Page 153 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8

But was that connection enough to stop her from reaching for her goal?

No. Not that alone. But could she really cling to the belief that he was just a bored, lazy, careless playboy? That he was like her father, uncaring who got hurt by his whims? Because despite Enzo’s sometimes dramatic flamboyance, his constant charm and his impressive arrogance, there was something else to him that she had glimpsed last night.

A depth. A layer beneath this playboy persona he seemed to revel in.

Erin might be ready to do just about anything to get her hands on Charterhouse, but that didn’t mean she could willingly hurt another person to get what she wanted. The only reason she’d come this far was because she’d been near convinced that Enzo Rossetti didn’t have a heart. And last night, she thought she’d seen a little of that heart. That was why she’d kissed him. She’d...likedwhat she’d seen.

Enzo appeared on the deck, her heartbeat jumping a little at the sight of him, tall, good-looking, his white shirt glowing in the pre-dawn. His surprise at her being there was quickly masked and she regretted it, desperate to know what he was thinking and feeling after last night.

‘You are out here early,cara,’ he observed as he came to stand beside her.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she admitted.

His response was a nod, the dark smudges beneath his eyes enough confirmation that he had suffered the same. For a while they stood there together in silence as the gentlest touches of dawn began to lighten the sky overhead.

‘Do we...’ She hesitated. ‘Do we have to go off to France today?’

She wasn’t ready, she realised. France was where they would get married and suddenly Erin found herself wanting to delay. To wait. She wanted time to make sure that she was doing the right thing. To make sure that she wouldn’t cause damage with a scheme that was getting uncomfortably close to something that her father might have done.

‘Is there somewhere else you’d like to go?’ he asked.

‘Not if it would cause a problem,’ she prevaricated.

‘There’s no rush. The yacht can make the crossing in a day if needed,’ he assured her. ‘So, tell me. Where is it you’d like to be?’

Florence.

It had fallen from her lips before she could stop it and a part of her hoped that maybe he would say that unfortunately it wasn’t possible. But he hadn’t.

And just over two hours later, she was standing at the end of the Via dei Calzaiuoli looking between the Baptistry and the Cathedral, as long soft fingers of light crept slowly into a denim blue sky.

‘I get the destination,amore mio, but did it really have to besoearly?’ Enzo complained grumpily, as if he’d been hoping to go back to bed. The man, she had discovered, wasnota morning person.

‘Yes,’ she laughingly replied, ignoring Enzo’s near unholy beauty and turning back to one of the most magnificent sights she’d ever seen. ‘It’s so early that we have beaten the tourists and we have the place nearly all to ourselves.’

Oh, her mother would have loved this. If her father hadn’t frittered everything away, they would have come here. As a family. They might have even stood right here, staring up at the ornate detail of the white-and-green marble, the terracotta tiles of the dome atop the cathedral, that was much more beautiful than she had ever imagined.

‘Did you know,’ she asked him, ‘that work started on this in the early twelve hundreds and didn’t finish until the fourteen hundreds?’

‘Really?’ Enzo asked as if it were the least interesting thing he’d ever heard, and she smiled, because she’d seen, despite the grim mask of ‘grumpy morning man’, how his eyes had feasted on the stunning sight. ‘Does that have any bearing on the need to be here atseven thirtyin the morning?’

She folded her lips together to stop herself from laughing at him again. Laughter that disappeared when she turned to find him standing in a single beam of sunlight, filtered by the Italian rooftops and Cathedral tower. It lovingly caressed the planes of his face, dancing in a healthy glow across bronzed skin, sharp angles, and deliciously dark hair. And for a moment they seemed content to study each other as if they were more important than the centuries-old architecture that they were surrounded by.

He took her breath away. She’d never met anyone who’d been able to do that.

He shook his head slightly, as if trying to dislodge them from the moment. ‘Is there something wrong,cara?’

‘Why do you keep calling mecara?’ she asked instead of answering his question.

He frowned. ‘Well, if I’m honest, Rin doesn’t seem to suit you, and I presume you use it because you don’t like Erin, so...’ He shrugged and closed the distance between them.

Unaware of the seismic shock that threatened Erin’s foundations, Enzo led them to a small café within sight of the Duomo. A waiter bustled over to greet them, ushering them into a table. His frantic enthusiasm was amusing, but went utterly unnoticed by Erin who was distracted by the Cathedral over his shoulder.

When he’d asked her if she could go anywhere, he’d expected...something else. Maybe shopping in Paris, or a night at an ice hotel in Jukkasjärvi, or well, he didn’t know. But something expensive. Something not so...easy to accomplish. And by the time they had their coffees and pastries, and Enzo—with a little caffeine in his system—was feeling more human and less bear, he finally asked the question.

‘Why Florence?’

Something crept into her gaze and he wondered whether he had strayed too far into the personal. And whether that was, in fact, what he’d intended all along. A little crease appeared between her brows that he wanted to smooth away with the pad of his thumb.