Page 42 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4
“If you can’t keep your hands to yourself, and I don’t believe you can, I will remove the temptation,” he said, like he was handing down a sentence from on high, and her hand dropped to her side. “When I’m here, you will not know it. You will lack for nothing, but you and I cannot continue like this.”
“Alceu...” she whispered.
But he turned to go.
He made himself turn and then, harder still, he made himself walk away from her.
Because this way, she would be safe. The child would be safe.
He could not let anything else matter...especially not that shattered, jagged emptiness where his heart should have been.
CHAPTER TEN
“IWISHYOUwere coming with us,” Jolie said, after a strange sort of breakfast together. Dioni felt...split in two. She wanted nothing more than to tell her friend everything that had happened. All the things that Alceu had said to her earlier—but she didn’t.
Partly because she held on to a little bit of hope that Alceu had been...emotionally overwrought, perhaps. That he would think better of it all as the day wore on.
But even more than that, she felt strongly some things had to be only hers and Alceu’s, even if it hurt. Not hiding from her friend, but keeping faith with her husband.
Even if he wasn’t interested in the role.
“I wish I could too,” she said instead, and rather than try to make up a reason why she couldn’t—something she thought might make her burst into tears—she ran her hands over her belly. “I’m not sure I really fancy giving birth midflight, if I’m honest.”
Not that she wasquitethere yet.
Jolie only smiled. And later, when she hugged Dioni goodbye, she bent down to kiss her belly. “I can’t wait to meet him. He will be so loved.”
“Every day of his life,” Dioni agreed, feeling emotion flood her eyes.
Then she felt that very specific prickle all over her body, and looked up to see her husband standing there, waiting with Apostolis because of course they were all leaving together. Right now, whether she liked it or not.
She imagined Alceu thought that meant there would be fewer scenes.
Dioni was tempted to throw a fit just to prove him wrong.
But she didn’t.
Because she haddignity, she told herself.
When really, she thought, it was because she had no strategy. Not yet. She had no idea what todoabout the line he’d drawn in the sand.
After what had happened with Alceu at the Hotel Andromeda, she hadn’t launched herself into action. Not immediately. First she’d taken to listening to some of the saddest brokenhearted songs she knew, to wallow and then heal. Then, when her period hadn’t come, she’d been something like paralyzed for a week. Two.
Only when she’d started to worry about things like morning sickness andshowinghad she launched herself into action.
So here, now, she let her brother hug her and give her his usual bossy advice, which she knew full well was his love language. “Make sure you sleep,” he told her, more than once. “And you must eat.”
“Apostolis. It would be difficult for anyone alive to be better fed than I am.”
He looked down at her with affection. “I understand why you didn’t tell me immediately,” he said gruffly. And then he smiled. “See to it that you never do such a thing again.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” she replied, smiling back, though she felt far too emotional.
Apostolis put his arm around Jolie and began walking toward the front door, and there was a part of her that wanted to watch them. To see the evidence of the happiness her friend had claimed they had in the way he bent to kiss her temple, and the way they leaned into each other as they moved.
But all she could really think about was that this was her last private moment with Alceu. Surely he would say something. Surely he would indicate that he’d heard what she’d said, that he knew that she loved him. That she wasin lovewith him, and surely that must meansomething—
“The staff has already begun carrying out my instructions,” he told her coolly. “I have put you in the finest cottage, which, I trust, will suit you. It can accommodate the typically sprawling Sicilian family, so I think it will be more than adequate. And the doctors will keep me apprised of the child’s progress.”
