Page 73 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4
I had noidea it was even possible to stop thinking about what was happening with my sister but somehow Katla has managed to make me forget the impossible situation I’m in.
After hours of me showing her exactly what kind of distraction I needed, we both fell asleep. Only to be woken by one of my staff members calling me with information about Rafael Santangelo. He’s Sicilian, the CEO of a massive construction company and, much like myself, he has houses scattered around the globe. However, his main residence is his Sicilian villa and that’s where I bet he’s taken her.
I wanted to leave immediately, beard the monster in his den and take my sister back, but an operation of that magnitude involved preparation. So I put everything in motion, only for Katla to come downstairs and find me just as I was confirming my orders.
I’d turned around and seen her standing there, white-blonde hair falling in a waterfall down her back, dressed only in one of my shirts, and the most intense feeling of possessiveness had gripped me.
Mine, something inside me roared.This woman was mine.
I was all set to prove it to her too, when the bad news came through that my operation would have to be delayed due to weather in Sicily.
I do not do denial well, or at all, in fact, so naturally this made me furious.
Katla only fixed me with her blue stare and told me that my sister wasn’t in any danger, and why, and her careful, cool logic calmed the beast in me.
Unfortunately, though, I was still left with the same terrible sense of failure I’ve been carrying around with me for years, ever since she’d been taken away from me that first time. Except now I kept having fleeting thoughts that maybe I was to blame for all of this. Maybe I was the one who’d made her run.
The thoughts ate at me, as I turned on Katla, which was unfair of me, yet she didn’t leave. She stayed despite me growling like a bad-tempered dog, even when I turned my back on her. Then I felt the lightness of her touch tracing my spine and everything in me coiled tight. The caress of her fingers felt like a valve releasing all this pressure inside me, and so I turned, for some reason wanting her to understand.
And then I saw the shadows in her eyes. And I heard the hesitancy in her voice when she talked about her mother, her bastard of a husband and how the people who should have protected and loved her made her feel not good enough, unworthy.
I knew that was what she felt, because I could see the pain in her lovely blue eyes. My rage had awoken once again at that, but this time on her behalf, and I didn’t ask myself why I was so furious for her or why it mattered to me so very much. I only wanted her to know that she wasn’t unworthy, strange or not good enough. That her differences were what made her so rare and special. What made her the woman she was.
She’s staring at me now and I can see the fear and the wary hope mixed in her gaze. She wants to know that I mean it, and she’s afraid that I don’t, but I’ve never lied to her, not once, and I don’t intend to start now.
‘You really think that’s true?’ she asks, searching my face as if she’s half-afraid of what she’ll find. ‘No one has ever thought that I was any of those things before.’
‘That’s because you haven’t met the right people.’ I open my hand where it grips her chin, sliding my fingers down her neck to grip her throat lightly in a possessive hold I can’t stop. I can feel her pulse beating against my palm; it’s fast and getting faster. ‘I think you’re every one of those things, ice queen, and I told you that right from the very beginning.’
Her cheeks have flushed and that delicate rose colour is spreading down her neck and under the neckline of the white shirt she’s wearing.Myshirt. And, by God, all I want now is to rip the halves of it apart, baring her. But I also want it to stay on as I press her to the wall and fuck her right up against it. I want her wearing it when she comes, when she screams my name, so she knows I’m all around her. That she’s mine.
I stroke the side of her neck with my thumb and I love how she shivers at the caress. ‘People lie,’ she says softly. ‘I used to ask Mum if I was too different, if she was sad she had me, but she said no. I knew that wasn’t true, though. And John…’ She trails off, but she doesn’t need to finish that sentence. I know her husband didn’t love her.
‘I don’t lie,’ I murmur, holding her gaze. ‘I have never lied to you and I don’t intend to start. You can believe what I say, ice queen. If I say you are rare and special, then that’s exactly what you are.’
Her eyes have gone luminous and she’s looking at me now as if I’ve hung the moon.
‘Why?’ she asks, her voice husky. ‘Why do you think that?’
‘Well,’ I say, ‘While it’s true I haven’t known you long, what I’ve seen is that you’re loyal. You’re caring. You’re very stubborn and forthright, but I like those things about you. You’re incredibly intelligent, too, and that fascinates me. You’re also the most passionate woman I’ve ever met, and right now I’d love to give you another lesson in just how much.’
She should be melting right now, yet she’s not. Despite the colour in her cheeks and the starshine in her eyes, there’s a crease between her brows. ‘I want to help you, though,’ she says softly. ‘I want to make you feel good, the way you made me feel good just now.’
I give her a half-smile. ‘I could give you some further instruction…’
But she shakes her head, impatient almost. ‘No, not sex, Ulysses. Not this time. I want to know why you feel you have failed your sister so acutely.’
‘Because she was hurt,’ I explain, still caressing the side of her neck. ‘And I couldn’t stop it. Because when I was young I was sure that nothing bad would happen to us, and I was wrong.’
‘You were so young, though. You were only sixteen, weren’t you?’
‘I was, yes. But I told her it would be okay. I told her not to worry.’
I remember the fear in her eyes as she clung to me in the car as the social workers took us away. She needed hope, so I gave it to her, sure that I was right.
‘But I was wrong. And now…’ I pause a moment, not wanting to admit this out loud, yet not being able to help myself. ‘I wonder if it’s my fault that she’s been taken.’
The crease between Katla’s brows deepens. ‘Your fault? How?’
