Page 236 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8

But why was she so angry? Because of Jamie? ‘Look, I’m sorry she came here. I’m sorry she spoke to you. But—,’

‘It’s not about her,’ Charlotte said, eyes huge in her face, as she stared at him with an emotion he didn’t understand. Like she was silently imploring him to understand something utterly foreign.

‘Then what is it?’

‘It’s about us.’

‘Us?’

Her eyes filled with tears.

‘It turns out, I was wrong.’

‘About me?’

‘About everything,’ she groaned. ‘I can’t marry someone who doesn’t love me. Someone who probably loves someone else.’

‘I don’t love her,’ he said quickly. ‘I honestly don’t know if I ever did.’

He didn’t push himself to question why he was suddenly so certain of that.

Charlotte’s eyes closed and her features momentarily crumpled, in a way that damn near broke his soul in half. ‘My father never wanted me. My mother never wanted me. I can’t marry someone who deep down doesn’t really want me either. Not enough.’

He opened his mouth to dispute that, to tell her he did indeed want her in his life, in some capacity, so long as they could control their expectations, so long as it was easy and simple.

But how could he say that? Nothing about them was simple, and it probably hadn’t been for a long time. They’d been fooling themselves that they could play with fire and not get burned.

‘I shouldneverhave suggested this to you.’ The words landed against him like blades.

She pressed a hand to his chest and sucked in a deep breath. For a moment he wondered if she was going to change her mind. But she pushed at him. Not hard, but hard enough for him to get the message. Back off.

Now that he wasn’t holding her she was able to open the door and slip through it without giving him even a second to reply.

He just stared at the door, her words thundering through him, over and over and over.

Jamie’s reappearance in his life was nothing short of bizarre. As was her insistence that they were in love, when the truth was, whatever love they’d felt for one another had died slowly—over the course of years—leaving only the warm affection of two people who had once shared a sort of teenage love.

A childish love.

A love that hadn’t been strong enough to withstand the trials of real life.

A love that had never been meant to go the distance, whether they’d had children or not. But regardless of whether or not he loved Jamie, the pain of their marriage was real. All of it. Knowing that she was suffering and he could do nothing to alleviate it, watching her become a shell of her former self. Wanting the best for her but not being able to deliver that.

The pain was something he’d been running from ever since.

The way it had made him vulnerable. How he’d hated that. He’d promised himself he’d never be in that position again. Yet here he was, staring at a closed door, feeling as though his entire body had been split in half. Feeling as though every single cell in his body was on fire.

Feeling as though his entire reason for being had just walked out the door.

Which was exactly why he didn’t chase after her. Exactly why he let her last statement hang in the air, defining and ending their relationship all at once.

I should never have suggested this to you.

The first time her mother had forgotten her birthday Charlotte had been devastated. She’d cried all day, weeping into her hands, whilst still hoping that maybe, just maybe, a phone call would come through to the school. A present, like the other boarders got on their birthdays.

Something.

Anything.