Page 135 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8

Enzo angled the helicopter gently to bank out to the left and took them around the island. As he pointed out the spots on the island she had visited already and some that she hadn’t, he thought back over the plan he had decided on the night before.

He couldn’t let people like Kayla, like Rin, like his parents continue to think that they could get away with taking liberties. He had expected it from his parents, was doing anything and everything he could do to ignore their antics.

And while the charming, easy-going playboy persona he had adopted had been one kind of armour, the unfortunate side effect was that people thought they could get away with taking advantage of him and his good nature. The fact that he even had a good nature was miracle enough after the mind games of his parents throughout his childhood.

No. He needed to put a line through it all now, once and for all. And Erin was how he would do it. Because that kind of hubris, that kind of cold calculation to seduce and take advantage of certain strong emotions, was untenable.

So yes, Enzo would play along with the pretence of a quickly escalating romantic relationship, even an engagement, even to the extent of planning and holding a wedding. He would follow through, all the way to the very moment where he could leave her standing at the top of the aisle and reveal her perfidy to the world.

And no one would ever dare take advantage of him again. No one.

After a not inconsiderable time in the air, when Rin had seemed to, if not relax, then at least relinquish the death grip she’d had on her handbag, he took them back down to the helipad and powered down. The heliport staff appeared and took over, allowing Enzo and Rin to get back to the gorgeous convertible he’d borrowed while he was in Capri.

He escorted her to the passenger seat and checked his phone before taking his place behind the wheel. He deleted the four messages from his father, who had apparently ignored Enzo’s angry message from earlier telling him not to contact him again, and opened the one from Marcus.

How did it go?

Smirking, he typed back his answer.

Perfectly. She has no idea that I know.

He slipped his phone into his pocket, looked over at Rin and smiled at her, even as he plotted her downfall.

‘Oh god, Sam, it wasawful. My heart is still pounding,’ Erin hissed into the phone, pressing her hand to her chest and trying to keep her voice down as Enzo ordered them drinks at the bar of the swanky hotel he’d brought them to.

‘Why didn’t you just tell him?’ Samara asked.

‘I didn’t think his ego would handle the rejection.’

A bark of laughter shot down the speaker and into Erin’s ear.

‘From what I hear his ego isn’t the only big thing about him.’

‘Sam!’

‘Sorry, just teasing!’

‘The thing is that I’msureI told him that I was scared of heights.’

‘You don’t think he knows, do you?’

‘No,’ Erin insisted. ‘I don’t see how. And besides, surely if he did know, he’d have left me in the dust, right?’

‘Yes? Maybe?’ Only Sam didn’t sound that convinced.

‘I have to go, he’s coming back.’

‘Be safe!’

Sam’s warning rang in her ears as Enzo returned to their table on the edge of a balcony that reached out from the cliff face and over the sea far below.

At least one good thing had come out of her flight with Enzo in the helicopter...thiswas nothing compared to the heights she’d just been to.

She took her glass from him, gently clinking it against his in a toast ‘to them,’ and took a long mouthful, allowing the alcohol to soothe the frayed edges of her nerves.

He watched and her and smiled and she couldn’t help herself.

‘Are you always such a daredevil?’ she asked, genuinely curious. There had been nothing about his penchant for helicopters in any of the articles on him that she’d read.