Page 168 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8

Hurt and anger twisted her train of thought into turns that it would not have made before. And deep from within, far older than her time with Enzo, came another visceral pain. If he could do that and it be a lie, then he could never have cared about her at all.

And she’d cared enough to sacrifice the one thing—theone thing—that she’d been working to get back foryears. She’d let everything go. Because of him, because of what she’d felt for him.

She was just like her mother. Lost and left with absolutely nothing because of a man.

The horror of it left her stunned, a ringing in her ears drowning out the music and the people in the club.

‘There you are,’ Cynthia announced as if the last thing she’d wanted to do was actually find Erin. ‘He’s looking for you. Worried you’d wandered off,’ the other woman said, already looking around the club to find someone else more important to talk to.

‘Okay,’ Erin said, nodding and wiping her cheeks, thankful that Cynthia was so uninterested as to notice her distressed state.

What should she do? Her passport and things were still on the yacht, so even if she wanted to leave, she still had to go back there. She could call Sam. She knew that her friend would help with whatever she needed—a private jet if she needed it, probably. But Erin was the one who had got into this mess. And she needed to get herself out of it.

She needed her things first, and then needed to leave. And what, just disappear into the night? As if none of this had ever happened? So she could become just some funny story that he could tell his friends and laugh about?

Yes, she had done a terrible thing, deliberately setting out to marry him for her own needs. But he hadn’t needed to play along. He could have walked away.

But he hadn’t. He’d wanted to use her too. He’d wanted to humiliate her and turn her into some cautionary tale. Anger shot through her, filling her, pushing at her skin, desperate to get out, to burn and scorch in the way she felt burned and scorched.

She didn’t want him to get away with it, she didn’t want him to walk away unscathed.

She didn’t want him to walk away as if she didn’t matter and he didn’t care, she thought as her heart broke.

She smoothed her hair away from her face and stood up away from the wall, turning the corner, and came face-to-face with him, her smile freezing in place.

She took him in, the question in his gaze, that raised brow of his, the hard lines of his cheek and jaw, the midnight black of his hair, the rich depths of his gaze—a gaze she now knew hid secrets and lies as easily as breathing.

‘There you are,cara, I’ve been looking for you.’

Enzo frowned as he saw something flash in Erin’s gaze, but it was gone so quickly he couldn’t be sure what it was. He was already out of sorts following his conversation with Marcus, and honestly for the first time in his life, he was ready to be nearly the first person to leave the party, not the last.

‘I’ve been here the whole time,’ she said with an elegant shrug, her smile a little forced.

‘Is everything okay?’

‘Oh, Enzo. Everything is just marvellous,’ she said, slipping her hand through the crook of his arm, and leading him back towards the dance floor. ‘We’re here with your friends, in a gorgeous part of the world, in a fabulous club, having awonderfultime, no?’

Well, no. He wasn’t having a wonderful time. He was something horrifyingly close to miserable, but as he had refused to let himself be miserable since about the age of ten, when his parents had made him pose for cameras on the steps of the courthouse of their second marriage, he smiled and let her lead him back to the dance floor.

Erin seemed to have found a wave of energy he’d not witnessed before now, and even Cynthia had begun to soften towards the happy, effervescent Erin Carter that had them all enthralled.

And he didn’t like that either. An only child, one might have accused him of not learning to share his toys, but Erin wasn’t a toy and he wasn’t a child. She just didn’t seem to be...herself.The Erin that he had come to know in the last few weeks. Even though the irony was that whatever Erin was embodying right at that moment was precisely the kind of woman that had attracted him before, he didn’t like it, didn’t quite like what he was seeing. It made him feel unsettled.

That feeling lasted long into the early hours of the morning as the club wound down, many of the revellers flushed in the face from alcohol or happiness as they all slipped away to their respective beds for the night.

Erin took off her shoes and walked barefoot, her arm still hooked into his as they made their way back to the marina.

‘Did you have fun tonight,amore mio?’ he asked, genuinely curious. It would seem that she had, but...but... He had this nagging feeling that he couldn’t shake that something wasn’t quite right.

She turned to him and tugged his arm closer to her side. ‘Yes, soooo much fun.’

‘Are you drunk,cara?’

She laughed. ‘No, why? I haven’t had a drink in hours.’

He nodded, eyes narrowing on her before she laughed again and tugged on his arm. Maybe he was projecting. Maybe he was letting his mood impact his thoughts.

They reached the marina, the wood jetty bobbing slightly beneath their feet as they boarded the yacht. Strangely it was Erin who led the way to the upper deck, clearly not ready to go to bed. He forced his eyes away from the seductive sway of her walk as she went over to the wet bar.