Page 17 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8

She fell in beside him, close, but not quite touching as they walked through the arch into a flower-filled paved quadrangle enclosed by richly glowing stone walls, beyond which you got iconic glimpses of the Rock against a cerulean-blue sky, the Rock that dominated Gibraltar, that pretty much was Gibraltar.

Her heels on the stone sounded loud but the water falling from the fountain was louder.

‘You’ve got no flowers,’ Jenna suddenly exclaimed, sounding horrified.

As if flowers were the only absence in this wedding, Lizzie thought, turning a bitter laugh into a cough.

‘There are plenty of flowers here,’ she soothed, amazed that she sounded calm, almost normal. But it was true: a riot of colour spilled out of the raised beds, herbs flourished in the cracks between the stone slabs, filling the air with their aroma as they were crushed underfoot.

‘She has a cat.’

Lizzie had hardly forgotten he was there but the sound of his deep voice made her jump.

‘Give him to Dmitri.’

For once it didn’t sound like an order. If he’d pushed it she would have hung on, but he didn’t so she handed Mouse over, telling her to be a good girl.

‘It’s her, not him.’

‘Would your cat like to run around? There is a secure area, the smaller garden, more intimate, some couples prefer that… If you like she could be released there to stretch her little legs. Suitable for animals. A couple last month had their rescue dog deliver the ring.’

‘Oh, how lovely! So romantic!’ Lizzie exclaimed, enchanted and at the same time depressed because of the contrast to her own wedding, but she still hesitated. ‘It’s secure? She couldn’t escape?’

‘Oh, absolutely not. Shall I?’

She nodded her permission to Dmitri, then smiled at the older woman. ‘Thank you so much.’

While desperately aware of him at a cellular level, Lizzie didn’t look at Adonis through the entire mercifully short ceremony—maybe because she was so aware.

If it hadn’t been for the rapid rise and fall of her incredible breasts, he might have thought she had stopped breathing.

She radiated stillness as she delivered her responses in a soft, barely audible voice, and not until the final moment did she abandon her still-statue pose and he saw a myriad emotions move across the surface of the vivid little face lifted to him.

She appeared almost to be compensating for his lack of emotional reaction. His teeth ground in frustration. It was almost as if she was trying to guilt-trip him.

To be cast in the role of villain to her victim did not sit well with him. She had not walked into this with her eyes closed, she knew what she was doing, he thought, feeding his anger to drown out the noise from his irrational guilty conscience. Totally irrational!

But she looked so lost.

He pushed the thought away. Just because a woman had big blue eyes and narrow, fragile wrists did not make her weak. He was not attracted by weakness in a woman, and Lizzie Rose was anything but weak. She had tenacity and a temper, which were two of the reasons he liked her.

He liked her.

He buried the acknowledgement that felt like a weakness and told himself that she would be better off moving forward, thinking about the next stage of their plan and the big reveal with his family instead of broadcasting every little thing she was feeling. Everything.

Theos! It appalled him that someone wore their emotions so close to the surface. How did she survive like that, wearing her vulnerabilities like a neon sign, like an open invitation to take advantage?

Like you did?

‘You may kiss the bride.’

He angled his head, bending down as his big hands landed on her shoulders, his intention clear.

She didn’t panic, a fact she was proud of. Instead she brought her hands palm outwards at chest height and whispered quickly, ‘You really don’t have to.’

‘It’s kind of obligatory to kiss the bride,’ he retorted drily, smothering a fresh flare of annoyance that he was the one putting the effort in. She had as much invested in this working as he had. ‘It’s just a kiss. Just close your eyes and pretend I’m the man of your dreams.’

She heard the undercurrent of irritation in his soft-voiced aside and was not fooled by the loving hand that tenderly stroked the loose strands of hair from her face and curled around her cheek. He was right, of course. She was making it a big thing when it really wasn’t.

You carry on telling yourself that, Lizzie.

‘I think there’s standing room only in that particular club and I’m not good with crowds.’

‘Ouch!’ he huffed under his breath, relieved to see the antagonistic spark in her eyes as he moved in closer, the action effectively capturing her hands between their bodies.

At the first brush of his lips her wide blue eyes closed and she swayed towards him as though responding to some sort of magnetic tug.

The soft brush of his lips over hers could have stopped there had her lips not parted slightly… Did she kiss him back?

It was hard to know who was responsible for the clash of lips, teeth, and tongue in the hot breathless moments before his hands fell from her shoulders.

It was a mistake, obviously. There was no argument.

But she tasted like strawberries, and her lush lips were silky and soft.

He hadn’t been able to resist exploring them…

and the moist inner aspects of her mouth.

He had wanted to explore every inch. The jolt back to reality was like an ice shower, physically painful.

They simultaneously stepped back. Her knees were shaking, and she looked at the two rings that now lay on her finger.

‘I wasn’t expecting…’ Her glance lifted, her eyes zeroing in on his mouth. ‘It’s beautiful, the courtyard,’ she tacked on, saving herself from further embarrassment.

He virtually had to prise her mouth away.

Her body burned with the shame of it, though actually if it had just been shame that she burned with, ached with, it would have been a lot simpler.

‘I wasn’t expecting it to be outdoors,’ she elaborated. ‘So pretty,’ she trilled, senselessly.

The next part was a bit of a blur, laughter, the chinking of glasses—at least she retained the residual sense of self-preservation and settled for orange juice.

It was actually a relief to get back in the private jet. Mouse had obviously exhausted herself in her brief moments of freedom, so she curled on Lizzie’s lap and went to sleep. Nobody had ever said she was not a survivor.

Lizzie envied her.

For God’s sake, Lizzie, less of the drama-queen stuff. It’s not like you’re flying towards your doom, she told herself sternly as she shifted restlessly in the comfort of her deep leather seat, causing the cat to flex her claws in protest against Lizzie’s thigh.

‘Sorry,’ Lizzie soothed after an ouch as she stroked the soft, silky fur, turning her gaze to the window and the stream of clouds wafting by.

Fatigue held at bay by nerves washed over her in waves, receding and advancing until the long surreal day caught up on her and her eyelids closed.

Adonis walked into the cabin, intending to update Lizzie on what to expect when they landed in Xania, but she was asleep, the darned cat curled up on her knee.

Considering he had decided the cat had been brought along for the ride just to irritate him, he felt rather good he had not risen to the provocation; it opened one eye and regarded him with disdain before closing it again, the purring audible from where he stood.

He studied Lizzie Rose’s sleeping face, slightly flushed in repose.

The lashes on her wide-set eyes cast a shadow over the smooth curve of her high cheeks.

Her relaxed mouth was stretched in a soft half-smile, a few strands of glossy hair lay across her cheek, and the jewel-encrusted slide that had pulled her hair away from her face on one side had slid down to the end of one silky strand.

He could only suppose that his lengthy celibacy was responsible for the ribbons of heat that threaded through his body as he looked at her, thinking of the warmth of her lips.

Initially the celibacy had been a natural reaction to Deb’s sudden death and then later, when there was widespread speculation about the woman who would be her replacement and apparently heal his broken heart, he had felt a disinclination to fuel the media and gift publicity to the first woman to make it to his bed.

Or then again, maybe he had been too lazy to make the effort. Sex had become too easy, almost mechanical, boring.

There was nothing lazy about the kick of his libido as his eyes followed the long, graceful curve of her neck where the skin looked smooth as warm silk, and then lower, where one of the tiny pearl buttons had slipped free of the loop of fabric, exposing a modest but fascinating glimpse of her bra and an even more fascinating section of cleavage.

It could not be considered a bad thing to lust after your own wife, but it could, given their unique circumstances, be considered a complication. His fingers flexed as he pushed them into his pockets, the compulsion to touch so strong it was almost overwhelming.

Lizzie Rose’s passion was buried beneath prickles and contradictions.

She opened her eyes. He saw the confusion in the deep blue depths and heard her wince as the cat, annoyed at having its sleep disturbed, dug its claws into her thigh.

‘Ouch, Mouse…’ She pushed her hand through her hair and herself up in her seat.

Adonis caught the jewelled hair clip before it hit the ground and handed it back to her.

‘Thank you,’ she said as he dropped it into her open palm. ‘I must have fallen asleep.’ She sat upright from her slumped position, smoothing the cat’s fur as she did so, the action making her aware that her skirt had ridden up, showing far too much leg.

Surreptitiously pulling it down, Lizzie angled a small cautious smile up at him, noting that he was no longer wearing a jacket and the tie was gone, leaving a small vee of butterscotch-coloured skin exposed at the base of his throat.