Page 220 of Modern Romance December 2025 1-4

At first I thought I was having some kind of heart attack. Or aneurysm. It wasn’t until my eyes started to mist over and then get wet that I realized I was crying.

I wiped at my face, astonished, but the tears didn’t stop.

Neither did the pain in my chest. Because it turned out that it was calledheartbreakfor a reason, and I’d had no idea.

I’d had no idea that it could hurt this much.

I’d had no ideaanythingcould.

But I couldn’t bear the notion that he was hurting. Or that he would consider that a decent trade, because he likely imagined that his death would set me free.

I couldn’tbearthis.

When I’d met him, I’d been resigned to this. I hadn’t been as scared as I thought a normal girl would have been, plucked out of her safe life and carried off by a man like Jovi. I’d already been well aware that nothing about my life was safe.

If I couldn’t have a good life, what I’d wanted was a good death. I thought that I could walk into my execution, head held high, and that would mean something.

I understood exactly what Jovi was doing, damn him.

But I hadn’t known anything yet. I hadn’tlivedyet.

Tonight I didn’t think I had a single ounce of resignation in me. I didn’t want a death, good or otherwise. I wanted a life. I wantedthislife, strange as it was, because I’d been so sure it wasours.

I wanted tolive.

With him.

I wanted the fact that we’d met the way we had tomean something—to prove that we had always been destined to be better, to shine brighter, than the people who’d made us who we were.

God, how desperately I wanted that.

I wiped my face, again and again, until the tears released their hold on me. I tried to breathe. I tried to settle myself the way I’d always been able to before. And I was still standing there, staring into the shadows of the sink, when I heard a soft noise behind me.

In the same instant, the kitchen was flooded with light.

I whirled around, not sure what I expected. His cousin, back to finish the job? That would mean that Jovi—

I couldn’t bear it—

But it was Jovi himself.

And I couldn’t tell if I was relieved or something far more complicated.

Or maybe, despite myself, both.

I backed up and hit the counter, so I rested my hands on either side of my body as if I couldn’t decide if I wanted to launch myself into the air to sit on the countertop, or hold myself upright.

Jovi merely stood there, studying me, the way he always did.

That made the ache inside me worse.

I could feel that unbearable weight inside me. I could see all those horrific images that I’d played in my mind, all the ways they could have killed him.

Asshole, I thought again.

“Are you going to kill me now?” I asked him, because maybe he should see what it felt like to think that everything that happened between us was easy to walk away from. Maybe he should feel as alone as I had. “I thought you went to fulfill your death wish, but maybe what you really wanted was more detailed instructions from your keeper.”

He seemed to freeze at that. Then something dark moved in his gaze, making me immediately feel terrible for lashing out at him. For trying to scare him because he’d scared me.