Page 198 of Modern Romance December 2025 1-4

CHAPTER EIGHT

ISLEPT HARD.

Maybe I passed out.

To be honest, I didn’t really care either way. I toppled into a deep unconsciousness and as far as I could tell, I didn’t move at all.

When I woke up, I was disoriented. I felt heavy in a number of marvelous ways, but I was in that dark bedroom that clearly wasn’t my own. There was no light. It took a good couple of breaths for everything to come flooding back to me.

And when it did, it was red-hot.

The important part was that I was still alive. And yet, as embarrassing as it probably ought to have been for me to admit even to myself, I had lived my best life right here in this bed.

I snuggled deeper into the bed, realizing two things in rapid succession. First, that Jovi wasn’t here in this bedroom with me. Maybe that wasn’t a surprise.

What was, however, was that he had clearly let me sleep.

Just…let me sleep.

This did not strike me as typical kidnapper behavior. Then again, neither did what had happened between us before I’d fallen asleep.

Further investigation revealed even more fascinating discoveries. My hands weren’t tied. Neither were my feet. When I glanced over at the door, I could see a ring of light around the frame where it was shut tight, though I didn’t know if that was daylight or electricity.

I could have slept for fifteen minutes or ten years. I couldn’t tell.

It was possible—really, it waslikely—that he’d locked me in here. But I couldn’t bring myself to worry about that too much. It was still a major upgrade from a chair in a bare room with my hands tied above my head.

Though if I was honest, that hadn’t been too bad, either.

Or maybe you’re used to so many terrible things that you thinkslightly lessterrible things are a delight, a voice that sounded a lot like Katarzyna countered inside my head.

Though if it was really my stepmother, she was far more likely to toss back a hefty pour of her preferredwodkaand intone something like,No one ever promised that things would be good, so if you simply decide that it is—no matter how revolting—it is the same thing in the end.

I found myself smiling, as if she was really here and had really said such a thing in her typically dour way.

I do not lift spirits, Ruxandra, she had told me once.I drink them.

I was shocked to discover that I was going to miss her, when I had never thought much about my other stepmothers. Then again, none ofthemhad been so close to my age.

I turned on my side and let everything that had happened since Jovi had appeared before me like the hottest possible apparition flow through me. I was very tempted to lie where I was and daydream my way back through all of the things he’d done to me last night. Or earlier this morning, as the case may be.

Again and again, since even the faintest touch of memory made me feel warm all over.

Though what was infinitely more tempting than that was the idea that Jovi himself was right there on the other side of the door.

Because all I really wanted to do was touch him again.

I decided to forgive myself both retroactively and in advance for any foolish things I did while under the influence of that man.

“I’m just a girl,” I whispered to myself, beneath my breath. But I smiled into the dark. “I can only be expected to do so much.”

I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed, taking stock of my body. This body that had been entirely and only mine for my whole life until last night.

He had taken me bodily from my father’s fortress of a house. Then he had taken things I hadn’t known I’d been saving only for him. That I waspleasedI’d never shared with anyone else—because even though I’d been kept locked away my whole life, there were always moments that could bloom into bigger things. I knew a lot of the girls in the convent who had “prayed together.” And there were always the guards with greedy looks and too-long glances, more than happy to take a bite of the forbidden fruit.

But I’d never indulged.

Now I thought I knew why.