Page 193 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

‘Tell me, Emilio,’ she urged. ‘Tell me the words you’re trying to swallow down.’

‘I could never express to you exactly what it means that my mother left this to me. The vineyards… It means more than everything else she had because they weren’t hers for good. She loved something that wasn’t hers to love—selflessly. I don’t want to let her down.’

He turned to Jasmine then and she could the sincerity in his expressive eyes. ‘I don’t want to let you and our baby down either, by travelling back and forth between here and New York all the time. Leaving you both when you need me.’

‘Emilio.’ She cupped his cheek and he instantly leaned into the touch, which made her close the distance between their bodies, surrendering to the gravitational pull that had existed between them from the first moment she’d caught a glimpse of him in a crowded club. ‘We’ll make it work. I promise.’

With the golden setting sun between them, Jasmine reached across the small space to Emilio. An inch away from his lips. His breath ghosted over hers. Myriad emotions swam in his fathomless eyes. A hunger for her. His hands curled into the fabric of her blouse at her waist. His resolve was weakening. Exactly what she wanted. What she needed.

‘Kiss me,’ she whispered. Begged. Instructed.

In a heartbeat, his lips were on hers and it felt so right. This was where she wanted to be: tasting him, feeling him, bathing in his warmth.

‘Jasmine,’ he said. A prayer. And then he was worshipping her. Every slide of his lips on hers was a veneration. The last rays of the day fell over their embrace like an ancient blessing. And she sighed. She sighed from the power of this kiss that she felt in every part of her. She never wanted to stop. She pressed her body against Emilio’s, wrapped her arms around his neck. Felt his tighten around her back. They were connected by nearly every inch. And, when she traced his tongue with hers, he let out a choked sound. His hardness twitched against her.

She wanted to feel him again. To hell with her physical boundaries—she could look out for her independenceandsuccumb to this passion.

‘Belleza, we should leave here while I’m still capable of thinking straight.’

‘Do I affect you that much?’

Emilio pressed his manhood even harder against her. ‘You know precisely how badly you affect me.’

Jasmine grinned. ‘Then let’s go.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Emilio opened thedoor to the grand house that sat at the very top of the estate. The heavy wood swung inwards with barely a creak. He loved this place and now he would be sharing it with Jasmine.

Jasmine, who stood behind him. Jasmine, whose kiss had brought him out of the spiral he’d been falling into at the vineyard. Whose body called out to his.

He turned around and carried her bridal style over the threshold and into the grand foyer.

‘What are you doing?’ She laughed.

‘Something that was a little overdue, don’t you think?’ He set her on her feet and watched her look around. Nothing had changed. The large wooden console table still bore a huge bouquet of flowers to greet all who entered. The same herringbone wooden floors covered the expanse of the entire house. The same chandelier hung above—the one his mother had wanted to change, but his father had always overruled her. The one his mother had preferred had eventually found a home in Emilio’s bedroom in Perlano.

‘After you.’ He urged Jasmine into the rest of the house, still watching as she looked up at the vaulted ceiling and ran her hand over the venetian plaster that covered the walls.

‘It’s quiet here,’ she said.

‘That’s because we’re alone.’ Enzo couldn’t keep his distance any longer so he walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, kissing the side of her neck.

‘No staff?’ He loved how her voice changed when he touched her. It became breathy and soft. As if she was allowing him past that assertive barrier she always held in place.

‘No. I’ve instructed them to take the week off. The staff quarters are down by the lake anyway,’ he said against her skin.

‘There’s a lake?’

‘Mmm-hmm. So it’s just us,belleza.’ A proposition that both excited him and terrified him. Especially when he felt as desperate for her as he had after their very first kiss.

‘Alone in this big house…’ She breathed. Her head was thrown against his shoulder. He could feel her pulse flutter, her chest heave as he dragged his hands up the front of her blouse. How easy it would be to unbutton her shirt. To slide his hands over her bare skin and see the goose bumps rise in their wake.

‘Do it, Emilio.’ He halted his roving touch. ‘I can hear what you’re thinking.’

‘Are my thoughts that loud?’ he asked as she turned in his arms.

‘Only because they match mine,’ she admitted.

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