Page 107 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8

She opened her mouth to speak but Gio beat her to it, talking quickly as if wanting this over as soon as possible.

‘My father never rebuilt. We moved to the mainland. He had insurance money to start again but for a while he didn’t bother. He was depressed. Later he rallied and threw himself almost manically into building up his business again.’

Gio spread his hands. ‘But everything he did, every success, was a step on the way to besting your father. He wouldn’t stoop to violence but his one goal was to build a business bigger and better than Barbieri’s and smash him. It was a fixation. He had no time for anything else. No time for anyone, including me.’

Stella heard Gio’s pain and it went straight through her. She wrapped her arms around herself, cradling their unborn child. His story reminded her that there were no guarantees of safety in life. ‘I’m so sorry, Gio. For everything you lost.’

His mother and sister. The life they should have had together. And his father, lost in a way that she suspected had scarred Gio as much as the earlier deaths. She imagined him as a boy, missing his mother and sister, turning to his father for affection and reassurance and finding none.

How familiar that was.

Her life and his had been completely different but they’d had one thing in common, they’d both been children bereft and craving love. A love that was denied them.

Two fathers who, in their different ways, neglected their children.

It was startling to think how much she and Gio shared, what similar forces had shaped them.

Gio continued. ‘Between them, our fathers spent years trying to triumph over the other. It sapped the last of my father’s strength. He’d never been the same since my mother and Serena died. Grief and obsession hollowed him out, eventually destroying him.’

He surged to his feet and paced to the pool as if he couldn’t bear to sit still.

‘I vowed not to follow in his footsteps. I loved my family but I refuse to let grief destroy me. I refuse to get sucked into a vendetta with a man I wouldn’t let lick my boots.’ He spun around, eyes locking on hers. ‘I decided that the best vengeance was to live the lifeIwant, not tied to your father in any way. We compete in the same market but I don’t plan my business around him. Usually I don’t even think about him.’

Stella drank in the sight of Gio. His long, athletic legs. Those well-built shoulders and that tapering torso with its impressive musculature.

But it wasn’t just his masculinity that hooked her attention.

She read pain in the lines bracketing his mouth. Yet he looked neither defeated nor defiant. He looked strong and sure, as if the loss and hurt he’d endured had forged him into someone more robust and certain of his place in the world. As if he’d grown from the experience.

Stella’s breath caught. How attractive that was. This was nothing like her father’s overbearing power. It was something different and enormously alluring.

Gio had carved his own way and she admired that. She, on the other hand, had been weak, not standing up for herself sooner.

For too long she’d bowed to family expectations. Because she’d craved a place with them. It had made her overlook the way they’d used her, offering acceptance and approval but never quite delivering. It was only recently she’d let herself admit how wilfully blind she’d been, not wanting to face facts.

‘So, the dossier on me and my family?’

‘I thought you were a plant, trying to inveigle information. I hadn’t paid attention to your family for years and thought I’d better find out what I could.’

Slowly, she nodded. That made sense. But one thing didn’t. ‘If you’re not motivated by vengeance against the Barbieris, why burst into my wedding? Why cause that scene?’

He hadn’t known she was pregnant. So what other explanation could there be, but a vendetta?

Colour streaked Gio’s cheekbones and his jaw worked. She had the strongest feeling he didn’t want to answer.

Slowly she rose, moving closer, but not too close. She needed to read every nuance of his expression, but from a safe distance. When she got too near him her hormones did all the thinking, not her brain.

‘You said you’d be frank with me, Gio.’

‘You want frankness?’ His expression was full of challenge and something she couldn’t decipher. ‘I needed to stop the wedding. Not because of your father, but because of you. I couldn’t let you marry.’

Though Gio didn’t reach for her, she felt the familiar tug of connection, making her want to close the gap between them. As if there was an invisible force, urging them together.

‘Why?’ Her voice was hoarse.

His look seared. ‘Because we’re not finished with each other. Are we, Stella?’

Gio put in words her secret fear.