Page 233 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8

He stared at her, surprised. ‘You are?’

‘Yes. I was hoping I would meet someone else, someone to do this with but...something about the fact you’re moving on, marrying someone else, made me realise that I’ve been living my life in a kind of stasis, just waiting for everything to change. It’s not going to. I can’t have kids, Dante. I can’t. My body just won’t cooperate.’

He grimaced, old griefs and guilts swirling through him.

‘It’s taken me a long time, but I accept it. And the truth is, I’m excited again. Somewhere out there is a baby, or a toddler, a little person whoneedsme, and we’re about to become a family. At least, we will once I’ve jumped through all the legal hoops,’ she added with a small laugh.

‘I’m happy for you, Jamie,’ he said, lifting a hand and putting it on her shoulder. Once upon a time, she’d been his other half. At least, he’d thought she had, but then again, his experience had been limited. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he realised that wasn’t the case. She wasn’t his other half. She had been someone in his life, someone he cared for and wanted to make happy, but they’d never stood toe to toe, arm in arm, meeting life’s challenges together. They’d never been partners, in the true sense of the word.

He drew in a shallow breath, as something in his noisy, cacophonous brain shouted at him, demanding to be examined. Something about other halves and people who completed you in every way, something he refused to think about or focus on. Now or ever. Because if a relationship breakdown with someone who wasn’t your other half had the power to wound you as theirs had him, how bad would it be with your true soulmate?

‘I know the timing is lousy,’ she said. ‘I mean, you’ve just gone and spent a week with Allegra. It’s just...’ She tapered off, shrugging her shoulders. ‘This is you and me, Dante. As it turns out, I wasn’t really looking to meet someone else.’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘I can’t imagine raising a child without you. Whenever I think about it, think about my family, you’re there with me. A part of it. A part of me. I know what you said back then, when I brought this up...’

He stared at her, wondering if he was imagining this. Wondering if somehow, he’d conjured up a version of Jamie that didn’t actually exist.

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying that I want us to try again.’ She expelled a long, slow breath. ‘I know how unbearable it was, in the end. I know how much of a toll it took on both of us. But I’m different now. I’ve finally accepted this situation. And with that, I think we could just go back, be like we were before.’

This was the last thing he’d expected to happen today and the last thing, he realised, that he wanted.

‘Jamie,’ he sighed softly. But she was moving, lifting her hands to his chest, touching him right there where his heart was thumping.

‘Just think about it,’ she urged. ‘You don’t need to settle for marrying someone you don’t love. I don’t care what the business benefits are—you deserve to be happy. I want to make you happy.’ She lifted up onto her tiptoes and kissed him then, like they’d kissed a thousand times before. Like they’d kissed in their marriage, every single damned day.

But with each shift of her mouth, cell by cell his body shut down, turning to ice. Just a few seconds later, he stepped back and shook his head. ‘I don’t need to think about it, Jamie. I’m pleased for you—so pleased that you’re finally going to get your dream of being a mother—but I’m engaged to someone else.’

‘And that’s the only reason you won’t consider this?’

‘No,’ he said, gently. ‘You and I were great, for a while. We really were. But I think we both know that over time, we fell out of love.’

Her smile was ghostly. ‘No, we didn’t,’ she whispered. ‘You just wish that were the case.’ She moved to the front door. Dante didn’t see any point in disputing the facts of their relationship even when he knew, in every fibre of his being, that Jamie was wrong. He didn’t love her now and he was starting to wonder if he ever really had loved her—in the way a man should love the person he intends to spend the rest of his life with. ‘Think about it, Dante. I’m offering you the world.’

Except his world had changed shape a lot since meeting Charlotte and he didn’t have to think very hard to realise why...

Charlotte took a long time at the grocery store. She tried checking in with Jane, grabbed a coffee, ambled up and down each aisle, before finally paying and making her way back to Dante’s. She deliberately prevaricated, because she wanted to give Jamie and Dante time to talk.

Because she wasn’t planning to look like some jealous girlfriend, even when jealousy was practically eating her alive.

The driver was waiting for her in the parking lot. As she approached he stepped out to help her load the bags into the trunk. When they pulled up outside Dante’s Charlotte hesitated for a moment before hopping out and grabbing the shopping. The driver offered to help once more, but she demurred. It was only four bags. She could manage.

She approached the house with her head bent, so didn’t see the movement at first. It was only when she lifted her gaze to the door, frowning and wondering what happened next, that she saw that Jamie was standing out the front. Waiting.

She tried to smile, but everything suddenly felt onerous. Way too hard. She approached the other woman with a sinking feeling in the pit of her gut.

‘Hi. You must be Jamie,’ she said, a little unevenly.

‘Yeah, that’s me. And you’re Charlotte.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘Allegra speaks very highly of you,’ the other woman said, glancing over her shoulder a little guiltily, towards the house.

Allegra, Charlotte noted. Not Dante.

‘She’s very sweet.’

‘Yes, she is. They both are,’ Jamie continued. ‘I know Dante has this big, tough exterior, but beneath it, he’s such a softie.’