Page 15 of Modern Romance December 2025 1-4

‘She has visited Japan every spring for fifteen years.’

She closed her eyes. Athena had watched Cora drive away, knowing she would never be allowed to see her again, and then spent the next twenty-one years doing her best to forget. Twenty-two years now, she supposed.

‘I’m glad.’ She pulled in a long breath and forced herself to meet his piercing stare. ‘What I said about her that time… I’m sorry. It was cruel of me.’

The piercing eyes held hers. ‘It was,’ he agreed in a far more reasonable tone than she deserved.

‘She was always…’ she swallowed ‘…very good to me.’ Suddenly, she couldn’t stand the tension or the memories or the feelings churning inside her a moment longer, and pulled herself to her feet. ‘I’m sorry, Draco, but I can’t eat any more. I can never thank you enough for what you did for me last night, but I need to go home. If you can tell me where my bag and boots are, I’ll get out of your hair.’

‘You’re not in my hair and you don’t need to leave.’

‘That’s very nice of you to lie to me, but I do need to leave. I’ve encroached on your time quite enough.’

‘Athena, you haven’t…’

‘I have.’ If he could be firm then so could she. Sheneededto be firm, not for him but for herself, otherwise she’d allow herself to take words intended to soothe and read more into them than was there. No one in their right mind ever wanted her to stay, but this was the first time in over two decades her heart had tugged with a wistful hope that could never be realised.

Draco Manolis was a good man, possibly the best man she’d ever met, and he would no more throw an injured sparrow out of his home than he would a broken Athena.

And she was broken. She knew that with a clarity she’d never allowed herself to acknowledge before, and she suspected those piercing blue eyes could see it, too, which made her feel a thousand times more vulnerable for reasons she would never be able to understand.

‘I thank you again, but I’m going home. I promise you, I feel much better. I don’t need any more nursing.’

The piercing blue eyes held hers a fraction too long before he bowed his head in agreement. ‘I’ll take you back.’

‘No. This is your weekend.’ She dredged up a smile and managed to inject a modicum of breeziness into her tone. ‘You have to put up with me all week without having me gatecrash your weekend, too, but I’ll gladly take a lift off your driver—I bet he really misses my scintillating company at the weekends.’

His gaze held hers for another long moment before his handsome rugged face broke into a half-smile. ‘Okay, you win. I’ll get Deacon to drive you home. But I want you to promise me you’ll take it easy and that you’ll call me if you start feeling worse.’

She saluted. ‘I promise on my honour.’

He feigned amazement. ‘You have honour?’

‘When it suits me,’ she confirmed, her airiness driven by and laced with relief that the weighty tension had lifted. ‘But don’t tell anyone. I have a terrible reputation to protect.’

Lying on her belly drawing, Athena was lost in her own little world when the incessant ring of her doorbell penetrated her consciousness and sent her heart into a triple salchow.

There was only one person who rang her doorbell like that—okay, only one person who’d ever rung her doorbell—and she’d slammed her book shut and bounded to her feet and was halfway to the front door before sanity could ask what she was playing at and tell her to slow down.

He was probably here out of some warped sense of duty. He’d saved her from those awful predators and now felt the same sense of responsibility to her that he’d feel at the sparrow who flew into his window.

Her heart thumping so hard it was painful, she fixed her brightest smile to her face and yanked the door open with a flourish. ‘Hello, boss. Are you lost?’

‘I think I must be,’ he riposted drily. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Yes, but only for a minute. I’mextremelybusy.’

‘I’m sure you are.’ Firm lips twitching, his gaze flickered over the pyjamas she’d already dressed herself in after a bath that hadn’t helped her melancholy, especially when the hot water ran out whilst filling up so the long, lovely warm bath she’d been looking forward to had turned into a short, crap, tepid one. She had no idea how to fix the hot water situation. Her call to the building’s maintenance man had gone to voicemail with the message that he’d be back on duty on Monday. Which was no good as she’d be in California with this man.

‘You’re looking better,’ he observed.

Standing aside to let him in, she smiled, lifted her chin and swished her hair. Might as well get the practice of normal Athena behaviour in. It was the only way to build herself back up. She might not have had the bath she longed for, but physically she felt much, much better.

‘Where are you off to dressed up like that?’ she asked, sashaying to the kitchenette to fix him the coffee he was bound to want: she was quite certain that if you cut Draco Manolis he would bleed coffee. He’d changed out of the casual clothing he’d been wearing when she’d left his home into a sharp charcoal suit paired with a white silk shirt he’d left unbuttoned at the throat.

‘Dinner. And you’re coming with me.’

She whipped her head round to stare to him. ‘What are you talking about?’