Page 7 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8

She recognised the symptoms, unlike the very first time she had experienced the claustrophobic chest tightness.

Hand shaking, she dipped into her bag and pulled out an inhaler. Fitting it to her lips, she breathed as deep as she could, once, then again, and felt the tightness lessen almost immediately.

Panic over, she waited, arms folded, for him to respond.

‘Are you OK?’

‘OK?’ she echoed, not appreciative of the concern in his voice. ‘Who the hell would be OK after this morning? But if you mean…?’ She waved her inhaler at him before realising what he was referring to and slipping it back into her bag. ‘Oh, I have asthma—mild asthma.’

Adonis didn’t buy into the mild, neither did he underestimate how serious asthma could be.

He still remembered the kid in his dormitory who had been blue-lighted to intensive care in the middle of the night.

He’d never come back and for the rest of the term Adonis had thought he’d died.

It wasn’t until the next term that he’d discovered the boy’s parents had decided to take him home.

‘What triggers it?’

Lizzie stared at him, thinking, Are you serious? ‘Actually a few things, but now I can add a white-knuckle ride on a motorbike driven by a raving lunatic.’ She omitted the being pressed up close and personal to a virile male body.

Startled by the less than flattering description, he laughed, his austere expression melting into a grin in the blink of an eye.

He had a sense of humour and an incredibly attractive grin that made him look years younger. Lizzie’s own sarcastic smirk faded as she fought the urge to join in his laughter. She was almost relieved when he stopped looking human and frowned accusingly.

‘You should have said,’ he reproached.

‘Oh, yes, I start every conversation with, “And by the way I have asthma.” Don’t be ridiculous. So, no, I am not OK. I am very not OK.’

‘So I take it you did not find the ride exhilarating?’

‘Exhilarating?’ She snorted, choosing to forget the illicit thrill and instead directing a withering look at him. ‘I am not some sort of weird adrenaline junkie. I was terrified!’ she retorted. ‘You know—in-fear-of-my-life terrified?’

In reality the ride had been nothing compared to the cumulative effect of the media frenzy followed by the close intimate contact with a man who had received a double dose of pheromones.

He looked mildly amused. ‘You were never in any danger. Obviously if I had known you had health issues I would have made allowances.’

‘I don’t have “health issues”,’ she said, framing the words in angry inverted commas. ‘And I don’t want or need any allowances from you.’

‘Yes, I am getting that.’

It wasn’t the only thing he was getting. Adonis was getting the militant sparkle in her narrowed, rather spectacularly blue eyes and the stubborn set of her jaw.

He’d expected her to be either another, slightly more subtle and therefore more dangerous version of her cousin, capable of conniving in this scam.

Or innocent, shy, and overwhelmed, perhaps unable to believe her luck to have her name linked with his.

Over the years there were enough women who had tried many and varied means of achieving this, some quite inventive.

The pursuit could have left a man believing that he was irresistible had that man believed that his attraction lay in his smile or his charming personality, but Adonis had not fallen into the trap of believing his own PR machine.

He was well aware that it was his image, his lifestyle and his money that made him irresistible.

Yet had not fate and a design error that had grounded the entire fleet of helicopters intervened, he would have married Deb, who had wanted nothing from him but his money and lifestyle while she carried on an affair with her lover.

‘But I would like an explanation and please don’t make a big song and dance about that. I simply don’t like motorbikes.’

It was impossible to miss the silent addition of ‘Or you’ that her blue eyes were messaging.

‘As modes of transport in the City go, it is a good way—’

‘The only place for high-speed chases, in my opinion, is on a cinema screen.’

He laughed and, to her irritation, managed to look even more gorgeous. ‘That was not a high-speed chase. I didn’t break any speed limits.’

She’d never had much sympathy for women who were attracted to men with a bad-boy persona, but for the first time she felt some sympathy as she watched, exasperated by her inability not to, as he unzipped his leather jacket to reveal a white tee shirt that was fitted enough to hint at the corrugated flatness of his belly.

She felt the heat curl low in her belly and countered the shame by rushing into accusing speech.

‘You were there, you knew this was going to happen…’ Her lashes swept downwards before fluttering up again as she fixed him with a suspicious blue accusing stare. ‘How could that be, if you didn’t plan it?’ She shook her head. That sounded even more crazy than it had in her head.

‘We should discuss this situation calmly and in private in my apartment.’

Her social mask refused to stay in place. ‘Don’t patronise me. You know what happened. You knew it was going to happen. You weren’t just passing, so tell me.’ She stopped short of stamping her foot but only just. It had been a long and very confusing morning.

‘Calm down… You’ll give yourself another attack,’ he said, concealing his genuine concern behind irritation that was genuine too.

‘I happen to be perfectly calm.’ His laugh made her push the helmet she was still holding towards him hard. ‘And this is yours.’

He pulled it into his stomach, his fingers grazing hers. Lizzie froze, her eyes automatically going to his as the electric current of sensation sizzled along her nerve endings.

‘Keep it, if you like, for our next road trip.’

Even a mocking suggestion of a repeat trip with her breasts crushed against his hard back, the male scent of him in her nostrils, sent a shameless rush of liquid heat through her body that pooled between her thighs.

Her little rabbit-jump step back caused her backside to hit the gleaming monster of a sleek designer car behind her and set off the alarm. Wincing at the high-pitched shriek, she pressed her hands to her ears and backed away from the car.

‘Do something…’ she shouted above the din that bounced and echoed around the cavernous space.

Presumably he did because the noise stopped abruptly and Lizzie’s shoulders sagged in relief as she let her hands fall away from her ears.

‘Thank God!’