Page 61 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8

The mountains could be seen rising up to form an impressive backdrop, and the air was so clear that on a bright day she could almost make out the million different shades of green in those mountains as they towered up into a misty blue haze that seemed to touch the clouds.

Now, at this hour on a cold winter’s evening, they were just a rising dark mass all around the town, mysterious and beautiful. Pinpricks of lights advertised the ski runs and chalets that formed part of the winter business for all the towns in the vicinity.

Cassie had never flown far from the nest. It was just the way her life had panned out in the end.

She had gone to catering college in one of the bigger towns an hour’s drive away.

For half the course, she had shared a place in the town with Frankie but, for the remainder of her course, she had lived at home.

It was a life that couldn’t have been more different from the one she had once breathlessly yearned for.

With all the problems now pressing on her, for the first time the huge open spaces and big skies made her feel claustrophobic. She wished she could run away. She never, ever would, of course, but wouldn’t it be nice to run the way Leo had, all those years ago…

He’d run far away to make his fortune. His dad had hung around, but only for another few months, and then he too had left. For such a long time, Cassie had nursed her grief and turned away from the memories of what had happened between them.

She headed back to her apartment with unhappy thoughts of Leo joining the swirling mix of problems she was trying to sort out.

By the time she swung into the courtyard in which her apartment block sat, a beautiful squat building surrounded by trees, Cassie was exhausted… and it wasn’t yet six-thirty.

There were lights on in most of the flats.

It was a wonderful, communal hub comprised of twenty reasonably large apartments in a fantastic location between the shores of the lake and the town.

From her bedroom window at night, Cassie could make out the black, still water, in winter dappled silver by moonlight.

She drew to a stop and remained sitting in her car for a minute while the cold air gathered around her, pressing against her thick waterproof.

She’d missed three calls. She was very strict about taking no calls when driving.

In a place where winter darkness made driving tricky and the roads away from the main drag could be twisty, it would be a dangerous indulgence.

Eyes still half-closed, Cassie pulled the phone out of her backpack and silently hoped that her mother hadn’t phoned, asking her to pop by after all, because she was exhausted.

There’d been two calls from prospective clients with whom she had already had a couple of meetings.

And the last call…unknown. It had gone to voicemail.

She expected another potential customer. She wondered who it could be and whether she would know them. She was well-known in the area but had recently feverishly begun to try and drum up business further out to maximise her client base. Maybe it was paying off.

It only took a couple of seconds for Cassie to register the voice—the low, dark drawl; the same voice that had sent shivers down her spine when she’d been a teenager, wildly and madly in love with the boy she’d known was off-limits.

Leo… Leo’s voice. Eight years’ worth of painful memories slammed into her with the force of a freight train and she could feel her heart pick up speed as she sat up in the car, mouth slackly open as the recorded message told her that he’d got her email.

‘So I thought I’d revisit my old stamping ground and pay you a little visit.’

Cassie’s breathing was jerky and uneven. Yes, she’d emailed him, but that had been a week ago and she’d expected just an email back, if anything—not a phone call, or a visit out of the blue. Her brain could barely compute it.

She disconnected the message and remained where she was, immobile under the sheer weight of unresolved memories.

If she was being honest, she’d wondered whether he’d got her email at all.

He was a bigshot now, with tons of money and apartments on every street corner in every city.

After they’d broken up, she’d tried her best not to follow what he was up to on any social media platform, and that had been easy because he hadn’t been on any.

He’d simply disappeared. Random strands of news had reached her about what he’d been up to over the years but he really hadn’t kept in touch with anyone.

He’d moved to the town with his dad when he’d been fourteen and he had seemingly chosen never to put down roots, even though he had gone to school there for years, even though his father had worked in her father’s company and even though, for a while, he likewise had worked there as a labourer.

He’d been the sexiest construction worker on the planet.

One virginal look at him and Cassie had been lost, and she’d remained lost long after their eight-month-long clandestine relationship had crashed and burned.

Long after he’d gone. The memories of him had continued to burn bright inside her along with those of that one perfect night they had spent together when she had just turned nineteen, when neither of them had been able to resist the other any longer.

It was only in the past few months that she’d started checking to find that his name was everywhere on the Internet. He’d gone from Mr Nowhere to be Found to Mr Everywhere because he’d made a fortune, and in record time.

He’d been beyond bright; she knew that, just as she knew that he had been accepted by MIT.

What she couldn’t have known was just how far he would soar, that he would use everything he had picked up working on that construction site to formulate programmes that would speed up big building projects by weeks, in some cases months.

He had revolutionised areas of structural engineering, sold his knowledge for millions before he’d even graduated and, from there, the millions had expanded over the years until now, at the ripe old age of thirty-one, Leo Cruz was rich beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.

It was all there on the Internet: his rise to power, money and fame catalogued with loving respect.

And so, a week ago, she’d had that stupid idea…

It had been a silly impulse, really, but she had just left her mother, having been to the bank first where Phil had patiently explained to her that the wolves were baying at the door and that there was only so much time left before the house would be repossessed.

‘You should start laying the groundwork to prepare your mother, Cassie,’ he had told her kindly. ‘You’re not going to be able to put off the inevitable. I know Clive never expected to go without warning, but he did, and what he left behind was, quite frankly, an unholy mess.’

Except her mother had been having one of her bad days and Cassie just hadn’t been able to broach the subject. She’d remembered what the doctor had said about stress, everything in her head had exploded and she’d got back to her apartment and…written that email.

And now…

Her mobile buzzed and Cassie breathed in deeply and accepted the call. She knew who it was. She just didn’t know what he was going to say.

‘Cassie.’

Leo had booked himself into one of the five hotels in town, the most expensive one.

He could remember actually having worked on an extension at the back a thousand years ago when there was no way he would ever have been able to afford to stay in any of the rooms. Now he could buy the entire hotel and it would be small change for him. Now, there was a thought…

He sat back in the old-fashioned sofa by the window and gazed out at a picture-postcard scene of the network of busy streets, brightly lit and filled with Christmas paraphernalia.

There were garlands of lights strung from lamp post to lamp post and the bustle of people was getting into the spirit of Christmas spending.

He’d forgotten what a production they made of the festive season here.

He dragged his eyes away and sipped some of the excellent red wine he had ordered without bothering to check the price.

The room had been cleared of people. He had wanted complete privacy for this call and he hadn’t wanted to be cooped up in a bedroom to make it.

They had obliged because, as he had discovered over the years, money talked.

No amount of money, though, could quell the sharp jag of memory as he dialled her mobile. Right now, sitting here with her on the other end of the line, it would be stupid not to recognise that he was nervous.

‘Leo.’

Leo sucked in a sharp breath and straightened because the sound of her voice, breathy and husky, was like a body blow.

‘I’m staying at the Imperial.’

‘I… Leo…you’re…you’re here already?’

‘I’m here. Not surprised, are you, Cass? Do you remember the email you sent me a week ago?’

‘I shouldn’t have contacted you.’

‘But you did. Meet me here.’

‘Why have you come?’

‘Wasn’t that what you wanted?’

‘I thought… You could have just emailed me back…if anything.’

‘And miss the pleasure of catching up with you face to face?’

‘You don’t really want to see me, Leo. We both know that. After things ended between us… You still hate me, so why would you come? It was a mistake getting in touch with you. I just… It was…’

‘You’re stumbling over your words, Cass. Am I making you nervous? No need to be, and you couldn’t be further from the truth, as it happens. I don’t hate you, not at all. Why should I?’

‘I’m sorry. I know I hurt you.’

Leo stiffened, lips thinning as every defence barrier he had ever erected slammed firmly into place.

‘Cassie, Cassie, Cassie…’ he drawled in a cool, low voice, ‘I think you’re over-estimating the impact you had on me. We were young, we were infatuated and the truth is that I would never have made it the way I made it if I’d had you harnessed by my side.’

‘That’s an awful thing to say.’

‘Is it? I prefer to see it as being truthful. A young, spoilt bride tagging along would never have been able to weather the years of blood, sweat and tears I’ve spilled into making my fortune.

University…then climbing the ladder, rung by arduous rung…

You wouldn’t have had the stamina to go without for so long. ’

‘If you came all the way here to insult me, Leo…’

Had he come to insult her? No. He had come because that email had stirred thoughts of unfinished business, had opened wounds and summoned up memories that should have been dealt with a long time ago.

She clearly wanted money—what else? The minute Leo had made his first million, he had realised that he suddenly had a lot of friends and that an awful lot of them wanted money from him.

Cassie was no exception. He was no longer the boy from the wrong side of town, her brief, clandestine secret.

He was a billionaire and, if he hadn’t come to insult her, he had come to assuage the pain she had dealt him when she had turned him away.

He had come to see her to hear her stumble her way through an explanation of what had gone wrong over the years and then politely but firmly to tell her that, if she wanted money from him, then unfortunately she wasn’t going to be in luck. What was wrong with settling a score or two?

‘So, I’m taking it that you don’t want to see me?’ he inserted smoothly.

‘I…’

‘Because I’m more than happy to have a look around the place for old times’ sake and then head back to my house in the Hamptons.’

‘I…’

‘What do you want to say? I’m all ears, Cass. Your email was brief but you want money from me. So, now that I’m here, have you decided that you no longer need a handout?’

‘I never asked for a handout from you, Leo.’

‘Perhaps a handout is a little harsh,’ Leo agreed. ‘You talked about a loan , which is such a loose term between friends. Sure you meant a loan and not a donation, for old times’ sake?’

‘I would pay you back every penny, Leo.’

‘On an amount that hasn’t been specified…interesting. You don’t even know what interest rates I might apply.’

The tension had left him. He felt relaxed, triumphant even, because he could sense the rock and the hard place between which she was caught.

She hadn’t said what the money was for. Personal debts?

Had she spent beyond Daddy’s generous allowance?

He couldn’t picture it, but maybe she had developed an insatiable addiction to diamonds and pearls.

In the space of eight years, she certainly wouldn’t have remained the sweetly innocent thing he had loved so hard and lost so fast.

She’d sent one text message dumping him after the best sex he’d ever had. She’d walked away from him, just as his mother had done, and he was certain the reality of seeing her again would kill off whatever scraps of nostalgia he discovered hadn’t quite been exorcised yet.

His lips thinned in grim anticipation. He could have done a little digging and found out what the problem was. He could have delegated it to one of his PAs, although that held no appeal, because this intensely guarded slice of his life wasn’t for sharing with anyone, even on a casual level.

However, Leo decided that he would wait and hear what she had to say for herself. There was nothing wrong in prolonging this enjoyable interlude in his life.

‘Meet me here in an hour, Cassie. For me, time is money. If you’re a no-show, I’ll take it that you’ve had second thoughts and decided that you don’t need your so-called loan after all.’