Page 97 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8

CHAPTER FIVE

C ARMEL TRIED TO help Lethe clear the table while Damian escorted Zoia home, but Lethe assured her she had it under control.

With little else to do, Carmel wandered to the top of the steps leading to the beach. They were long and steep, cut into the stone cliff, but were gated near the bottom. She climbed back up in time to see Damian crossing back to the villa.

“Are you keeping me in?” she asked, thumbing over her shoulder.

He veered toward her. “No, it’s… I’ll show you.”

He went down to a small landing and showed her the small storage locker with rolled straw mats and a beach umbrella, then gave her the code to punch into the glowing keypad. He held the gate for her before following and drawing it closed behind them.

She meandered onto the pocket of sugary sand spread in a horseshoe of rough rocks. In the liminal light of dusk, with the purple sky turning the water inky blue, the atmosphere was spellbinding. Romantic.

“It’s difficult to hike into, but there’s a path from some ruins about two kilometers away,” Damian said. “Not many bother, but it’s listed on a few websites as a nude beach so the people who come here are looking for privacy.”

“Oh? Is that something your grandparents started?”

He ignored that. “Visitors think our stairs are a shortcut to get back up so…” He pointed at the sign reading No Entry Private Property in a dozen languages.

“There’s usually a good patch of shade next to that rock.

If you walk in that direction, watch for the tide coming in.

People have been inadvertently stranded.

The swimming is safe, though. It’s shallow, and there aren’t any dangerous currents. ”

“Did you swim here when you were growing up?”

“I wasn’t allowed. There were nudists down here,” he told her.

“Uh-huh. Were you one of them?”

“Sometimes,” he allowed with a shrug of one shoulder.

“Ha.”

His profile was difficult to read in the fading light, but she thought his expression softened. Either way, he was heart-stoppingly handsome, staring out at the water in his quietly intense way.

She remembered what Zoia had asked and hesitantly said, “I’m not trying to start anything, but have you never met anyone you wanted to move on with? Have a family and all that? For Zoia’s sake?”

He sent her a flinty look. “There were many reasons I didn’t bother asking for a divorce. I didn’t want to make it easy for you. That’s petty, but true. I didn’t want the expense, especially if it became contentious. I didn’t want to risk you taking a piece of what I’d managed to build.”

She had to look to the water to hide the way his low opinion of her made her ache.

“As for children, I’m like you in that I’m not sure I’d make a decent parent, so why become one?”

“Am I wrong in thinking family is important to you?”

“Zoia is. My top priority has always been to ensure she was comfortable and secure. It’s only lately, as I face that she’s in her golden years, that I’m realizing I’ve built an empire that has no obvious heir.”

“It’s such a funny system, isn’t it? Before Atlas came along, I was presumed to be my father’s only successor.

I felt a lot of pressure, especially because I didn’t have the tools for it.

That wasn’t just on me and my learning struggles.

That was on Daddy for not investing in me in a way that made me feel up to it.

I think you’d make a good father, though.

I haven’t been around a lot of children.

They kind of annoy me, to be honest. I prefer to be the cutest person in a room—”

He snorted.

“—but they’re vulnerable and need to be loved. You’re very protective of Zoia. Doting. I think you’d be the same with any children you had.”

He considered that before saying, “She was never able to get pregnant after my mother. The original farm had been in my grandfather’s family for generations.

Pappous wanted my mother to marry a local boy and take over from them, but my mother didn’t like the quiet island life.

She went to university in Athens and came home to tell them she was pregnant by a boy who lived in Australia.

Pappous wanted his name so he could call and tell the man he needed to marry her.

They argued and she left, insisting she could raise me on her own.

Yaya says my mother was her father’s daughter, very stubborn. ”

“Oh? Did you inherit that trait, do you think?” He absolutely had.

“I’ll never admit to it,” he said blithely, making her smirk.

She wanted to ask him about his mother and whether he’d ever heard from her, but knew it was a difficult subject for him. He had barely mentioned it when they’d married and only because she’d already shared about losing her own mother.

“I remember you talking about your grandfather as being very strict.” He had already been gone when they met, but he’d continued to cast a long shadow over Damian, fueling his determination to expand the estate. To achieve .

“He had old-fashioned standards. Children should be seen and not heard. Earn your keep. He instilled a strong work ethic in me.”

She smiled at the faint praise. “Whereas Daddy kept me quiet by giving me anything I asked for.”

“Who inherits your father’s assets now that Atlas staged a coup and you sided with him?”

“I imagine we’ll split whatever Daddy leaves, but the way he was talking, he was planning to spend every last pound on flying lessons for pigs, purely to spite us.

Which is fine. I still have shares in DVE.

With Atlas running it, I know he’ll keep it solvent.

I am supporting myself, you know. Ask Atlas if you want to.

He’ll confirm it. The paperwork confirms it.

I left the envelope on your desk. Read it. ”

“It doesn’t matter what it says.” He spoke without heat, only stating a fact. “I won’t sign anything until you’ve completed your side of the bargain.”

“It matters to me if you believe me, though.”

“I know what pressure tactics are, Carmel.” He sent her a bored look. “I’ve used them myself. Sign now, before I change my mind. Otherwise, I’ll up the price.”

“I’m not threatening to change anything!”

“As long as I refuse to read it, you can’t. Or you can and I won’t know.”

“Great. Let’s stay in Schrodinger’s marriage, then. One that’s both alive and dead until you open the envelope.”

“That’s my plan.”

“You really are stubborn.”

“We should get back before it’s too dark to see the stairs.”

They moved up to the small landing where he opened the gate for her and waited while she passed through, then followed and firmly closed it again.

It was very dark here in the deep well of the stairs, but the heat of the day lingered, radiating from the stone walls. She found the rail and began the ascent, aware of his footsteps behind her.

She stumbled when she caught the toe of the slippery new flip-flops on the lip of a step.

Damian was right there, his strong hand looping around her stomach to steady her.

She caught her breath and straightened, whirling as his arm fell away.

Carmel was one step above him so they were eye to eye. Much too close in the narrow, hidden space. Her hand was on his shoulder. She didn’t remember putting it there, but there it was, soaking up the solidness of him.

She told herself to turn and keep walking, but her feet wouldn’t move.

She couldn’t read his expression in the shadows, could only see his silhouette against the twilit sky behind him.

She could only feel the tension in him as they stood frozen, caught in a time slip where they were five years younger and touching each other was permissible and natural. Irresistible.

It was only when he drew a breath that she realized her hand had slid to his neck. She felt the tendons at the top of his shoulders contract. Wide palms found her hips, urging her to tip forward.

She did and he slid his arm around her. Her feet left the step, but he held her so tightly she had no fear, only the weightless sense of floating she’d experienced the first time they kissed.

And here was the heat and hunger of his lips. Damp and commanding as he consumed her, kissing her hard, but he wasn’t trying to hurt her. No, she was the one who was pressing her mouth with bruising force to his, heart thudding with the shock of desire.

This was the crash of two elements that had been magnetized and held apart, but now they snapped together and melded at a particle level, orienting to each other. Trying to occupy the other’s space. Attempting to become one.

He turned, and she felt the hard wall of bricks behind her.

The angled rail was under her butt. She picked up her legs to grasp them around his waist and felt the column of his erection press to the notch of her thighs.

The firm cup of his hand invaded the top of her dress, pushing the cotton aside to claim her braless breast.

He yanked his head up and gazed on the pale swell he had exposed. Her taut nipple was already at attention, eager for the pull of his mouth.

“No,” he growled bitterly.

He pushed his hand against the wall, drawing back while keeping her from falling down the stairs.

She had to grasp at the iron-like rail of his arm as she struggled to get her feet under her, then shakily pulled her neckline over her naked breast.

He turned away and started up the stairs ahead of her, leaving her leaning on the wall, breathless. Stunned. Wanting to cry from deprivation. From embarrassment.

She made her way up on trembling knees.

He was already gone from her sight when she reached the top.

Carmel tossed and turned all night, reminding herself she was allowed to be attracted to the man she had married for that very same reason. Plus, she hadn’t had sex with anyone since the last time they’d made love five years ago. Of course she was horny!

She was still mortified at how eager she’d been, though. How easy . Offering herself as though she was desperate.