Page 112 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8

CHAPTER ELEVEN

D AMIAN WAS NUMB after Carmel left. He was tempted to stay that way by getting very drunk, but he had to see Zoia later.

He couldn’t stay in his apartment, though. Carmel had only been there an hour, but she inhabited every corner.

He went to his office building, which was deserted on a Sunday afternoon, but he discovered she was there, too.

Two minutes , her tenacious voice insisted. I only came to give you this. Read it, sign it, then we never have to speak again.

He should have done exactly that. Then he wouldn’t be feeling gnawed from the inside out.

After an hour of trying to read a report that refused to make sense, he stared out at the city until the shadows were long. Then he went to the hospital to see his grandmother.

He didn’t tell her he’d ended things with Carmel.

“I wanted to come alone,” he said. “To tell you I’ve heard from my father.” He paraphrased the email Nick had sent.

Zoia shed a few tears at the small memory Nick had relayed of her daughter.

When Damian said good-night, Zoia cupped his face and said, “I’m not surprised he’s a good man. So are you.”

Then why does everyone leave me? He didn’t ask it aloud.

It was a childish question. His mother hadn’t left him.

It only felt that way. She hadn’t meant to die, making him see her absence as abandonment.

His father hadn’t known about him at all.

Age had caught up with his grandfather, the way it did with everyone. Exactly as it was doing with Zoia.

Carmel had left, though. Not just the first time, but today. He understood it. He even agreed with her. She did deserve better. She deserved to be loved.

It still hurt like hell.

You’re terrified of loving and being abandoned again.

He was.

He breathed through the searing pain and went home, where he barely slept. His bed was empty and cold.

After a bracing shower, he went to the hospital; they had already taken Zoia into pre-op. That’s when he picked up a text from Carmel.

Atlas has to leave for London this morning. I don’t want to bring the paparazzi to the hospital unless you want me there?

You should go with him , he replied.

Three dots appeared, then disappeared.

It occurred to him that she might have ended their marriage, but she wasn’t leaving . Not entirely. He was sending her away.

Finally, her message came through. Please let me know when you have news.

And that was it. She was gone.

One of the best things Carmel had done while staying with Damian was to teach Zoia how to send and listen to voice mail on her tablet.

Carmel had never known her own grandparents.

Not in a way that felt like a real connection.

Both of her grandfathers had been gone by the time she was born, and her mother’s mother had had dementia.

She hadn’t recognized Carmel by the time Carmel was old enough to form memories of her.

Her father’s mother had been a very cold, critical woman who Carmel had learned to avoid at all costs.

Now she felt as though she had gained the grandmother she had always yearned for.

At first, Zoia’s messages were very short, saying only that she was feeling tired, but the doctors were pleased.

Soon she was more chatty, leaving longer messages about how handsome her doctor was or that she was feeling good enough to work in her garden, but Damian said she was only allowed to sit in it.

Exchanging messages with her was a bright spot in otherwise dark days for Carmel.

She worked a lot, which helped the time pass, and she went to see her father twice, going with Atlas both times.

Oliver had negotiated a six-month stay at the rehabilitation clinic in exchange for avoiding jail time. He was furious about it.

It was odd for Carmel to go into the clinic sober and hear the same excuses she had once spouted coming out of Oliver’s mouth. She sat in therapy with him and told him things he probably didn’t really hear, but it felt good to get those old injuries off her chest.

It felt good to realize he had very little influence over her anymore.

When Atlas and Stella flew back to Greece, she was sad to see them go and jealous of their being that much closer to Damian, but she knew she would be okay.

She was lonely, though. Her heart wasn’t broken, but it held an emptiness. She was pining for him.

The one rough day she had was when she received the Divorce Absolute. She stayed in bed watching comfort shows and eating junk food between crying jags.

The next morning, she woke with gritty eyes and an all-over body ache. It was a nonalcoholic hangover resulting from an overindulgence of self-pity, but it was over now. It was time to start afresh.

She knew how to do that. As she’d told Damian, she’d started over enough times to have a routine for it.

The first step was always the same: she booked herself into a spa for a full day of scrubs, massages, nutrition and beauty treatments.

Then she would buy herself a stunning outfit and a pair of obscenely expensive shoes.

She might even spring for a new handbag.

Maybe Damian didn’t love her, but she loved herself and, for now, that was enough.

Damian watched Zoia improve every day. Now that she was recovering, she was grateful to have the surgery behind her. Her color was good, she had more energy and her overall outlook was brighter.

He, on the other hand, was morose.

The villa, which had always been his sanctuary, was merely a dry place to spend his sleepless nights.

He worked in the fields and in his office, finding little satisfaction in either.

He looked for Carmel at lunch and listened for her singing as he walked up the stairs.

He never lingered in the pool after his laps. He loathed his empty bed.

He missed her. Overpoweringly.

When Zoia questioned him on what had gone wrong between them, he told her what he believed to be the truth.

“She wanted a divorce.” She wanted to leave . “I gave her what she wanted.”

“I don’t believe it,” Zoia said. “I think she wanted you to fight for her.”

“If she wants to see me, she knows how to find me.”

“She already came to find you.”

“To ask for a divorce .”

His one consolation was that Carmel seemed to be handling their parting well. There were no reports of her turning to unhealthy coping strategies, which he was genuinely grateful to see, but it also told him that perhaps she hadn’t loved him as deeply as she had proclaimed.

She wasn’t suffering. Not the way he was.

“You should go get her,” Zoia chided.

“You’re still recovering,” Damian argued. Until she was out of the woods, he wanted to stay close to her, and did.

He spoke to his father regularly, though. Their first conversations were stilted, but when he told Nick that his grandmother was seeming like her old self, Nick invited him to come meet the rest of his family.

Damian agreed, mostly because he couldn’t bear staying here without Carmel any longer.

A week later, he landed in Melbourne. It was their winter, but the day was dry and sunny. He checked into his hotel, cleaned up, then made his way to his father’s contemporary mansion in Toorak.

Nick met him at the door and shook his hand while catching him into a brief hug. The other man’s eyes were wet as he introduced his wife and children. They all gathered around with great smiles and a buzz of questions while drawing Damian into their home.

It was overwhelming and heartening, and even though he felt welcome and wanted to be here, it was one of the most isolating moments of his life.

He wished he had someone with him. He wished Carmel was with him.

She had nudged him onto this journey, and he wished he could share this culmination with her.

He should have asked her to come with him.

She would have come, without question. He knew that as a certainty within him.

He kept thinking of Zoia telling him to go to her, but every time he did, he heard Carmel say, If you don’t love me, then I can’t stay with you. I need you to let me go.

He hadn’t wanted to let her go. He had been honoring their agreement.

Giving her what she wanted, so she could find someone who would love her the way she deserved to be loved.

He kept telling himself that she couldn’t love him because they barely knew each other, but she did know him.

In some ways, she knew him better than he knew himself.

You’re terrified of loving and being abandoned again… You don’t trust me, even when I say that I love you.

She would have known that as much as he wanted to meet his family, it was hard for him.

He kept himself so locked away from revealing anything personal, he struggled to tell his father how he began working in solar panels.

He accepted a beer he didn’t want and let it go warm in his hand because he didn’t want to explain that his sobriety was a show of support for his ex-wife—who didn’t even know that he was doing it.

Thankfully, there was a lot going on with Nick manning the barbecue and his brother and sister playing tennis.

“Can I ask you something?” his youngest sister, Faye, asked shyly. She was twenty-two and aspired to be a makeup artist on film productions. “Did you, um, ask Carmel Davenport to do that stitch with my video?”

His pulse took a swerve at the unexpected mention of her name, but he had to shrug.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He had a vague sense it was something to do with social media, but his PR team handled all of his online activity. It focused on business announcements anyway.

“Oh. Um…” She blinked, seeming bemused. “But you know her, right? I saw your photos with her in Berlin.”

“I do, yes.” She’s all I think about.

“Well, somehow she found my makeup videos. She did one of my tutorials on her own channel, side by side with mine. I got, like, a bazillion followers from it. That was so nice of her I thought you might have asked her to do it.”