Page 155 of Modern Romance December 2025 1-4

Concern flickers in her eyes, but I don’t want to see it. I already feel as if she’s turned me inside out, and that doesn’t help. I glance away, reaching out to trace a lazy circle around her hip.

‘I’m sure he loved you,’ she says quietly. ‘There are lots of reasons why people take their own lives.’

‘He was a coward.’ My voice is bitter and some part of me feels like a traitor for even saying it. ‘If he loved me and my mother, he’d never have done it.’

The concern in her eyes deepens and there is a terrible kind of pity there, too. ‘It’s not your fault, Rafael,’ she says softly. ‘Who knows why he did what he did, but it wasn’t anything to do with you.’

‘I know it’s not about me,’ I snarl, vulnerability and bitterness making me vicious. ‘But I had to deal with the consequences all the same.’

This time, it’s her who moves. She sits up and reaches for me, taking my face between her palms, the look in her eyes cutting me to the bone. ‘I know,’ she says forcefully, her iron will showing in her voice. ‘Believe me, I know what it’s like having to bear consequences. We should never have had to deal with them, but we did, and it’s not right and it’s not fair. But…it’s okay to love him, Rafael. It’s okay to love him even though he hurt you.’

‘I don’t need your permission,’ I can’t help growling. ‘Anyway, I stopped loving him years ago.’

But she stares at me unflinching. ‘It doesn’t mean forgiveness. It’s just acknowledging what’s already there.’

I want to demand what the point of that is, but the sympathy and concern in her voice stop me. Anger is a poor reward for her and she deserves better than that.

So I grip her wrists gently and pull her hands from my face, before pulling her down onto the rug next to me. ‘Dragonfly,’ I murmur as I kiss her beautiful mouth. ‘I don’t want to talk about this any more.’

And I move over her, making sure we don’t speak of it again for the rest of the night.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Olympia

The next morningI stand in Rafael’s bedroom, gazing at my reflection in the full-length mirror, and am pleased with myself. The beautiful scarlet gown he bought me fits to perfection, hugging my curves and accentuating the slight bump of my pregnancy. And I’ve just spent a happy half an hour playing with all my new make-up. I’ve put on the red lipstick. I know how much he likes it.

We’re getting married this morning and there’s a tight ball of nerves sitting in my stomach. I can’t stop thinking about what he told me last night, about his parents, about how much he loved them, and about the anger in his voice when he called his father a coward.

My heart hurt for him then, for his anger and for the pain of the love he so clearly still feels, no matter what he said. I only wanted him to know that it’s okay to be angry, but it’s also okay to still love someone who hurt you. It doesn’t mean you forgive them for what they did, it’s merely an acknowledgement of what’s in your heart. You can love someone and be furious with them, and that’s difficult.

I didn’t have his losses, not in the same way. Yes, I lost my mother, but I can barely remember her. I never knew my father, and my only experience of a family involved blood and pain. But that flammable, complicated mix of anger and love is what I feel for my brother, and I know how it can eat away at you, burn you. No wonder Rafael’s so fierce and intense, if he’s got that kind of rocket fuel driving him.

‘You look beautiful,’ Rafael’s deep voice says from the doorway, interrupting my reverie.

I turn and then have to catch my breath. He’s standing there, framed by the doorway, dressed in a black suit, a white shirt and a red silk tie the exact colour of my gown. He looks dark and dangerous, and so delicious I want to eat him alive.

‘So do you,’ I say, because it’s true.

He gives me a hungry smile, his gaze following the line of my body all the way down to my feet and then back up again. Then he moves, coming into the room and over to where I’m standing. He’s holding a box in his hand. ‘You’re missing one thing,’ he says.

‘Not another box,’ I say.

‘Yes. And I’m not apologising for it.’ His gaze glitters as he takes the top off the box.

All the air rushes from my lungs as I look to see what’s inside.

Nestled in layers of tissue is the most incredible-looking jewelled dragonfly. It’s nothing like the cheap ones I bought back in Singapore. This is all delicate platinum, mother of pearl, emeralds, rubies, sapphires…

Discarding the box, Rafael gently lifts it from the tissue and slides it into my hair, his touch gentle. His dark gaze is ferocious. ‘There,’ he murmurs. ‘Now you’re absolutely perfect.’

For the second time since I’ve been here, I feel my eyes prickle with unexpected tears, my chest tight. This marriage is only for our child, I know that, and yet this dragonfly hair clip is deeply personal. It’s about us, about the pet name he calls me ever since Singapore, and for a moment I get a flash of what our marriage could be if this gift actually meant something, if we were really in love with each other. He burns so bright, this fierce, intense man, and being loved by him would be…

Don’t go there. Because he won’t give it to you.

I look away abruptly, unable to hold his gaze any longer, pretending to admire the clip in the mirror. ‘Thank you,’ I murmur, glancing at him in the glass. ‘It’s beautiful, Rafael.’

If he noticed my tears, he gives no sign. ‘Not as beautiful as you.’