Page 52 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

O N THE FOURTH DAY , Theo decided it would be the last. He had dutifully slept in an uncomfortable bed in a tiny office room stuffed to the gills with piles of crafts and books.

He had eaten every meal at the Murphy table.

He had taken the daily walks to the stables.

Hell, he knew some of the horses by name now.

It was enough. It had to be enough.

Sharon mothered him. She tutted when he didn’t eat enough, when it looked like he hadn’t slept well. She asked about his business, but more than that she asked about his life —and it was this that he tried to avoid like the plague.

He had work. Now, he had a child on the way and the mother to marry. There was no life outside that.

And he’d never realized it before.

Theo had to go back to his real life. Where he was in charge, at no one’s mercy and in the beam of no one’s… It wasn’t care . It simply felt like it. The Murphys had a…cozy, warm way about them. Theo was simply unfamiliar with it.

But it didn’t matter. He’d done what he set out to do. He would secure James’s official blessing today and return to Greece by nightfall.

In the morning, when he asked for a moment of James’s time in private, James had surveyed him with a surprisingly shrewd look, then nodded.

James hadn’t wanted to talk inside but had led him out of the house and over to the stables instead. Inside the smells of horse and hay, Theo was led to a little room at the end of the long row of stalls. Apparently this was James’s office.

It was a tiny closet of a room. A desk was jammed into one corner, a chair with a split down the back pushed under it. While the horses had the best of everything, it seemed James took the scraps. James walked over, pulled the chair out and settled himself on it.

There was nowhere for Theo to sit, so he had to stand in front of the man. He was shocked to realize this was very much on purpose. He wouldn’t have expected this kind of gamesmanship from James at all.

James crossed his arms over his chest. He did not smile jovially. He did not crack any jokes or try to ease the tension in the room. He said nothing at all as he regarded Theo with Rebecca’s cool blue eyes.

Theo felt unaccountably…uncomfortable. But he shoved that away and focused on what needed to be done. What would be done.

“I would like your blessing to marry your daughter.” He smiled charmingly, secure in his belief the blessing would come with joy and approval. The Murphys clearly liked him and—

“I note you are not asking my permission.” James’s voice was uncharacteristically tough. There was no smile on his face, no mischievous twinkle in his eyes. He was dead serious.

Theo felt himself shift. Horrified, he realized he’d wanted to fidget . This man who talked of horses like they were gods on the earth, who worshipped his wife and daughter and did whatever they said, now had the look of a shrewd, ruthless businessman.

“My son will have both parents, married and in his life, a stable, certain foundation. So no, it is not permission I ask for. These things will be done. But your daughter wishes for your blessing, and I am more than willing to request it.”

James nodded thoughtfully, his sharp gaze never leaving Theo’s face. His arms never uncrossing. After long moments of silence—something there hadn’t been much of on this visit to the Murphys—he finally spoke.

“Rebecca is the most precious thing in the world to her mother and me. She will be a good mother, because she had one of the best. Tell me, Theo, will you be a good father?”

The question filled him with an icy kind of dread. But of course he would be a good father. That was the entire point of this. Marriage. Foundations. Security. A father gave their children these things—James had given his own daughter this and should understand.

Theo clasped his hands behind his back, because he was not about to stand here and not know what to do with them.

“I do not have any good examples. But I like to think that in it of itself is an example. My father was not cruel, but he was careless. I will not be careless. My son will have everything—not in a monetary, spoiled way, but in the way of a good, stable life. I will ensure he has everything he needs, everything that is right for his proper development.”

James’ expression changed, but Theo could not read it. Nor did he know what to label the strange, elevated beating of his heart or the odd heat that seemed to center itself on the back of his neck.

“And will you be a good husband to my daughter?” James asked after another long beat of silence.

Husband. Such a strange word. He had not thought the role had any weight. He had only seen men treat such a title with careless indifference or outright hostility. Until he’d come to Ireland and watched James Murphy with his wife.

There was a tenderness there. A joy. Even when they were bickering about something or another. They had built a house in love and everything they did seemed to reflect it.

Husband. He had never considered how he would be as a husband because whatever it was would be better than the examples he’d seen.

Until this week.

Theo found himself having to clear his throat to speak.

“Rebecca will have everything she needs to be a good mother. We will give our son all that we can, together. I…want my son to speak of us as your daughter speaks of you and your wife.” The words came out raspy, and Theo could not fathom why he’d said them.

He felt like a babe himself. Immobile and helpless. It was the first time he could remember feeling such a way since he’d been a young boy, not at all certain why the new woman in the house looked down at him with such distaste.

The potency of that awful memory, this current moment, left him utterly stuck in place when the only thing his brain wanted him to do was run .

“A blessing is a serious thing, Theo,” James said, and his voice was softer now.

There was a gentleness to it. “But Rebecca can make her own choices. We will always support her in them. It is hard to watch your child make the wrong ones, but sometimes you have to let them. Sometimes, they have to learn by failure. She always has our blessing to make whatever choices she wishes.”

It sounded like an accusation, and yet James did not deliver it as one. He said it with a warmth Theo could not fully grasp or understand.

“There will be no wrong decisions, Mr. Murphy,” he said, but not with his usual certainty. Not with the force of his will behind it. He couldn’t seem to manage to be himself .

He blamed Ireland. Tea and horses and the pictures of Rebecca as a child that would haunt him forever.

Her father smiled, an edge of sadness, an edge of wisdom Theo felt uncomfortable with. “Life is full of wrong decisions, Theo. That’s why people love. To soften the blow of those wrong decisions.”

Theo knew better than try to explain that love had nothing to do with this. That love was flighty and thoughtless and more selfish than selfless. This was the only kind of love he knew.

Except, that wasn’t true anymore. For the past few days, he’d watched a love that he did not recognize. It was warm, and full of care . It was…stable.

Perhaps it was something born of years. Years of making the right choices. Yes, that must be it.

Because James Murphy was wrong—had to be—wrong decisions weren’t inevitable. They were to be avoided at all costs.

And so he would marry Rebecca, with her parents’ odd blessing.

Rebecca cried when she said goodbye to her parents. She blamed hormones. She’d had a wonderful time, but she was also ready to go. And yet saying goodbye felt bittersweet. She wanted space and freedom again. She didn’t want to leave them.

She tried to get ahold of herself on the drive over to the airport. She could feel Theo’s gaze on her.

“There will be more visits,” he said eventually, as if trying to comfort her.

She sniffled, amused by his efforts, because clearly he was uncomfortable with her tears. “Yes, I know. I’m not sad to be going back to Greece. I’m kind of relieved, actually. My mother’s anxiety weighs on me after a while. But I’ll still miss them both.”

“And Ireland?”

She looked out the car window. “Some days, I suppose I will. But I missed Greece while we were here.”

“You did?”

He sounded genuinely surprised, and she supposed she had been surprised, as well. But she didn’t know how to explain why, or what it meant to her. So she kept it simple. “I like your island, Theo.”

He blinked once, that rare show of being taken aback, but it was quickly gone and he was leading her from car to plane. In no time at all, they were in the air. Headed back to Greece. Much of Rebecca’s sadness had faded, moving into excitement to be back…

She sighed heavily. The island felt like home , Theo felt like home , and she knew that they had a lot of work to do to make that actually be an acceptable feeling.

Worse, she wasn’t sure he’d ever fully acknowledge her feelings.

Or his own—whatever they were. She was still wading through how she felt about what her mother had said in the kitchen that morning along with her own insecurities that she was more than just attracted to him because he had money and was the father of her child.

She napped on the plane, woke hungry and disoriented to Theo’s dark gaze on her. She managed a sleepy smile. “Are we home?” she asked.

He did not reply right away. His eyebrows drew together, as if she’d asked something terrible. But before she was fully awake, his expression smoothed out. “We have landed. We must move to the ferry now.”

She yawned and stretched and opened her mouth to say she was hungry, but he held something out to her.

“You should eat.”

It was a little bag of mixed nuts. He also had a little bottle of the ginger drink she enjoyed so much. He missed little, thought of everything. And if it was just little things like this maybe she could convince herself her love was misplaced. He cared only about the baby.