Page 131 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8

His gaze narrowed on the slight straightening of her posture. Mmm. No, it was unlikely that Marcus had invited her at all. Internally, he grinned.

‘Rin, please call me Rin,’ she said, with a seductive grin that momentarily short-circuited his brain.

He nodded. ‘Rin,’ he confirmed, honestly not caring what she chose to call herself. ‘What do you do, Rin?’

‘Oh, as little as possible,’ she said flirtatiously. ‘I like shopping, travelling,partying,’ she said.

All the things that anyone who’d read half a dozen newspapers about him would think that he’d like.

‘And what about you, Enzo? What do you like?’

‘Games,’ he said with a little more vehemence than necessary. ‘I like to win.’ He’d lost too much in his childhood to allow anything less.

‘How deliciously...aggressive,’ Rin replied as if it most certainly wasnot.

Enzo let loose the laugh that built in his chest. Her eyes were her tell. They were what gave her away.

‘Oh, but it can be so much fun, Erin. Especially with a willing partner.’

‘Well, happy day that they’re notunwilling,’ she replied, her tone just a little tart.

He slapped the table. ‘Oh, you’re just delightful!’

She’d jumped a little at his exuberance.

But he saw how her gaze landed on his wristwatch, widening in recognition at the expensive item.

‘Where in England are you from? I want to knoweverythingabout you,’ he insisted, pulling her attention back to him.

‘I grew up in London.’

Would she feed him some sob story? A family that had wealth—because that was evident in the way she moved, in the way she talked, despite the words coming out of her mouth. She’d had money at some point. And presumably was after it again.

‘And is that where you live now?’

‘I...am staying with friends. They’re currently out of the country and it’s soconvenientto be on the river,’ she said offhandedly.

The Thames; the lifeblood of London. But he’d noticed her hesitation.

A lie, he decided.

‘And you?’ she asked in return.

‘Where do I live? Wherever the winds take me,’ he said, and shrugged. He’d never owned a property, had never really seen the point of it. After all, he’d quickly learned that it was something that could be taken away in a heartbeat. He’d stopped counting the houses he’d lived in with his parents when they sent him to boarding school. Between the new starts and the divorces, they hadn’t stayed anywhere longer than eight months.

‘So, you just flit from place to place?’ she asked, apparently genuine curiosity in her gaze.

‘Flit?’

‘Ah, move around a lot,’ she clarified.

He knew what it meant, after all he’d spent three years at university in England, but he was quite happy to play the fool if that would help him achieve his aim. And that aim? To make sure that Erin Carter paid for thinking she could take advantage of him like that. To make her punishment so big and so loud thatno onewould do such a thing again.

A sunbeam bounced, once again, off the obnoxiously expensive watch on Enzo’s wrist and right into Erin’s face, causing her to blink, and she shifted in her chair.

Only when she did that, the damned shirt gaped and she had to pull it back to protect what little was left of her modesty. She bit back a curse. She didn’t think she’d be able to dress like this again. She’d already burned the backs of her practically bare thighs on the metal chair when she sat down.

‘I guess you could say that I like toflit,’Enzo said with what he surely believed to be a winning smile. ‘And are you about to flit?’ he asked.