Page 71 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4
He nods. ‘The man who has her is dangerous and I can’t leave her with him—’ He breaks off and reaches into his pocket for his phone once again, and this time his expression darkens as he listens to whoever called him. His Greek is sharp and hard as he argues, and then abruptly he tosses the phone onto the lush white sofa and turns away, giving me the powerful, tense lines of his back.
He’s angry, his anger bright and intense, yet it seems to burn out quickly.
‘What happened?’ I ask.
He curses under his breath in a stream of furious Greek. Then he turns back to me, his eyes lambent with fury. ‘The jet can’t leave. There are weather issues. Some kind of storm happening along the Italian coast.’
I study him for a moment. He isn’t a man who sits around waiting for things to happen, he is the one who makes things happen. He’s a man of action, so being unable to help his sister or even go to her must make him feel so powerless. And he’s not a man used to being powerless, I think.
I want to offer him my help, or something that will make him feel better, but I don’t know what. Earlier, he showed me what kind of help I could give him, which was sex. I could certainly offer him that again—I want to, even—but maybe he’s had enough of that. Maybe this requires something more.
I think of myself, and what I need when I am feeling powerless against the slings and arrows of the world. For me it’s numbers, the sharp edges of the universe. They’re dependable and they never change, despite what happens to me or to the rest of the world. They are eternal and infallible. However, I don’t think Ulysses would find the same kind of solace in them that I do, so I say, ‘The weather is always changeable, and by tomorrow it might be better.’
‘She might be dead by tomorrow,’ he snaps, running a restless hand through his coal-black hair.
My heart clenches tight at the look on his face, fury and frustration with a cold, sharp edge. Yet my brain is being its usual logical self and sorting through what he said about his earlier call with what’s happening now.
‘That’s being very dramatic,’ I say levelly. ‘She’s pregnant and with the father. He’s not going to kill the mother of his child.’
Ulysses’s golden gaze locks onto mine. ‘I’ve learned that people are capable of anything,’ he growls. ‘Even that.’
There’s a warning in his tone, and part of me wants to know how he learned that, but I don’t want to be dismissive of his concerns now, no matter how dramatic they are.
‘Well,’ I say reasonably, ‘If he wanted to kill her, he would have done already. In fact, if all he wanted was to hurt you, then he didn’t need to take her anywhere at all. He could have killed her immediately.’
That muscle in his impressive jaw leaps and leaps. ‘That could be true.’
‘Did she say she was in danger?’
‘No.’
‘So, why don’t you believe her?’
Ulysses doesn’t like that, but he doesn’t look away. ‘What do you care?’
He’s angry, I know this, an animal caught in a trap and lashing out at anyone trying to help him. And I am trying to help him. I’m trying to offer some cool logic and truth in the face of his boiling rage.
‘I don’t know,’ I say honestly. ‘But she’s important to you and I don’t like seeing you upset.’
He gives me one last fierce stare, then turns to face the windows again, his back once again to me. ‘I kidnapped you from your office building and forced you to come with me. You have exactly zero reasons for not liking to see me upset.’
‘Maybe,’ I tell him. ‘But I don’t like it all the same.’
He says nothing for long moments and I stare up the length of his powerful back and muscular shoulders. I don’t know why I suddenly feel so strongly about this, about him, especially considering that he’s right. I have no reason to like him, to feel anything for him at all, and yet…in the space of twenty-four hours he’s managed to touch parts of me that no one has ever even noticed before.
It makes me afraid to think these things about him, to feel anything for him, especially when people are so unreliable, so changeable, so fallible. And part of me wonders if I’m wrong about him—that he does have the ability to hurt me and, even worse, I’ve handed him the means to do so.
Go back upstairs. Leave him and save yourself a world of pain.
I should do that. Except I don’t. I stand there looking at the graceful curve of his back and, without even thinking, I rest light fingertips on the groove of his spine and trace the line of it, his skin warm and velvety beneath my touch.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say softly. ‘I want to help you but I don’t know how.’
He says nothing for a long moment, his muscles rigid beneath my fingertips. Then slowly he turns around, so instead of his back there is the perfect expanse of his bare chest and abdomen, rigid and hard with muscle. He looks down at me, his golden eyes full of an expression I can’t read. ‘I mean it,’ he says. ‘Why should you care about this in any way?’
He wants an answer, I can see that, and I know telling him that I have no idea why I feel this way won’t work, so I try to think of a reason to give him, and maybe one to give myself.
‘You…obviously care about her very deeply,’ I say hesitatingly. ‘And that… I find that very attractive.’ Then I blush because the words didn’t come out the way I wanted them too and it sounds stupid. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say again quickly, ‘I’m not very good at talking about feelings. I’m not very good at anything to do with feelings.’
