Page 47 of Modern Romance December 2025 5-8

“Rosa was my best friend once. My first lover. The woman I loved. The woman I thought I would marry and build a family with.” There was no bitterness in his words anymore, though. Only a strange resignation, even emptiness.

“Oh,” Mimi said, as if the one word could convey her quaking insides. Clawing fingers of jealousy gripped her. The sensation was so alien to her that she rubbed a hand over her chest.

And then she remembered what she had just said. Renzo hadn’t even looked in this woman’s direction. He hadn’t left her side even for a minute. He was nothing like his father, she reminded herself.

And yet it was his highly developed sense of duty, his version of honor that would forbid him from even looking at the woman when he was married. Didn’t matter if his feelings had been revived for her or not.

“I’m sorry I asked about her then,” she said, trying so hard to not probe further.

“Don’t be. Your curiosity is natural. She’s Chiara’s close friend. She got divorced a couple of years ago. My sister’s been trying to set us up again.”

“And she invited her tonight even though you’re now married and have a son,” Mimi said, her own fury creeping into her words. It was one thing for his sister to tell Mimi that she didn’t like her. A whole other to ambush him by inviting the girl he’d loved once. “And Chiara dared to call Pia manipulative.”

As fast as it came, her fury tapped out, leaving her with more questions. To hell with Chiara. All she wanted to know was why Renzo had been so angry at the sight of that girl.

She scooted up into a sitting position and dragged the duvet to her chest, suddenly feeling far too restless. Damn her sister-in-law for ruining her first post-orgasmic haze with her husband.

Renzo followed her, his movements far more graceful than her jerky lumbering. “It will not happen again.”

“I’m angrier on your behalf than mine.” Mimi bit her lip, hating that she needed to ask the question. That she needed to know beyond doubt if he had any remnant affection for Rosa. “I… Did you consider getting back with her, Renzo, before Luca and I ruined your plans?”

Dark anger flashed in Renzo’s eyes as he turned to face her. Even amid the muddle of her thoughts, Mimi couldn’t not notice the sculpted musculature of his chest. Or how his olive skin gleamed and rippled when he moved.

God, she wanted to worship him with her lips and tongue and fingers and all of her. She wanted to whisper her admission of love into every sinew and bone, until he was overflowing with it.

“You are asking the wrong question,cara.”

The darkness remained in his gaze as she hurriedly pulled up hers. Though the anger transformed to a self-satisfied smirk. “You don’t have to preen that I’m drooling over you, Renzo. This is the first time in my life that I’m so completely and utterly…horny over a man. Give me a break.”

Grabbing the duvet toga-style, she tried to get off the bed when instead she found herself in his lap, his arm a steel band under her breasts. She squirmed, felt his hardness poke at her behind, heard his near-pained grunt and settled in with a huff.

“Stop moving,bella.” His desire colored his words with rich texture.

Sinking into him, she thought back to his comment. Past the new current of anxiety and awareness in her belly that reminded her she was so vulnerable against him now.Wrong question, he’d said… “Why did you and Rosa break up?”

He chuckled softly at her ear. The sound traveled through her, settling deep into her core, planting roots. “Have I ever told you that I find your mind as arousing as your body?”

Mimi turned, kissed him and mumbled, “No. Tell me, please. I will never mention her again.”

He dipped his head until his chin rested on her shoulder. “When I was twenty-one, it came out that our family was in massive debt. The business was crumbling. Investors were pulling out. My father, whether through sheer stupidity or negligence, ran everything to ground. Rosa’s father found out and told her. She sent me a message through her brother that she was canceling our engagement.”

Mimi turned in his arms again and pressed her cheek to his bare chest. His heart thudded under her ears in a steady beat while hers…ached for him. No wonder he’d been so predisposed to dislike Pia too. While her sister hadn’t worshipped status and wealth particularly, she had cared about the superficial stuff more than her own or Santo’s happiness. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Rosa taught me a valuable lesson I never forgot, motivated me enough to clean up my father’s mess. It took me more than a decade, but I fixed everything. Rebuilt the resorts into a luxury brand.”

“I don’t understand it,” Mimi said, her confusion seeping into her words. “From what Massimo told me at the party, it seems Rosa’s and Chiara’s husbands went into business together, and it all sank. You literally had to rescue your brother-in-law. Weren’t you at least a little happy to have her see you like this? To rub your success and power and wealth in her snotty face?”

He laughed so hard that Mimi shook along with him. “What a bloodthirsty little heart you have,cara. I like you more and more.”

Mimi shrugged, even as every inch of her thrummed at his praise. At the glint of admiration in his tone. “Instead, you were…distressed to see her. You’re sure you have no lingering feelings for her?”

His teeth bit down on her earlobe, sending a lick of flaming sensation down to her sensitized core. Mimi gasped and writhed in his lap as he followed it up by licking at the hurt he caused.

“No feelings for her,cara. I will not have you doubt my word or my commitment to this.”

“I don’t, Renzo,” she said, mouth falling open in a long gravelly moan as he cupped her breasts. “But I—”

She never got to finish her thought or the sentence as he spread her thighs wide open on his lap and dipped his fingers into her core.