remember that night distinctly. It lives in me, like its own, low drumbeat.

“I wanted to,” I whisper.

“And then we went to France.” He traces the curve of my ear with a finger. “I thought that the masked ball would set things right. That it would be immediately clear that you were the sort to get caught up in the game of it. Who knows, maybe even find some other masked man to play with. Then again, I suppose I set myself up for disaster.” He smiles. “That dress was a mistake.”

“It was a beautiful dress.” I can’t seem to tear my gaze from his. “It made me feel like a fairy tale.”

“I think that the sight of you in that dress will be burned into me forever. And to think that when I first saw you come down those stairs, I thought that nothing could be better. But then we went to my mother’s cottage.”

“I don’t understand how she’s connected to that villa. To that party.”

“It is all her land. My cousin lives in that villa now.”

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