Page 91 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8

CHAPTER TWO

“O KAY , BUT IF you could just sign this first?”

Theós , she was brazen, blinking with facetious innocence as she pushed her toe over the line.

“You really have no sense of self-preservation at all, do you?” Damian was trying not to look at her, refusing to fall under her spell again, but the small details of her appearance kept puncturing his wall of anger.

Her hair was a rich, warm brown now. Her features were no longer softened by youth, seeming more pronounced, but maybe that was sobriety because she had collected a few kilos and they suited her.

She had also traded in raw sex appeal and edgy fashion for refinement and elegance.

She looked like she was stepping into the potential that she’d been squandering when he met her.

Her voice hadn’t changed, though. It still had that husky edge that swept across his skin like velvet.

That voice was what had pulled him from his office as he informed his assistant that he needed to leave for the island early.

He had heard Carmel’s unmistakable feminine tone with its condescending accent insisting on two minutes, and his vision had gone white.

His scalp had tightened and his abdomen had tensed and his shoulders had bunched with raised hackles.

Even as he told himself she wouldn’t dare turn up like this, he had known damned well that she would. Carmel Davenport had no shame whatsoever.

Is this not how apologies work?

As if an apology would cut it when she had cratered his savings account, throwing away his hard-earned money on clothes and high-end booze and offered an empty promise to pay him back.

I get access to Mummy’s money once I marry. I’m sure Daddy would invest in your expansion if I ask him to.

That had not happened. After her father had treated him like a street mongrel and threatened to ruin him, Carmel had come back to their hotel with papers very like the ones she was trying to foist on him now.

Daddy wants us to get a quiet divorce. Sign this and he’ll give you ten thousand euros.

Damian had seen the advantages in marrying her. Or rather, the apparent advantages. It had all been a lie. All of it. He’d been so offended, so disgusted with himself for thinking he could profit off marriage, he had refused to profit off their divorce.

He had walked out of their hotel room only to come back two hours later to find her in bed with a Belgian tourist who was lucky to still be alive.

He should be over it by now. He knew that. After years of hardscrabble hustling, he had more than enough money to cut her a check and expel her from his life for good.

That wasn’t enough to compensate for the humiliation of trusting her, though. She had used him. Betrayed him. Then she waited five long years to show her face and offer a weak apology in exchange for, once again, wheedling to get what she wanted.

He should put an end to this farce of a marriage. He knew that.

But vengeance sounded so much more appetizing.

How much did she want? he wondered. The suit she wore was couture, but it could have been purchased before her father’s wallet had been closed against her.

Seeing the headlines about her falling-out with her father had been unavoidable.

The Davenport family had always been a favorite with paparazzi.

Her father had inherited a media conglomerate from his own father and an athletic clothing company from his late wife.

Carmel and her brother had been models for the brand for years.

Being a beautiful, notorious party girl, Carmel made enticing clickbait.

It really was a miracle they’d kept their marriage under the radar for five years, but they’d both been motivated to do so. Carmel had been trying to stay on her father’s good side and Damian had kept silent out of embarrassment, hating himself for falling for her tricks.

He never would again.

She really wanted him to believe she was running her mother’s company? It was common knowledge that it was under the umbrella of DVE, the global conglomerate her brother had recently taken over. At best, she was collecting a paycheck for the use of her likeness on the company org chart.

He glanced over to see her chewing her bottom lip. Crafting a plan, no doubt.

“Whatever this is, I don’t want any part of it,” he said flatly. Not now when he had other, greater concerns. His thoughts turned to his grandmother. “As soon as we land, I want you gone.”

“If I send this through a lawyer, will you sign it?” she asked.

“I don’t know how to state this more clearly, Carmel. No. ”

The truth was always made out to be so noble and golden and pure.

It was not. It was messy and dark and covered in thorny barbs that shredded you when you tried to wrestle in it. The more you waded into honesty, the deeper you were in whatever reality was already drowning you.

Lies were easier. They were silk roses and false compliments and the oily bronzer that helped you slip out of a tight spot.

Until they piled up around you like the stinking garbage they were, of course.

So Carmel chose honesty over lies as often as she could, especially with herself. Even when that meant acknowledging she had come here hoping for forgiveness.

He would never forgive her. That was the bleak truth she confronted as the helicopter began its descent toward an island and a blinding white villa sprawled between olive and orange groves.

The roof was covered in solar panels. The pool sat like a glittering blue sapphire next to a courtyard covered in pink bougainvillea.

There were abundant terraces and paths to small gardens, and stairs cut into the hillside that led down to the beach.

This could have been mine , she thought.

So could the boxy mausoleum outside of London, if she hadn’t chosen to side with her brother against her father last year. Now she had a flat in Barking that was trendy and secure, but modest by the standards she’d grown up in.

It was hers, though. It was enough.

She had no idea how she would get back to it. This villa seemed to be located well away from the nearest town. She’d need a taxi to a hotel where she could stay while she waited for the ferry, she supposed.

Should she leave the papers? Was there any point in doing so?

She glanced at Damian to see him scowling as the helicopter settled onto its pad. Looking for whoever he was meeting? She tried to ignore the searing jealousy scorching her heart. She had no claim on him! Who did? She looked for the beautiful supermodel she presumed was waiting for him.

As the rotors slowed, the pilot stepped out and nodded that it was safe to disembark.

Carmel followed Damian away from the helicopter into the shade of a nearby tree where a middle-aged man waited.

“Where’s the car?” Damian demanded in Greek.

“Your grandmother refused to go to the hospital. The doctor is with her now.” He motioned toward the smaller stone cottage that Carmel had assumed was staff housing.

Damian strode toward it without looking back.

“His grandmother,” Carmel repeated in bemusement.

“Yes. Are you…?” The man was studying her clothes, trying to discern if she was a guest or staff.

She was about to faint with relief that Damian wasn’t meeting a paramour, but she looked after him with concern.

His grandparents had raised him after his mother dropped him here and disappeared. He hadn’t told her a lot about it, only that he’d been six and had always been confused by her abandoning him that way. He didn’t know what he had done to cause her to reject him.

His grandfather had already been gone when she met Damian, but hadn’t been the warmest man. She was a little surprised to hear his grandmother was still alive. And ill? That was distressing.

Damian had demanded she leave, but Stella would never walk away if someone was going through a difficult time. She would wait and offer emotional support—something Carmel had not given her husband in the past, despite the vows she’d taken to do just that.

She looked around, then pointed at the nearby bench. “I’ll wait for Damian there.”

Zoia Kalymnios had grown faint while walking in the garden. That was the call that had had Damian telling his assistant to clear his schedule and prepare the helicopter only to hear Carmel’s crisp English demanding “Two minutes” of his time.

“But I didn’t faint,” Zoia insisted from the overstuffed, swivel rocker she occupied, sounding alert and impatient. “I felt faint and tried to get back to the bench to sit down. I caught my toe and stumbled.”

The fall had been enough to scrape her hand and knee and alarm Renita, one of her caregivers, into calling Damian along with the doctor.

Zoia had eighty-two years behind her and a number of conditions related to that age: arthritis, blood sugar issues and a heart that was liable to fail if she didn’t have surgery.

The operation wasn’t without risk so she was refusing it. She didn’t want to spend her last days in a hospital in Athens, she kept saying. Or lose what quality of life she had by suffering through weeks of recovery. What if she never recovered at all?

Damian had to abide by her wishes, but it was frustrating. Worrisome.

“Renita shouldn’t have troubled you,” she continued. “ Or the doctor.” She glowered at the physician. “I’m perfectly fine.”

The doctor wore a stoic expression as he folded his stethoscope into his bag.

“I’ll walk you out.” Damian followed the doctor through the kitchen to where the doctor had parked his car behind the cottage. “She’s not fine, is she?”

“She needs that surgery,” the doctor said.

“How soon could she get it, if I can talk her into it?”

“I’ll speak to the specialist in Athens. He’ll want some tests, which we can do here on the island. Two weeks, perhaps? You have my number. If she changes her mind, call me. I’ll expedite it. Either way, you ought to stay nearby.”

Damian winced. “I was planning to spend the summer with her, but I’ll move that up.”