Page 159 of Modern Romance December 2025 1-4

She doesn’t resist, but she doesn’t obey either. ‘Don’t you see, Rafael? He’s in love and he’s going to get the woman he loves. He’s probably going to marry her if she’ll have him, and I think he’ll have children with her too.’

‘I don’t give a fuck about him,’ I snarl, my fingers tightening on her hips, pulling the heat between her thighs hard against my aching groin.

‘You should,’ she says in the same tone of voice she’s said everything. ‘Because it’ll mean I’m not his heir any more.’

In some dim recess of my brain, I know that should mean something to me, but I can’t think why it’s important right now, not when she’s here, right against me and she’s so warm, so delicious.

I want her. I want her so badly I can’t think. She almost left me, almost walked away, and all I can think about is claiming her, right here, right now. So she’ll never walk away again.

‘Take off your dress,’ I order viciously. ‘Now.’

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Olympia

Rafael’s dark eyeslook black despite the sunshine coming through the windows and the lines of his face are taut. His fingers are digging into my hips and he looks as if he’s been pushed beyond all endurance. He must be if the prospect of me not being Ulysses’s heir doesn’t matter to him.

In contrast to the tension pulled to singing point in him, I feel a curious sense of freedom in myself. It’s as if I’ve been wearing shackles, and I didn’t realise, and now they’ve fallen off, and I feel so light I could almost rise into the air and fly.

I’ve always hated how much of a tie I was to Ulysses, how he made me a monument to his guilt and how I resented being his responsibility. Yet I hadn’t realised how heavy my own feelings of responsibility have been towards him.

Because I did feel responsible for him. For how his life had wound around mine, the both of us growing together so tightly that we didn’t have lives of our own. But now he has someone else, someone he loves desperately, I saw the glow and pain of it in his eyes, and all I feel is happiness for him that he’s found someone. Someone who can give him all the love and joy he deserves, and who isn’t bound up in his own failure the way I am. And now I feel free in a way I’ve never felt before. Ulysses has gone to reclaim a life for himself, and I need to do the same for me.

Except while I feel free from the bonds my brother inadvertently laid on me, my life is now bound inextricably with that of the man standing in front of me. Who is gripping me so hard it’s as if he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go.

He’s fierce and intense, and desperate. For years he’s been following this one goal, this dream of revenge, and now that I’ve taken it away from him he doesn’t know what to do.

I was furious with him for not telling me that Ulysses was coming and for making it so clear that he’d never had any intention of dropping his plans. That he didn’t listen to me, that he didn’t care what I wanted, and the ghost of that anger is still there. Except now I’m looking up into Rafael’s eyes and I see his desperation and his fury, and I realise suddenly where it comes from.

He said he thought I’d go with Ulysses and I can see that he truly believes that. He really did think I’d go with my brother and that made him afraid. Why else would he be this furious and demanding? He’s a man who cares and cares deeply, and now I wonder if he feels that for me.

He certainly stayed where he was as I told him to, despite his fear that I would leave. He didn’t come out, didn’t try to stop me, even when I hugged my brother. It cost him, though, I can see that so clearly. It cost him to stay here, to let me make a choice, and I realise that now: itwasa choice I could have made. I could have gone with Ulysses, but I didn’t. I stayed here. Because of Rafael.

He obviously hasn’t registered that I’m likely to be Ulysses’s heir no longer, or, if he has, it truly doesn’t matter to him. Why was he so afraid I’d leave? Why did it matter that I choose him over my brother? Is it just because of the baby? Or is it about something more?

Ignoring his command, I stare up into his dark eyes. ‘I was never going to go with him, Rafael. I was always going to stay here with you.’

A muscle leaps in his strong jaw. ‘Why? Because of the child?’

‘Not only that. I promised you I’d stay, remember? That I’d live with you, be your wife.’

‘And if you weren’t pregnant?’ he demands. ‘Would you stay then?’

There’s a desperate note in his deep voice and I realise suddenly. Of course, he’s wondering the same things I am. ‘You mean, would I stay for you?’ I ask.

His gaze is edged as an obsidian blade. ‘Yes.’

It costs him to admit this too, I can see. And he’s afraid of the answer.

You’re afraid, too.

I am, but if I’m tired of hiding, I’m also tired of being afraid. Tired of locking away all my emotions, of putting up a facade. Of worrying about someone else’s feelings, when all I want is to embrace my own. So I give him the answer I’m afraid of, the one that has been locked deep inside me ever since we met. ‘I would stay for you,’ I say. ‘Even if we didn’t have a child.’

The flames in his eyes leap and a savage smile twists his mouth. His fingers on my hips firm and I can feel the press of him through the fabric of my dress, hard and hot and ready. ‘Then do as I say, dragonfly. Take off your dress and prove it to me.’

There’s raw need in his voice and it tugs at my heart and makes me ache. When has anyone ever needed me the way Rafael needs me? For my brother I was something to be protected and kept wrapped in cotton wool. I didn’t give him anything, I only took from him. I was a source of fear and guilt, and nothing I did made any difference. But I can make a difference to Rafael. I can be more than a source of fear and guilt. I can be a source of comfort and pleasure, and I want to be. For him, I want to be. He’s lost everyone he ever loved, everyone who mattered to him, and he’s still grieving. But he hasn’t lost me. I’m here. I’m here for him.

But that’s not all you want.