Page 216 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8

He shook his head in frustration, dragging a hand through his hair, thinking back to their marriage. Trying to pinpoint the exact moment he’d recognised what was happening. How fruitless it was to keep trying because she was starting to hate him. To resent him with the kind of bitterness that could never be erased. Whatever love there’d once been between them had died and they had both been simply going through the motions. Whether out of sheer stubbornness or loyalty, he couldn’t say.

In some ways, it felt like a lifetime ago.

But when his grandmother had mentioned children, on the terrace this afternoon, he’d had a trauma response, plain and simple. Every part of him had seized up. He’d panicked. And he’d taken that out on Charlotte, Punishing her when she’d done nothing but play the part of his fake fiancé with absolute aplomb. Even when that had involved sharing more about herself than she might have liked.

She’d done her best for him and he’d thanked her by being rude and obnoxious.

She deserved, at the very least, to know why.

Chapter Ten

The pool houselooked to have been built more recently than the main villa, which had the markers of being genuinely old. Whereas this might have been added some time in the last few decades, she guessed, going by the finishings. However, it had been constructed in a style that was faithful to the period of the main house, with walls that matched and the same terracotta tiles. The gardens surrounding the pool house were established, filled with lush trees and hedges, giving it even more of the eden-esque feeling that shrouded the whole estate. But at the front, near the door, was the pool. Not like a normal suburban pool, this had more the feel of a lake, except she could see it was man-made. The shape was irregular, designed to look like it had been formed by the earth, and it was large enough to easily swim proper laps. She moved towards the water, absentmindedly crouching down to feel the water with her fingertips.

The sun was dropping lower in the sky. Charlotte glanced towards the main house—part of which was just visible from where she was—and contemplated theaperitivohour Allegra had nominated. What exactly would she say if Dante still hadn’t reappeared?

The whole point of this trip was to convince his grandmother that they were in love so she’d stop worrying about him. Well, Charlotte thought they’d done a pretty good job of that so far, but Dante had totally flipped out. She replayed the afternoon in her mind, trying to pinpoint the precise moment it had all become too much for him, and drew a blank. The best she could guess was that it had been Allegra’s parting remark about having children.

So what?

It was just an old lady’s wishful thinking—and there was nothing surprising in the sentiment. Dante himself had told Charlotte how much family meant to Allegra. Naturally, she’d like to see her grandson creating more of that very same thing—family.

It didn’t matter that he didn’t share those aspirations. He’d told Charlotte he never wanted children. Fine. But why let his grandmother’s comment get so far under his skin?

Unless it hadn’t specifically been that comment. Allegra had also waxed lyrical about how happy Dante seemed, how she wasn’t sure she’d seen him happier. For a man who was clearly still hung up on his ex, maybe that had been too much?

I just need a breather from all that fakery.

Fakery.

Charlotte’s frown deepened as she made her way back into the house and into the bedroom, where someone had unpacked her suitcase already. She removed a chic emerald-green dress from the wardrobe and held it against herself.

Armour.

Protection.

It was a stunning, simple dress in which she always felt her best. And she needed that tonight, because Dante’s comment hadhurther.

It had cut her to the core. In a moment of warmth, when she’d expected at least gratitude and relief, and at most triumph, he’d belittled their accomplishments. No. He’d belittledthem. She pulled her hair over one shoulder as she contemplated that.

There was no ‘them’ and yet there was. Even though they weren’t a couple, in the traditional sense, they’d been sleeping together, casually, for months. That, in and of itself, required mutual respect. In that moment, he’d disrespected her. After all, their ‘fakery’ for Allegra wasn’t Charlotte’s idea, it was Dante’s. Dante who wanted to assuage his grandmother’s concerns and set her mind at ease for the final chapter of her life. Dante whowantedthe fakery. Who’d insisted it needed to be done well.

Charlotte swallowed past an odd lump that had formed in her throat.

In the bathroom, she undressed and took a quick shower, running the loofah over her body until it was sudsy and soft, trying to push his comment to the back of her mind. Trying to partition it off, as she had so many other hurts in her life.

But none like this.

None of the men she’d casually dated before Dante hadeverhurt her. Charlotte had never put herself in the position where they might. It had been the very definition of casual. Fun and easy, but the moment it had stopped being either of those things, she’d ended it and gotten on with her life. Charlotte was not someone who required the company of a man—she would always have preferred to be single than feel that she needed to have someone else in her life. In any event, she had Jane and her work, and the people she helped through that work. That had always been enough for Charlotte. It had had to be. There was no way she’d ever allow herself to be weak like her mother. To be hurt and discarded as her mother had been.

No, when it came to men, Charlotte called the shots. She took what she wanted for just as long as it suited her and then she walked away.

She supposed she should also thank her birth father for that. After all, if he hadn’t treated her mother so badly, and his wife come to think of it, perhaps Charlotte wouldn’t have developed such a tough outer shell. If he hadn’t spent a lifetime ignoring her, financially compelling her to stay hidden, to conceal her true identity from the entire world, maybe she would have believed in the possibility of love and happily ever after. Charlotte was glad that wasn’t the case though. It was so much easier this way. So much better.

The problem was she couldn’t walk away from Dante. Even though this didn’t feel casual, easy or fun now. Even though this was the exact moment she might ordinarily choose to paste a smile on her face and say something like, ‘Great knowing you, see you later!’ She couldn’t do that and keep the company.

Charlotte groaned, dropping her head forward and pressing it against the cool tiles, blindly reaching out and turning off the water.

This had been astupididea. A very, very stupid idea. Asking Dante to be her fake husband had seemed like the right choice, at the time. But they had too much other stuff going on, even when it was just physical, to make it easy to keep things light.