Page 93 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4
It had been his turn to be incredulous. ‘How the hell am I supposed to do that?’
‘By not thinking about it and not speaking about it. You can’t tell anyone, no one, not even your confessor.’
‘People saw you leaving the club with me. If you know a way to wipe their memories then I’m all ears.’
‘People saw you leaving with one of your interchangeable blondes. No one there would have recognised me—I’m a jeans and baggy T-shirt and ponytail girl, not a mini-dress girl, and the people who know me are more house-party people than nightclub people.’
He’d stared at her with narrowed eyes, a scenario playing out in his head that had driven out the last of the languid contentment and filled his mouth with a bitter taste. ‘Did you dress up like that deliberately to seduce me?’
‘No! I dressed like that to blend in and capture your attention so we could talk. I didn’t think for a minute thatthiswas going to happen.’ She’d saidthisas if it were a dirty word.
‘Bythisdo you mean spending the weekend with me, screwing each other’s brains out?’
Colour had slashed her cheeks but she hadn’t dropped her stare. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I had a few drinks too many at a party on Friday night and slept on my friend’s sofa and ended up staying the weekend, and you spent the weekend with one of your legions of lovers.’
‘Oh, did I?’ he’d queried silkily. Dangerously.
She’d stood tall; determined and unwavering. ‘Yes, you did.’
Loathing that had morphed from nothing had crackled between them until Alexis had lain himself back down, hooked an arm over the top of his head and casually said, ‘You can see yourself out. If any of the staff see you, introduce yourself by any name you like—you’re as interchangeable as all the others who’ve done the walk of shame from here.’
She’d looked him over one more time, her face now contorted with hatred, and walked out without another word.
Only when she’d closed the door behind her had he clenched his jaw and punched his fist down on the mattress.
The irony that three months later the only woman to have ever walked out on him would be so desperate for help that she wanted marriage should be something to savour, and he had no doubt that when she capitulated to his demands hewouldsavour it.
‘I need to get back to the yacht, so it’s make your mind up time,’ he said roughly when she still hadn’t answered. ‘Do I make arrangements to fly us to Agon tomorrow or do I get one of my people on the job of buying a house for you to live in?’
‘You’ve thrown me,’ she whispered.
‘I was thrown earlier when a not particularly memorable one-weekend stand told me I’d got her pregnant and wanted me to marry her, so consider us even.’
The brightness of the stars highlighted her features and allowed him to see the flinch his deliberate barb had induced.
Theos, if only that barb had been the truth…
‘I’m out of here,’ he said, hauling himself up. ‘I’ll be in touch. Good luck dealing with the fallout with your family.’
He’d taken four steps when she called, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’
He stopped walking. ‘Do what?’
‘Have a real marriage with you.’
He turned around. She was on her feet, gripping her arms. ‘But I have conditions too.’
‘You’re not in a position to make conditions.’
‘The wedding has to be secret—I want to hold off telling anyone for as long as possible. My family are under a great deal of stress…’
‘As are mine.’
‘I appreciate that but my family is very different from yours and my parents are on the brink of losing everything. I don’t want to add to the enormous stress they’re under until I absolutely have to because I think you and me might be the thing that tips them over the edge. You have no reason to feel sympathy for them but they’re my parents and I love them.’
‘You cannot protect them for ever,’ he pointed out, and allowed his gaze to do what he’d fought it from doing since he’d ridden the jet ski onto the beach, and take in every inch of her. Only now, under the full moon, could he see the subtle changes to her figure that only someone who’d been intimate with her and had committed every inch of her flesh to memory would notice: the pushing of her stomach against the three-quarter-length ripped jeans, the new fullness of breasts that had been perfection itself beneath the baggy white top. Now, she would struggle to squeeze herself into the silver dress that had done its job of capturing his attention so spectacularly well it should win its own special award. ‘You will be showing soon.’
The jutting of her chin only proved that she felt every inch of his stare. ‘I know.’
