Page 104 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8

“Please don’t make jokes about what I did. I’ve hated myself a lot over it.”

With a resigned sigh, he moved closer and touched her chin, tilting it up so he could see into her eyes. “Is it true? You didn’t have sex with him? Just kissed him?”

“It was still a kind of adultery.” Her brow flinched and she delicately lifted her chin from his grip before turning her face away, showing him a profile that was stark and pained.

“But yes. I could barely stand to be alone with him. You ruined me for sex with anyone else. Thanks for that,” she said grouchily.

Don’t believe her , his inner voice warned, but there was something so despondent in her expression, he had to ask, “What exactly are you saying? You haven’t had any lovers since me?”

“Ego fully restored?” she asked, voice lofty, but there was a thread of tension in it.

“I—” He didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know if he could believe her. “Why not?” he blurted.

“A lot of reasons.” She folded her arms defensively.

“Lack of interest was the main one, but I also knew that if I did find someone I liked, I’d have to do this.

Come see you.” Her lashes lifted to reveal the clouds of anxiety in her eyes.

Remorse. “I wasn’t ready to face you. To atone.

I needed to get sober first. I know you think I want a divorce so I can marry someone else, but there’s no one waiting in the wings.

Just me. My therapist says I need to learn to love Carmel.

Date myself .” She rolled her eyes at the concept.

It seemed too far-fetched to believe, but was it?

He hadn’t been with anyone else. And even though he’d seen her photographed with other men, it had usually been in the context of something like tonight—a fundraiser or a business function.

He’d been on countless similar dates himself.

They were polite but bland nonaffairs that met society’s expectation for an evening, but did little else for him.

“I can’t make you believe me,” she said with a downturn of her mouth.

“That’s on me for failing to appreciate what we had.

If you want the real, terrifying truth, I felt things for you that I thought I wasn’t allowed to have.

I’d done too many stupid things to deserve it.

I didn’t know how to handle it so I threw it away. ”

She looked too self-conscious for him to dismiss this as a ploy. What would she even gain by such a lie? The divorce she had already asked for?

No matter how many times he tried to disbelieve her, the things she said kept ringing true. He wanted her to be a liar because her truths were inconvenient. They forced him to change his view of her.

They forced him to feel some understanding and respect for her.

“I want this to be all your fault. I really do,” he admitted.

“But I was the one who proposed. I can say I was caught up in the romance of it. That I thought I was helping you get access to your own money, but I was hungry to get ahead. I saw marrying you as a cheat code. A way to jump the line. I’m not proud of that. ”

“This might come as a shock, but lots of people got close to me for my money. I knew that’s what you wanted, but I wanted you so…” She shrugged.

“Don’t let me off the hook. We’re being honest here, aren’t we?”

“Okay,” she said gravely. “I was hurt that you were so angry about Daddy pulling the promise of giving me access to my money. I know he was insulting to you. You had every right to be angry, but I wanted you to stand up for me. To say it didn’t matter.

After the way I’d been treated all my life, I felt like the only value I had was the fact I had access to money.

That’s why I sided with Daddy when he told me it was him or you.

” She waved her hand in the air, then looked to the floor.

“The only other value I seemed to have for you was sex, so I chose to hurt you that way.”

“It worked. You did,” he said without heat. “I wanted to kill that other man. He was touching what I believed was mine.” He nodded at her.

“I was yours.” Her voice grew thick and her eyes welled. She scrunched them closed with a pained expression. “But I knew I wasn’t enough for you. Not for forever. Sooner or later, I would ruin it, so I got it over with.”

Of all the things she’d ever said, that sounded like the truest. It sounded like something she would do, purely to drive the situation, rather than wait in a state of dread.

“Are you going to do it again?” he asked gruffly.

“Do what?” Her gaze came up to his, anxious.

“Take this little bit of trust we’ve found and throw it away.”

“No. I hope not.” Her shoulders twitched in a small shrug. “I don’t want to. I want you to forgive me. That’s all I’ve wanted since it happened.”

“I do forgive you.” It was less a decision than an arrival at a place he hadn’t expected, but the doors opened and here he was. The air was lighter and his view of her softer. “I believe you’re sorry, Carmel. So am I. Let’s draw a line under it and leave it in the past.”

Carmel heard a harsh gasp and realized it was her own gulp for air, even as her ears strained to hear what he’d said because she couldn’t be sure.

Had he really said he forgave her?

She could hardly see him. She blinked fast, but the tears were gathering on her lashes, making it impossible to see him. Her mouth felt electrified. Her lips were numb and couldn’t form words.

“Do you r-really—” She sniffed the tears gathering in her nasal passages. “Do you m-mean that?” she choked. “You f-forgive me?” Me?

“Yes. Are you crying?” He sounded shocked. Warm hands took hold of her arms.

“No. I hate crying.” But he was gone behind a curtain of blurred vision. Something hot was spilling down her cheeks. The release—the relief—was so profound, her knees turned to melted butter. Her breaths shortened, becoming jagged.

She tried to look for a tissue, but she didn’t know which way to turn. She clasped at his arms to keep herself upright.

“You’re shaking. Carmel, it’s okay.” She found herself squashed into his chest.

He hugged her.

Which made something in her break open. She began to cry. Really cry. The wave inside her crested and she was overcome. Thrown to the bottom of the sea, limp and crumpling and unable to breathe even as he gathered her up.

He sat on the sofa with her in his lap and set a box of tissues in her lap. He plucked the first few out of it, trying to dab at her tears.

“Shh. Stop now,” he chided.

But it meant so much to her, she shook. Cheating on him was the one thing she had never been able to forgive in herself.

She’d used it against herself a thousand times, digging deep grooves inside herself that engraved the harsh truth into her soul: she didn’t deserve him. She didn’t deserve his forgiveness.

She didn’t deserve to be happy.

That’s what she had believed for years. Now he had dismantled that and what was she supposed to do? Not hate herself? It was too big to absorb.

“All right,” he said in a gruff tone, holding her tighter. “Get it out, then.”

He cradled her and rubbed her back and petted her hair while she fell apart completely.

She wasn’t one of those women who cried pretty. She looked like a wounded hagfish, using tissue after mascara-stained tissue to mop her cheeks and blow her nose and still the sobs rose and burst, shattering her apart.

It was awful. Agonizing. But also cathartic as she keened out all her pain.

His patience was a layer of anguish in itself, hurting and healing at once, but eventually the storm was spent.

Her sobs died to hiccups and a sensation of being utterly drained.

By then, her shoulder was under his armpit, her arm bent against his rib cage.

Her head was tucked under his chin and he was sifting his fingers through the length of her hair. It was really soothing.

All of this was so nice . She had never let herself believe he would show her this much kindness. As she soaked it in, she had to close her gritty eyes against a fresh scorch of heat.

She sighed, loathe to move because she was warm and comfortable and he made her feel very, very safe. She could have had this all this time, she thought distantly. If she’d been brave enough to accept it. To believe she deserved it.

She kept her eyes closed and memorized every sensation—the physical presence of his body surrounding hers, but also the feeling of calm within her.

The sweetness of his forgiveness and the inherent acceptance in the way he petted her hair.

Deeper yearnings stirred, and she let herself feel those too because this was what she wanted more than anything. A person who made her feel good .

She couldn’t have Damian, though. She knew that.

He could forgive her, but that didn’t mean he could trust her or love her.

That was okay. She understood that. But it was enough to bask in his caring and know she could revisit this moment each time her confidence flagged.

Whenever the world grew too heavy and her commitment to sobriety flagged, she would remember this and realign.

This was what she would seek for the rest of her life.

She hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep until something snaked under her legs and the world tilted before the ground fell away. She was falling!

“It’s okay,” Damian said quietly even as she grasped at him. “I thought you were asleep. I was going to carry you to bed.” He let her feet slide to the floor.

She wobbled on the heels she was still wearing and clung to his arms, disoriented.

“Do I look horrible?” She must.

“A facecloth wouldn’t hurt.”

For some reason, that offhand response, delivered without malice, made a huge laugh bubble up from her belly. It rose out of the pyre of her tears like a phoenix, releasing in a long, gusty roll that nearly made her cry again.

He steadied her, then trapped her hair against the side of her neck, thumb tilting her chin up so he could look into her eyes. His expression was concerned.

“Okay?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That was a lot of tears.”

“I know. My stomach hurts.” She pressed the ache that lingered there. “But I’m going to tell my therapist that you deserve an honorary certificate. She’s always telling me to cry more, but, as you just witnessed, I don’t know how to stop.”

“You’re really okay?” His expression altered to something more tender, and his thumb caressed the edge of her jaw.

“I am,” she assured him, patting his chest.

She yearned for the right to hug herself against him again, but they had arrived at a very fine balance. Grace. She didn’t want to ruin it.

“I’m a lot,” she acknowledged wryly. “I know I am. I have a lot of baggage, and I’ve spent most of my life expecting others to carry it for me.

Literally and figuratively. I’m learning to carry it myself—no, I’m getting strong enough to do it.

That’s a better way to say it. But this…

” She brushed at the damp stain on his lapel.

“This was very heavy. I appreciate you taking some of it off me. Thank you. I mean that.”

His gaze scanned her features, then snagged on her mouth. Her heart began to thud and the air between them became magnetized. Her lips began to tingle with anticipation, and she watched the tip of his tongue dampen his parted lips.

He drew back, pulling in a deep breath as he looked across the room. The hand on her neck dropped away.

“You should go to bed.”

Disappointment crashed over her. It was his rejection on the stairs all over again.

She folded her arms and wobbled her way into her room.