Page 222 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8

He shook his head. ‘She’d always wanted a big home, filled with people, bursting at the seams of love. And I wanted to give that to her. I would have done anything, Charlotte. Anything.’

She nodded, slowly, because she was pretty confident that Dante didn’t have children. It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d have failed to mention, after their various conversations surrounding the matter of permanence.

‘We tried.’

Her heart panged at the oblique reference to his sex life with the other woman. She tried to blot it out and focus purely on the admission he was making, and on how hard it was for him to get this out. On the fact that she suspected this was not something he’d told many people, if anyone.

‘We tried for a long time, taking comfort from all the websites that said you shouldn’t be worried until after twelve months, that it didn’t necessarily mean anything was wrong. And then, we began the testing and then the IVF.’

Sympathy swirled inside Charlotte. ‘What happened?’

‘Charlotte had a condition that made it difficult to conceive naturally. IVF was successful, on multiple occasions, but each time, she miscarried.’

‘Oh, no,’ Charlotte whispered, tears sparkling on her lashes, despite her intention to keep everything about Dante at arm’s length. ‘I’m so sorry, that’s awful.’

‘Yes, it was. Awful. Disheartening. Our marriage turned into an endless round of trying to conceive, failing, succeeding then losing the baby, just a constant pressure. Jamie was obsessed and the more she wanted, the more I felt a weight that I almost couldn’t bear.’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘I felt like a failure,’ he muttered. ‘The one thing my wife wanted and I could not give it to her. All the money in all the world, all the best doctors, and we could not succeed.’

‘What about surrogacy?’ she whispered.

‘We tried it. Our surrogate lost the baby.’

‘Oh, Dante,’ a tear slid down her cheek. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

His eyes lifted to hers and his lips tugged downwards. ‘I’m not telling you because I require sympathy, nor because I think there is anything you can say that will alleviate this, here, that I feel,’ he pressed his fingers to the space between his rib cage and Charlotte’s blood ran cold at the clear allusion to his love for his ex-wife. ‘I have been torn apart by guilt for so long, I don’t know any other way to feel.’

‘Guilt?’

‘I couldn’t give her what she wanted, don’t you understand that?’

‘Yes. I do. And while that’s very sad, Dante...it’s just, not your fault.’

‘I couldn’t fix it.’

Vulnerability for him weakened her heart. ‘Believe it or not, even you, the great Dante San Marino, cannot fixeverythingin the world.’

He looked away, his jaw locked in an expression of determination, if ever she’d seen one. Of dismissal, too. He wasn’t willing to hear what she was saying, nor to take it on board.

‘Dante, if the shoe were on the other foot, and it was you who had a medical reason for not being able to create a pregnancy, would you have wanted Jamie to feel bad about that?’

A muscle jerked in his jaw.

Charlotte shook her head. ‘I don’t mean to sayanyoneshould feel bad. Not you, not Jamie. Sad, yes. Disappointed, but not bad. This was nobody’s fault.’

‘My reason for telling you is because I need you to understand that when we broke up, it was the end for me. Not just of my marriage, but of any possibility of ever moving forward. Of ever opening myself up to caring about another person, to the possibility of hurting them, to the possibility of not being able to fix whatever they might need me to fix.’

Charlotte’s heart twisted with sympathy.

‘My work is my life.’

Charlotte nodded softly. She felt the beginning of a strange sensation, like a splintering in the region of her heart, but there was also warmth and a need to comfort Dante, even when her own world was strangely unfamiliar. ‘My reasons are very different to yours,’ she said, slowly, thoughtfully. ‘But you were right before. I’m as determined as you are to never get seriously involved with anyone.’

He looked at her as if he didn’t quite believe her and yet he wanted to.

‘My mother was completely destroyed by what my biological father did to her. She loved him so much—honestly, she still does. All her life, she pined for him.’

‘But she had you,’ he pointed out. ‘That must have given her some consolation.’

She made a noise of rejection. ‘You think?’