Page 67 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8

The last thing Cassie wanted was for Leo to feel sorry for her.

The very last thing she needed was to soften towards him.

He’d moved on. She meant nothing to him now and, if he hadn’t once looked back in eight years to see how she had fared, maybe she just hadn’t meant all that much to him back then.

Yes, she’d broken up with him, but hadn’t he ever been tempted to glance over his shoulder and see whether she was okay?

Or had she been so easily disposable in the end?

‘Like I said, yes, I’m doing this because I need the money, but also because we did leave things unfinished between us and we do both need closure.’

‘I’m very happy we’re on the same page,’ Leo murmured, looking at her pensively. ‘I’m sure your mother will be capable of coping for a week…won’t she?’ He looked down and clenched his jaw.

Was he already regretting their deal?

‘I also want it in writing,’ she added.

He glanced back up. ‘What?’

‘The money side of things.’

‘You don’t honestly think that I would make a deal with you and renege, do you?’

He looked genuinely shocked and Cassie’s mouth tightened. ‘I don’t know who you are any more. You’re not the boy I used to know.’

‘Very true. That said, I’m a man of honour and I always have been.’ His voice had cooled. ‘But,’ he continued, ‘I’ll make sure my signature is in all the right places. Is that the sum total of your conditions?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. We can move on to mine now.’ He poured himself some water, sipped it and looked at her for a few seconds. ‘We have one week together and I want that week to be spent…’ he smiled slowly and ran his eyes over her until she blushed ‘…productively.’

‘What does that mean, exactly?’

‘We had one night together…and now I want all the fantasies I’ve had on the back of that for the entire week we’re together. I don’t just want great sex. I want great sex with all the bells and whistles.’

Cassie went bright-red because his very words, husky and sexy, were making her damp between her legs. She could scarcely breathe as dark, forbidden excitement raced through her.

‘So, here’s the deal. I want you to wear sexy underwear—maybe no underwear at all.

You can surprise me, but no granny cotton panties and bras designed to repel wandering hands.

I want to touch your bare skin without having to unclasp anything and I want the feel of lace and silk on my fingers when I pull your panties aside so that I can touch your moistness.

’ He raised his eyebrows when she didn’t object and smiled slowly.

‘I’m not hearing any howls of horror yet. ’

‘How do you know I don’t already wear sexy underwear?’

‘Now, there’s a remark to turn a guy on. Do you?’

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until you sign our agreement,’ Cassie told him coolly.

She could feel a pulse throbbing between her legs as distant fantasies began to take shape, reminding her of how he used to make her feel—as though she was on a permanent high, plugged into a socket, with every waking moment spent in heady anticipation of seeing him.

The situation was nothing like that now but the slow build of that familiar lust told her that she had done the right thing, agreeing to his proposal. He was getting what he wanted but he couldn’t know just how much the very same thing applied to her.

‘Also,’ Leo continued, ‘No pining to be back here. One week, but you’re all mine, with all your attention on me.’

‘I agree, as long as I’ve sorted my affairs before I leave. But I’ll still need my phone with me at all times, just in case.’

‘I’m not going to be holding you prisoner, Cassie,’ he said wryly. ‘You’ll be able to contact the outside world if you want to but I’m guessing you might want to keep this little arrangement of ours under wraps.’

‘Yes,’ Cassie admitted. ‘So it probably works that we won’t be here.’ She looked at him curiously and for a moment her mind wasn’t on the weird arrangement ahead of her. ‘Has anyone recognised you?’

‘Not to the best of my knowledge,’ Leo said, relaxing and looking at her with amusement. ‘It’s been a while and, believe me, put a man in different clothes and the world assumes he’s a different person.’

‘I guess so.’

Leo hesitated. ‘How have you coped?’

‘With what?’

‘The lack of money.’

‘Believe it or not, my rich background didn’t turn me into a spoiled brat. Course, it’s been difficult dealing with the bank and having to sell family stuff to pay off creditors, at least as many as I’ve been able to, but…’ She looked at Leo with open honesty. ‘No one knows.’

‘No one?’

‘I wanted to protect Mum. It’s been tough for her after Dad died. She knows we now have money troubles, but not just how deep the problem is, and I couldn’t expose her to the shame of having everything fall apart around her. I wanted to protect her a bit longer.’

Leo looked at her thoughtfully.

He’d sensed that about her even back then; she’d always been unaffected by her background.

It was what, in part, had made her so irresistible.

He’d accused her of dumping him because she couldn’t bear to lose the status she’d grown up with, because her parents had weighed in on the subject, but he uneasily wondered whether there’d been more to the story.

She’d sent that text and he’d walked away from her and never looked back.

The pride and bitterness had been too powerful.

All too clearly he’d remembered his mother and the way her vanishing act had affected his dad… had affected him.

He’d moved on immediately. There was no turning back the clock now, and he wouldn’t want to anyway. No way was he ever going to be vulnerable again but he could only admire her attitude now.

‘Whatever you say about wanting this, if tough times are calling the shots, I want you to tell me. Drop the pride and tell me the truth.’

‘What would you do if I said yes?’ Cassie looked at him sadly. ‘Would it change anything? You have me where you want me.’

‘I would call the deal off.’

‘I need the money. You know that.’

‘You would have the money,’ he said roughly.

‘Sorry?’

‘I meant what I said at the start, Cassie. You say you want what I want, that you want to finish what we started, but you have to mean it. I don’t want an unwilling woman in my bed. If this comes down on the side of hard cash, then you can have the hard cash without being my lover.’

‘You would do that?’

‘No big deal.’

‘That’s not what you were saying when I first showed up here, Leo.’

‘You want to take the money and run? Tell me now and I’ll transfer the lot to you within the day.’

Their eyes met. Hers were wide and on the side of disbelieving and, for a couple of seconds, Leo was rocked by an urgency for her to turn that particularly generous offer down.

He wanted her. He wanted her badly, more than he could ever remember wanting any other woman.

One night with her had been off the charts and he wanted more.

He needed more. He had to get her out of his system.

But, however much he wanted her, however much he wanted to finish this once and for all, and however much he had uncomfortably admitted to himself that payback had played a part in his decision, the thought of sleeping with her when she might not be one hundred percent invested in sleeping with him brought a sour taste to his mouth.

He wanted her to want him in equal measure and to mean it, or else what would be the point? Wouldn’t that just make the whole thing linger more destructively inside him over time?

‘Why would you do that?’ Cassie demanded.

‘Because it’s not my style, like I said.’

‘You also said that if I didn’t take your deal you would walk away without a backward glance.’

Leo flushed darkly. ‘I had no idea your mother was ill,’ he said brusquely, keen to get off the topic of his sudden change of heart. ‘Naturally, that changed the landscape somewhat.’

‘In that case…’

Leo tensed.

‘I’m not going to walk away, Leo.’

‘Good,’ Leo returned, heady with satisfaction that he had given her the option of walking away with the money, pleased that he now knew for certain that the desire was as great for her as it was for him.

‘Which,’ Cassie said, ‘Doesn’t mean my ground rules don’t stand.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of thinking that.’ Leo waved one hand in a magnanimous gesture. ‘Of course they stand but, now that we’re on solid ground, there’s just one more thing I want to add before any signing on dotted lines takes place.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You and me… We might be sitting here talking about sex but that’s where the conversation begins and ends.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I shouldn’t have to spell it out, Cass, but I will anyway because the last thing I want is for something unfortunate to happen.’

‘Do you honestly think I would make a mistake, Leo? Do you think I’m that stupid? If you must know, I’m on the contraceptive pill, so you don’t have to worry on that front.’

Leo laughed shortly. ‘I actually wasn’t talking about that but, just for the record, I have never taken chances in that area.

When you’re as rich as I am, you quickly become hyper-vigilant about women who see you as more than just passing through.

Scrape the surface of every accommodating woman and you’ll soon find one who has dollar signs in her eyes. ’

‘What were you talking about, in that case?’

‘You had me once,’ he said neutrally. ‘You won’t be having me again.’

‘Meaning?’ she asked again.

‘One week, as per your timeline, and then you exit my life. I don’t know how active or inactive your love life has been, Cass, but there won’t be anything between us other than some extremely satisfying sex.’

‘It’s very arrogant of you to think that I might start looking for anything more.’

‘Once upon a time,’ he said quietly, ‘There was the promise of more, but it’s far too late now. One week and I will be walking away.’

‘Like you said earlier, we’re on the same page.’

Leo stood up, conversation over, and Cassie hurriedly leapt to her feet as well.

Between them, the tray of finger food remained untouched but that wasn’t surprising, Leo thought, considering the conversation they’d just had. Now that they were embarking on this unexpected adventure, Leo could feel the libido he had tried to stifle when he’d first seen her rear into action.

He gazed lazily and leisurely at the fall of her thick, dark hair and the soft curve of her cheeks. He breathed out slowly, reining in the erection that was already growing rock-hard. He swerved to stand in front of her and looked down into her eyes.

‘You’re even more beautiful now than you were back then, Cass.’

‘You don’t have to do the compliment thing.’

‘I never do anything I don’t want to do and I seldom say what I don’t mean. That’s the one thing vast wealth brings a person—freedom to do just as you please provided no one gets hurt. You’re not going to get hurt, are you?’

‘I’ve told you, Leo, that’s not on the cards.’

‘Good. In that case…’

This time his touch wasn’t fleeting and light. This time he pulled her towards him and, as his mouth descended, every single thought in his head flew away as she surrendered to the one thing he’d spent eight years trying to forget.