Page 27 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8

His choice to marry her.Whenhe had.Howhe had.

Maybe he was right again. Now she knew there was more to that decision than she’d understood because she’d been blinded by her own privileges. She’d grown up in a loving family, but she’d been ignorant. The lessons she’d learned about love from her adoring family were honestly too good to be true. Too easy. She’d barely hadhalfa picture.

Ares frowned again. ‘What happened to your dad?’

She opened the clasp once more. ‘He died three months after I’d finished school. There was a landslide caused by a flash flood. He was digging out a person who was trapped when there was another big slip.’

For such a lithe, fit man Ares could sit surprisingly still. It was a change—he’d always been active before. Now she watched his even breathing. It was too even. Was hecounting? Using a relaxation strategy because he was stressed?

It wasn’t that he reallycared, he was just empathetic, right? Because he’d lost his parents too. They had more in common than she’d realised. And she needed to explain her part in why they hadn’t worked. Because it would help with this. Theend. And it was easier to talk about her past than deal with the fragile emotions of the present.

‘After my grandmother died I had to sell our home to pay off the debt we’d gotten into. The little left over paid for my trip to Greece. She knew I’d always wanted to come here and made me promise that I’d do it. For her—for my father too. I know I told you that she’d died, but not that it was only two months before I got here.’

Ares’s eye widened. ‘She was sick foryears.’

Bethan nodded. She’d stayed in the cottage. ‘I crafted in the evenings, banged about in my grandfather’s shed during the day when she was resting. It was quiet but I wasn’t lonely. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to bring the mood down, you know?’ She sent him a soft, sad smile. ‘I was having so much fun with you but the truth is I was grieving and it was an escape.’

Perhaps for them both. Perhaps he too had wanted to forget reality—the pressure of being Ares Vasiliadis. It had just been a few weeks of all the good things and only the good things. It had beenhermistake in thinking that perfection could last forever.

‘I owe you an apology,’ she said with sudden clarity. ‘I was needy. And I was so naïve. I’m sorry about that.’

His gaze lifted, shocked. ‘What?’

‘Ares, I was inexperienced in a lot of things, but especially the realities of a relationship.’ She turned to him earnestly. ‘It’s taken me an age to realise I only heardstoriesof perfect marriages. I never saw any actuallywork. I never witnessed the normal ups and downs, no working through issues or anything. I was repeatedlytoldabout my parents’ once-in-a-lifetime love—and that of my grandparents—but I was only told thegoodbits, right? So I naïvely believed there wereonlygood bits. That if you’d met the “one” then everything was miraculously easy. I put all that expectation onyou. It was an impossible burden. Especially when you really had no idea how lonely I’d been, how ill-equipped I was to speak up or even compromise.

‘It wasn’t fair of me to expect that you’d fill all my emotional gaps—and there were plenty. The first moment things got tricky, I didn’t know how to fix it.’ How to fight for what she’d truly wanted. ‘I was insecure. I’d thought you were a ferryman—a sailor, like Dad. I could relate to that and I thought we were a match. I could live with this villa—but when we went to Athens I learned there were more properties and planes and all kinds of expectations. That compound was so cold and so was everyone in it.’ And he’d turned cold too. He’d turned to stone. ‘You were in anotherrealmfrom me. I got scared. I took Gia’s words as gospel. I used those Sophia stories as part of my reason to run, but it was a release for you too.’

He stiffened.

‘You know I’m right,’ she said softly.

But even now she couldn’t bring herself to remind him of his refusal to answer the one question she’d been brave enough to ask. His inability to say he loved her.

‘You know I don’t fit into that world,’ she finished.

‘I never was ashamed of you,’ he said huskily.

She paused. He’d said that yesterday and she wanted to believe him but—

‘I didn’t want to hide you here,’ he added. ‘I truly didn’t think you wanted to live in a big city.’

‘I’ve spent the last two and a bit years living in London,’ she pointed out wryly.

‘But you liked the small town you grew up in in Scotland. You told me that back then,’ he said fiercely.

She glanced up. He’d really paid attention to what little she had said about her past?

‘You said that being on this island was like that only with better weather, better food,’ he added. ‘You stood in this room and said you never wanted to leave. Ever.’

She’d never wanted to leavehim. She would have followed him to the ends of the earth. But he was right—he’d just quoted her perfectly.

‘Was that a lie?’ he asked eventually.

‘No. I just... I hadn’t really meant it like that because it wasn’t a real possibility. I would’ve needed a job...’

But now—far too late—she realised that for him it wasentirelypossible. It would have been nothing for him to keep her here. He had the money to make it all happen. He’d taken her fantasy wish at face value because for him itwasn’tan impossible dream but easily achievable.

‘I knew you’d need occupation so I had the studio fitted out,’ he murmured. ‘I’d hoped to make you happy.’