Page 79 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8

‘She said she would rather have had bailiffs beat down the doors and take the roof from over her head than to think that her baby girl had slept with a man she didn’t have feelings for simply because he could afford to pay her family’s debts off.’

‘So I’m guessing you didn’t mention that it was a two-way street,’ Leo murmured drily. ‘No hint that you were as hot for me as I was for you?’

‘I was thrown into a tailspin. We were sitting right there in Phil’s office.

Mum might have been able to wait before she said what she was thinking, but she’d had a bad morning, and the shock of it…

Well, I ended up telling her that you and I had been communicating for a while…

that I wasn’t going to mention anything to anyone just yet but that we were a serious item.

I implied that it was something of a loan between two people who had… found love all over again.’

‘I’m not seeing the ring on your finger.’

‘I was coerced into saying that we were engaged,’ Cassie confessed.

‘The minute I told Mum that I hadn’t jumped into bed with you in exchange for a bailout, she perked up.

She asked whether we were engaged, whether this was more than just a flash in the pan relationship for you, because she knew that I wasn’t that kind of girl, and I said the first thing that came into my head… ’

‘Ah.’

‘It all seemed to happen so fast. How did you find out?’

‘I got a congratulations text from Phil, who remembered me, I have no idea how.’

‘You were highly memorable back then,’ Cassie said glumly. ‘You may not have hung out with us because you didn’t mix in our social set, but all the boys knew just who you were. I think most of them envied you.’

‘That would explain it. Small town and news that travels at the speed of light. You can imagine how stunned I was to be congratulated on an engagement I didn’t know the first thing about.’

‘Please don’t pretend that you’re not angry about this, Leo. I can take it.’

‘Like I said, it’s a bit late for that. Anger isn’t going to change anything. How were you going to deal with the situation, had I never found out?’

Cassie swallowed some of the wine that she had forgotten about. She could feel it going straight to her head on an empty stomach but the thought of breaking off the conversation to go and do something with leftovers was crazy. Her nerves were stretched to breaking point.

‘I… I was going to take some weekends away,’ she confessed, reddening as she looked down at her clasped fingers.

‘It would have been easy to use the excuse that you couldn’t make it here because of your work schedule.

Mum asked a lot of questions about you, and I made sure to stress just what a busy guy you were, running your empire. ’

‘Go on. I’m all ears.’

‘Gradually I would have become disillusioned with the amount of time you spent abroad wrapping up deals and doing what billionaires do.’

‘Ah.’

‘We could have had an argument about you not wanting to relocate here because you thought it was a backwater.’

‘Of course. Makes sense when you remember I walked away and never returned for any school reunions. It would have been typical billionaire behaviour.’

‘Maybe you would have had an affair.’

‘Now, that I find unacceptable.’

‘You would never have known.’

‘And wouldn’t your mother have found it a little odd that the guy who put the ring on her daughter’s finger couldn’t make time to meet the woman he was going to call his mother-in-law?’

‘I don’t know, Leo!’ Cassie cried, leaping to her feet, then jerkily preparing the leftovers with her back to him, all too aware of his dark eyes keenly on her. She was shaking as she flung a quick salad together, topping it off with home-made mushroom tartlets and salmon bites with crème fraiche.

What on earth was her mother going to say when the truth came out?

Not only would she become the daughter who had slept with a guy for money, but the daughter who had been happy to lie shamelessly about it.

She was still flushed and agitated as she dumped food on the kitchen counter along with plates and cutlery.

‘Maybe you were on your way here but you…you lost control of your car and had an accident! Nothing serious but enough for you to have to return to New York to recuperate—a broken leg…’

‘Very creative. And now that I’ve found out and I’m here? What do you suggest happens next?’

‘I’m going to see my mum tomorrow,’ Cassie told him with a quiet sigh. ‘I guess we should both go and try to explain the situation to her. You’ve returned to your life and I know the last thing you want is for there to be any continuing connection with me.’

‘Not, I suppose, that there would have been any bearing in mind that our last contact would have seen me in hospital with a broken leg before the whole thing was called off, because I turned out to be a workaholic who might or might not have been having round-the-clock affairs.’

Leo watched her avoid his gaze at all costs. She was stabbing the lettuce leaves in the desultory fashion of someone waiting for the Grim Reaper to make an entrance.

She’d asked him if he was angry and Leo knew that he should be. Without any input from him, he’d been actively used to deceive someone and, from everything she’d said, his entire character would have been impugned; whether he’d been present or not to suffer the consequences of that was irrelevant.

However, for reasons that escaped him, he wasn’t angry. In fact, when he looked at her downcast head, part of him wanted to burst out laughing.

Part of him was strangely pleased to be back in her company.

Why? Surely he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do when he’d whipped her off to Mustique?

Surely sleeping with her had killed off those last dying embers of what he’d once felt for her?

Feelings he hadn’t even realised had been there until she’d contacted him out of the blue.

Yet he realised now how much more he’d missed than just her sexy, willing body. He frowned because that was an unsettling thought. It nudged something deep inside him that was a little frightening because he couldn’t control whatever it was that had been stirred up.

Getting a grip, his mind automatically turned to a more logical train of thought.

One that made sense of him sitting here, eating leftovers with her and realising that this could be another temporary situation that suited him as much as it suited her.

He had an ex who was becoming increasingly strident in wanting to reignite what they’d had.

A phoney engagement to Cassie was beginning to look like a walk in the park compared to Aimee’s tearful, pleading, stalking behaviour.

So a legitimate and serious relationship might serve him very well. It would even suit him to go public with it, and in due course Aimee would fade into the background and that particular inconvenience would become no more than a learning curve.

‘Nice leftovers, Cassie. If this is the standard of your food, then I’m not surprised you’re doing well.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I don’t want to be responsible for any, how shall I put it, fracture in your relationship with your mother, Cass. As an only child, and given the situation you’ve both been in, I know that for all of this to unravel would cause immense stress.’

‘It would.’ She looked at him in silence for a few seconds.

‘My mother is very important to me, Leo. I know after what you went through, how you felt when your mother left, that it must take a lot for you to recognise the value of a mother, and to appreciate and empathise with me in this situation when your own experiences were so different, so painful. A situation which, I’m ashamed to admit, is of my own making—and for that, again, I’m really sorry. ’

‘I think we can do away with the psycho-babble, Cass, and stick to the basics. So, here’s what I propose,’ he continued, relaxing back and waving one hand in a magnanimous gesture.

It was discomforting to think that she knew parts of him he barely knew himself and he certainly wasn’t about to start any touchy-feely conversation with her about that.

‘We go along with the charade you dreamt up.’

‘What? We do?’

‘We play a part which will realistically involve the minimum effort from either of us, and it can die off in just the way you predicted—but naturally without the accident being necessary, and certainly no philandering. I find that sort of thing very distasteful, if you must know. That I’m a workaholic, however, strikes the right note and happens to be the truth.

My hours are ridiculous.’ He thought of the many times he’d bailed on girlfriends in the past and winced.

‘I’m not even averse to people knowing, or to playing the part of your fiancé as and when, until problems inevitably arise and we part company. ’

He looked at her steadily. No need to tell her that what suited her likewise suited him. He was perfectly happy to be the good guy in all of this, and what was wrong with that?

Returning that steady gaze, Cassie almost couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. She’d expected him to be livid. She’d pretty much accepted that at the very least she would have to do a full, unabridged confession to her mother and just swallow the consequences.

But now…for him to agree to go along with the charade…why?

Then it slowly dawned on her why that would be: the sex.

He probably fancied that he could call on her as and when he wanted in the guise of her fiancé until such time as he got bored of her.

Perhaps he hadn’t had quite enough of her by the end of the week and this would be a pleasant opportunity for him to take what he thought might still be on offer, and legitimately on offer, in the eyes of the outside world.

But gut instinct told her that this wasn’t going to do. He played by his own rule book but she had feelings for him—deep, true feelings that ran all the way back to the girl she’d been eight years ago. The love she’d felt had never been killed off by absence, hurt, disillusionment or anything else.

And to fall into bed with him again for whatever reason would be a catastrophe. Her heart would never withstand it. He was doing her a favour, but she had to do herself a few favours as well. She had to have control over the narrative she’d set in motion.

‘I can’t believe you’re agreeing to do this, Leo,’ she said quietly. ‘It means a lot to me.’ She drew in a shaky breath and managed to hold his gaze. ‘But I have a condition, I’m afraid.’

‘What’s that?’

‘This won’t be about the sex. This will be about friendship.’

‘No sex?’

‘We’ve been there, done that and, as I see it, we won’t be in one another’s company very much to pull this off anyway, but when we are…well… I don’t want any unnecessary complications.’

‘Such as?’

Cassie stiffened imperceptibly. Such as me falling gradually, inexorably more and more hopelessly in love with you.

‘Such as,’ she quipped lightly, allowing him a smile, ‘You getting ideas that there could ever be more to us than one week’s worth of sex.’

‘Sizzling sex,’ Leo corrected. ‘And agreed—the fewer complications, the better. This favour is simply for old times’ sake.’