Page 13 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8

‘I thought that was the idea, me not thinking it through,’ she countered, her spiky interruption drawing an unwilling grin from him. ‘You rush me into saying yes before I can think about it. And I think I’ll be able to last a few weeks without sex.’

He threw back his head and laughed, a warm and uninhibited sound that delivered an extra tingle to her already thrumming body. ‘What if I can’t?’

Impelled by desperation rather than inspiration, she heard herself blurt out defensively, ‘Have you even looked at another woman since Deb?’

Any hint of humour faded from his face—effectively it became an austere, beautiful blank.

A blank that hid a world of pain, she realised, her tender heart aching for him as guilt bit deep.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to… That was a callous thing to say,’ she admitted in a small guilt-laden voice.

‘I do not want to discuss Deb.’

‘No…no, obviously, of course not and neither do I. I knew you were not being serious, I just…’ She paused, relieved when he cut across her.

‘Histrionics aside, my grandfather is ill, not stupid. To convince him, we are going to have to display some…affection, if we are to sell this to him.’

‘He won’t expect us to be overcome with lust and have sex on the dining table, will he? Or is that a quaint Greek custom like smashing plates?’ The smart words came back to bite her before she had stopped talking.

It was ultra hard to maintain an expression of amused indifference when her wilful imagination supplied the visualisation of the torrid scene she had just described. A gleam in his eye and a few provocative words and she had become a bundle of raging hormones.

God, what was happening to her?

That, she told herself, was a question for later. Right now her priority had to be concealing the fact. She needed to focus and take control of her rioting hormones.

‘My family has its moments but on the whole they are conservative…mostly. Tabletop sex is optional and conducted in private.’

‘Have you…?’ she began, able to still her tongue by biting it hard, but not the images playing in her head.

The raw lust that was sliding through his body made it hard for Adonis not to react to the open goal she had gifted him. He focused instead on managing the lust, which he assumed had something to do with the drought of late in his sex life.

It wasn’t grief or guilt that got in the way of him moving on, it was distrust in his own judgment and boredom. Strange that it took a woman who made no attempt to please him, made no attempt to seduce him, to jolt his libido into full sinful life.

Maybe he needed a challenge, he needed surprises?

She definitely surprised him, though for such a self-possessed female she also had a vulnerability that made him step back when every instinct made him want to move in.

‘The point is we are going to be living for a short period in close proximity.’ He paused to allow this fact to register and, from her worried expression, it did. ‘For some weeks, possibly months. We will have to act as though we are intimate even if we are not.’

‘Months!’ The moment the exclamation left her lips she was regretting it. ‘Not that I’m wishing your grandfather—’

‘I know exactly what you mean.’

‘Look, bottom line,’ she began awkwardly. Given the circumstances it felt right to explain. ‘I am not a very sexual person.’ Despite her best intentions, she couldn’t hold his gaze when she made this big reveal.

She really believed what she was saying. What or who the hell was responsible for that? he asked himself, feeling contemptuous for a man who had left her feeling lacking. One of those pathetic losers, he speculated, who covered their own failings by saying ‘It’s not me, it’s you’?

‘So it is a non-issue. You’re safe. There will be no embarrassing incidents. I won’t be pushing any… This is not an issue for me.’

‘I am difficult to embarrass.’

‘That I can believe,’ she said with feeling and a wild little laugh. ‘But, seriously, I am not going to misinterpret acting for anything else, if that is concerning you. What goes on behind closed doors can be boring.’

He was gripped by a strong conviction that this woman could never be boring.

‘You know, I’ve had a great idea,’ she said, her eyes sparking enthusiasm.

She placed her hands on the arms of the chair he was sitting in and leaned forward as she lowered her voice to explain.

‘You thought I was pregnant when you saw me. Why don’t we let people think…

? Not lie,’ she added swiftly. ‘Just more don’t deny it if people assume…

It would at least give some sort of reason for you to marry me. ’

‘You mean people will believe you lured me into your bed when I was drunk and incapable and—’ He watched her enthusiastic smile become a horrified frozen grimace.

She registered she was standing too close. She also recognised there was a strange reluctance in her to rectify the situation.

‘You’re right,’ she agreed with a sigh.

‘I am?’ he said cautiously. The scent coming from her warm body, or maybe the hair that hung around her face, was distracting…addictive.

‘It was a stupid idea. Your family will look at me and know I am not capable of being sexy and seductive.’

‘My family…’ he began.

‘What?’ she prompted, struggling to interpret the odd, almost driven expression on his face.

She was too surprised to react when, without warning, he took her face between his hands and, pulling her down towards him, covered her mouth with his cool lips.

She gave herself over to the slow sexual seduction and let everything else vanish…

For a few blissful moments it was just texture, heartbeat, taste, tactile, sensual and outside her experience.

Lizzie had been kissed, she had actually enjoyed kisses when her brain could detach from what was happening and explain it away, but this was different, very different.

His lips, the way they moved with slow seductive skill across her mouth, the dip of his tongue and the wild need to meet it, the need to explore and taste were new, scary and exciting territory.

Then it was over and after a moment of deep breaths and eye-clashes she straightened up and took a hasty step back.

‘Well, that was—’ Probably the most erotic experience of her life, which she supposed made her a sad case.

‘Nice?’

His smug mockery stung. If he thought she would say he’d rocked her world he was going to be disappointed, even if it was true.

‘Passable.’ God, he was so up himself and she was so… Well, actually not being too dramatic, she was doomed.

Every detail was indelibly imprinted into her memory. Every tiny detail recorded, the texture and strength of those long fingers framing her face, the addictive lemony spice scent of his soap. Soap—it sounded so prosaic but so wasn’t.

She’d thought she had been kissed before but now she knew she hadn’t—not really.

And that mind-expanding, physically debilitating kiss, which meant nothing more to him than, well, shutting her up or proving that he was irresistible. Either option was unpalatable and he’d succeeded on both grounds.

She took a second step backwards when he rose to his feet in one supple fluid motion. She told herself for a split second that she was in control and gave up the exercise of denial because she really wasn’t.

It was chemical!

It was insane!

As he watched her Adonis was aware of the predatory pulse inside him. It was attuned to every minute shift of expression on her face. He could almost feel the pulse beating under her skin… He could smell her arousal.

It was basic, primal.

It was all so out of his comfort zone, and then some. When was the last time he had struggled to get his libido in check or needed the effort it now cost him?

He wanted to peel away the layers, quite literally, and discover what this woman had that bypassed every logic circle in his brain.

Was this how his parents functioned—all instinct and no brain, no logic…animalistic?

The thought sent a warning kick to his belly. The chilling idea that he had wandered into his parents’ world enabled him to shrug it off. A kiss, as they said, was just a kiss, and she did have that mouth.

So he cut himself some slack.

‘You really don’t have to worry. I know where we stand and I think we can hold hands and I can laugh at your jokes without being overcome by wild animal passion.

I agree it is good to think ahead, but…’ She took a deep breath.

‘I am not one of your—your groupies, so please remember that in the next weeks.’

‘So no more kissing.’

‘It’s a matter of context, I suppose, and I’m fine with that,’ she lied glibly.

‘Deb was…’ She paused. ‘I know,’ she continued gently.

‘Gosh, she was a hard act to follow but one day… Sorry,’ she added, knowing she had strayed into areas with massive no-go signs.

Obviously he was still in love with Deb. She didn’t have to labour the point.

His expression did not suggest that he appreciated her delicate negotiation of a difficult subject at all.

‘Will there be a prenup?’ she said, immediately feeling foolish for querying the obvious.

It was normal for a man like Adonis to protect his interests, and that went double when the marriage in question was less one of convenience, more mutual inconvenience, a few weeks or months out of his life to enable his grandfather to die a happy man.

Whether his grandfather deserved this sacrifice was not the issue for Lizzie. She had been a child and helpless to do anything but, when her mum had been dying, she would have broken every rule in the book to make her mum smile…just for a moment.

She wasn’t judging him, but she didn’t forget that he was not a child, he was a powerful and ruthless man.

‘Well, more a post-nup. You will not lose out financially by this.’

She froze. ‘I don’t want your money. I earn my own money.’

‘I thought you volunteered at these stables?’

His patronising undertone set her teeth on edge. ‘Felly Edge. Yes, I did work there when I left school, but now I write.’

‘Have you had anything published?’

She nodded, telling herself that boasting was a bad thing, although wafting her last royalty statement under his nose at that moment would have given her a lot of satisfaction.

‘It is hard to make a living as a writer.’

‘I know.’ She gritted her teeth, for the first time understanding a little of her team’s frustration as she was forced to bite back the literally amazing number of books her series had sold.

Something about him released the dormant boastful voice in her that wanted to be released, that wanted to scream, Forget about self-deprecating. I have sold a shedload of books. I have earned the praise, the kudos.

Even if I still feel a fraud.

‘What sort of books?’

‘Romance.’

‘Ahh…’ The way he said it made her teeth ache but that might have been the clenching.

‘So you are a romantic?’

‘Not at all. If you think I am looking for love you could not be more wrong.’

‘So you are not looking for love and marriage.’

‘There are lots of kinds of love, but it’s not love I have an issue with, just the blind belief that love will make everything OK.’

Buried memories aside, she knew that her dad had loved her mum, but he hadn’t been able to protect her. Marriage was a formula for…well, not happiness anyway.

‘Not really relevant, is it, in this instance?’

At the shrill sound of his phone he pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. ‘Excuse me. I need to take this.’

Left alone, Lizzie began to pace the room.

What had she done?

What had she agreed to?