Page 36 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8

CHAPTER FIVE

R EBECCA KNEW HOW to fight. She considered her angles now, as rage and frustration and something softer she did not want to identify wound through her.

She could land a punch, but the reach up would make it difficult to put any heft behind. She could get a sharp elbow to the chest, but she knew from firsthand experience the kind of muscle his perfectly tailored suit covered.

A knee lifted to the groin was the only option, but it would require getting closer. She considered, looked up at him.

For the first time since her arrival, his mouth curved upward, ever so slightly. “You could try ,” he said silkily, clearly seeing through her.

“You cannot hold me against my will. That is kidnapping.”

“óchi,” he returned, shaking his head. “I have not taken you anywhere against your will. You seem a bit hysterical. No doubt the travel and the stress of a test. We must think of the baby. You must be hungry.”

“No, Theo, I am panicking because a man I barely know is holding me hostage.”

“Hostage?” He laughed. “Do not be so dramatic, omorfiá mu . We are simply in a stalemate until we make decisions together.”

“You sound like a psychopath trying to reason out your horrible actions.”

This accusation also did not seem to faze him. He kept talking in that damnable reasonable tone.

“If I do, that only means you sound like a hysterical overwrought woman, and I do not think you are that. So let us take a breath. You must be exhausted and starving. I will have the kitchen fix you a plate.”

She was all those things and felt a bit like crying, too. But she could not simply…give in to him. She had to maintain some control. Some autonomy. As exhausting and painful as that seemed. “Theo, I am going home.”

“Becca. You are not.” He said it in the same implacable tone. “We have many things to discuss. To work out. You cannot come all this way and think you will simply waltz back to Ireland without having to deal with the fallout.”

Oh, how she was so very tired of dealing with fallout. Of having everyone else make decisions that she had to come to terms with. Whether it be the universe, a horse and her doctor, or Patrick and the perfect Bridget . Nothing ever got to be her own choice, did it?

She closed her eyes against the wave of powerlessness and exhaustion. Tried to squeeze the tears back with it.

“Over the next few days, we will work out an arrangement,” he said. Firmly. With complete assurance. Like he knew just what to do. Like he would deal with the fallout, and everything would be fine.

Dangerous ground, Rebecca.

But it felt…reassuring in some way. That he’d have answers. That he would have a plan. Her parents just kept asking her what she wanted to do. They supported her, but they expected her to have answers she just didn’t have.

So far her plan had been, weather everything. And tell him. Love her baby. The end.

But he…had answers, or so it seemed.

“A plan we both agree with,” he continued. “But it must be done in person. I think you owe me this.”

That pricked at her temper. “ Owe you? I didn’t get pregnant alone.”

“No, indeed. So you shouldn’t be making the decisions alone. It appears you have chosen to have this child, so if there is to be a child, I have a say. This is not unreasonable.”

No, it wasn’t. Which didn’t seem fair. But… He seemed to know what to do.

As if sensing her softening, he moved for her. “You will rest. I will have dinner made and then you will eat. Then we will sit down and begin the discussions.” He put his hand on her elbow, as if to usher her back to the bed.

His hand on her arm was a shock. Because it was like being swept up into carnal memory. She wore long sleeves, and still she knew what his palm would feel like on her arm. Smoothing over her breasts. His fingers inside her.

She tried to breathe normally, tried to hide her reaction to him, to his memory. She thought she might have succeeded…until he turned her to face him.

When their eyes met, held, she knew he saw the same things she did. Even felt them. His grip on her arm tightened, his eyes flared with all that glorious, dangerous promise.

She couldn’t want this again. She didn’t even know him. One night at a wedding to exorcise some heartbroken demon was one thing, but it was completely another now when he was making demands and orders and…

The father of your child.

But all those feelings, reactions, whirling thoughts kept attacking her and she couldn’t center herself enough to find a word, a denial.

If he kissed her, she would kiss him back. If he touched her, she would beg for more. She didn’t have to like it to know it was true. There was something about this man that undid her foundations.

She gently pulled her arm away from his grasp, settled her hand over her stomach as she’d grown accustomed to doing. Because this baby had given her a strength, or a reason to rediscover her strength. That didn’t allow her to give into him, no matter how hard her body pulsed or ached.

“Very well,” she said, trying to sound firm, though she didn’t think she succeeded. “I will rest. I will eat. We will discuss. But I am going back to Ireland once we’ve come to an agreement. I am not staying here. I am not marrying you.”

He made a noncommittal kind of noise she wasn’t foolish enough to take as agreement, but when he reached out for her elbow again, she climbed into the bed rather than be touched by him again.

Of course it was soft and comfortable, and her body practically sighed into it. Her eyes were already drooping, so she didn’t have to fight to keep from looking at him. She just let her eyes close.

She was asleep before he’d even left the room.

Theo stiffly went to the kitchens, requested an early dinner and a tray to be put together for his visitor. He would deliver it himself.

No matter how the thought of them together in that room now felt like the threat of a dangerous storm.

He had not meant the touch to be anything more than a guiding gesture. Hand on elbow, move her over to the bed, ease her into it. She needed rest and he’d just been trying to push her in that direction.

Then her eyes had met his, and he had seen all the heat there. Reflecting in her blue eyes seemed to be images and memories of their night together.

The soft velvet of her skin, the floral perfume he’d found in her hair, in the crook of her neck. The taste of her like an addicting liquor, and much too easily, he could remember exactly the noises she’d made as she’d lost herself around him.

It was an affront to find himself tense and hard. He never allowed his wants, his passions to rule him. He had taught himself to be the antithesis, and maybe savior of his father. He had learned to push himself physically, emotionally, to always know his control center point.

He had taught himself from a young age to do everything with purpose, with calm, with control.

He could delve into the psychology of that some other time.

Right now, he had to focus on that control. On the ability to push all memories, all desire away.

But it was so visceral, this reaction to her, regardless of her dress or the circumstances. He understood lust—he’d once been a teenage boy eager to discover the pleasures to be found in a woman’s body—but it had never had some kind of choke hold on him like this.

He wanted her. Now. To strip her of her drab, baggy clothes. To taste, to touch, to watch her blue eyes darken with need. To hear her beg .

And to feel the growth of his child inside her. To trace the new curves with his hands. He did not understand the response, a kind of primitive, biological satisfaction that he had been the one to make her with child.

Child. She was carrying his child. They would need to marry. Plan a life together. Sex was a distraction. Not off the table, but he could not let it be his motivation, his goal. His goal had to be making her into the wife he needed.

Perhaps she would meet his stringent standards, though he doubted it, but standards could be taught and met. She’d been an athlete herself. A woman who knew how to set a goal and reach it.

Almost, anyway.

He needed someone who could attend events with him.

Converse with the wealthy all over the world.

Be sophisticated, controlled. She was a beauty, so there was no issue there, but the wardrobe would need improvement.

He did not know how she interacted with people other than him. No doubt she would need to be taught.

Thinking of the practicalities helped ease some of the heat raging inside him, so he continued thinking as he waited for the kitchen staff to put together a tray.

And as he stood there, he acknowledged even as he made mental plans for all of these things, the most important goal she would need to meet would be that of mother. He liked what he saw already. A protectiveness. A sense of fairness in telling him.

His child would have a good mother, no matter what. He did not know what it looked like, but he knew that absence and abandonment was not it. And he, too, would have to learn how to be a good father.

Atlas was not…the worst. There was some affection there. Some…passing down of things. But mostly it had been a careless, friendly sort of relationship. His father had always worried more about the ever-revolving door of women than what Theo wanted or needed.

Theo would do more for his son.

He pulled out his phone, began to do some light research on the finest parenting instruction and was frustrated when there was nothing definitive to be found. He ordered a slew of books for the time being. There was time to learn.

And learn he would.

Learn they would.

Whether she wanted to or not.