Page 21 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8
‘So I was just in the right place at the right time.’
‘You really think that?’ He gaped.
‘I think you trifled with my emotions.’
‘Imarriedyou.’
‘Notbecause you loved me.’
He stilled—on the precipice of the same cliff he’d fallen off years ago. When she’d asked this and he’d not answered. He’d not lied to her. But that was not what she’d wanted.
He didn’t believe the kind of love she dreamed of. Lust, yes. Safe companionship maybe. But love? That was a lie.
‘You thought I’d be a compliant wife.’ Her face was pale. ‘You thought you could control me the way they tried to control you.’
Fury flared. ‘Ineverwanted to control you.’
‘You wanted to tuck me away.’ Her anger matched his. ‘Why? So you could have affairs without me knowing?’
He’d wanted her to behappy. And she’d been happy here.
‘Why would you even think that?’ he asked. There had never been anyone else.
She was too furious to listen. ‘You thought I was so insipid—so infatuated—that I’d do anything you wanted me to.’
He frowned. ‘I never thought of you that way.’
‘No?’ She moved closer. ‘Then howdidyou think of me?’
That she was sweet. Okay, yes, easy to please. That maybe he could care for her enough. That he would be enough as he was—stunted. That maybe he would not fail her as he’d failed in the past. But she’d walked out at the first hurdle. And there was no point raking over the past. It changed nothing. He was who he was. So he shut her down. ‘It doesn’t matter now, does it?’
‘Doesn’t it?’ Her anger exploded. ‘I’masking. Or does whatIwant not matter?’
He thought he’d done so much for her, but most had been based on assumptions that only now he realised were wrong.
‘You didn’t want me tolivewith you in Athens,’ she said, hurt sharpening her tone. ‘You wanted to be a part-time husband. You didn’t want anything to upset your perfectly curated world. You didn’t go to the dinners and you thought you could stick it to them even more by marrying someone utterly inappropriate.’
‘You werenevernot good enough.’ How could she think that?
‘No?’ She laughed bitterly. ‘Which is why in the one week in which you’ve decided to endure me as your wife again, you’ve brought me back here where no one can see us. Why can’t you just admit you’re ashamed of me?’
‘That’snotwhat this is.’ He wanted to shake some sense into her. Hold her firm and still so she had to listen. But his hands slid around her waist, pulled her close and threw the rest of him back into chaos.
‘No?’ Bitterness sharpened in her eyes. ‘Then it’s just this—you still just want to screw me.’
Lust overwhelmed him. ‘I’m not alone in wanting that.’ He pressed her closer, feeling her soften even as she glared up at him with those beautiful, angry eyes.
His gaze dropped to her pout. He was a second from spinning and pinning her to that table with his hips, desperately aching for the abandonment, the utter oblivion that lust brought them. He craved that bliss in which nothing else mattered.
‘Well, it’s not happening,’ she breathed. ‘Thatis not part of this deal.’
Chapter Six
Bethan spent asleepless night in the bed that was far too big without him, ruminating on his revelations. Where had he been before being taken into that family? What had happened to his father and half-brother? Why was it all so obviously wretched? She’d not told him some things, but this was more than deeply personal, it was traumatic. And his refusal to explain how he saw her still hurt—
I could give you things you would never otherwise have had.
Yes. Indescribable heartbreak being one of them.
