Page 102 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

“It’s all right, you know,” she said very gently. “I may be new to this, but I am on birth control.”

“Fantastic,” he ground out. “That certainly excuses taking your virginity. Your father would be so proud.”

Her gentle expression sharpened, but she didn’t make a move to cover herself or anything that she should be doing.

“You didn’t take it. My virginity is not a cookie in a cookie jar for you to steal .

This may come as a shock to you, but I was a fully cognizant and willing participant.

This will be hard on you, I know, but I simply will not allow you to pretend guilt over something I chose. Not now. Not later. Not ever.”

He hated how practical she was being when he wanted to rage. He wanted to claw the damn castello down.

And worse, so much worse, he wanted to cover her body with his again, and take and take and take, like he had any right to have something so bright and wonderful.

“Why have you upended everything?” he demanded, because he could not find a way to twist this into punishment.

He’d given himself exactly what he wanted.

She inhaled deeply, then let out a long sigh like she despaired of him . Then she rolled off the bed in an elegant move that had all his words scattering. He simply watched her move across the room, naked and glorious, before grabbing something from the back of a chair.

A silky green robe that she now shrugged into, her hair tousled, her cheeks a beautiful pink. He wanted to have his hands on her, and he did not fully understand the why of it, because he was experienced, and good sex and good chemistry were not unique or new.

But she was. Something about all this was. He felt as though there was some claw inside him, connecting him to her. He couldn’t separate the physical from the connections they had, and it made it all so much more complicated and confusing and weighty .

When she finally faced him, that stubborn chin-up stance she was so good at, he expected a fight. Recriminations for blaming her for upending everything, when obviously they were both to blame.

There. He had shared blame because he would not take all of it. She had pushed.

And you are older and experienced and should know better.

So maybe the blame was all his. It should be.

“I think because it was time for everything to be upended,” she said, with a little nod as if to punctuate how right she was. “You don’t have to agree with me, of course. Blame suits you better, I know.”

He shook his head. This woman had taken him into her bed, let him be her first, and yet she said things like that . Saw through him so easily.

“You think so highly of me, tesoro .” He thought the sarcasm and bitterness might hide the way it scraped raw across whatever was left of his soul, but he saw that soft expression of hers take over.

“I actually do, in spite of evidence to the contrary,” she said softly. “I know…you, even if you find that unfathomable. I have worked for you for two years, I knew your family and how you grew up, and I knew the one man who tried to be someone to you.”

There were too many things going on inside him. All those things he’d learned to control with space and icy indifference were trying to find purchase. Or worse, they were trying to eradicate whatever purchase he’d managed all these years.

She stepped forward then, reached out and fitted her hand to his cheek.

“I think you have all the potential to be better than you have been. See, the point is not that I think the worst of you, Diego. You think the worst of yourself. My point is that I don’t think you realize that is a choice.

You could choose something different, and it’s hard because you’ve never had to.

But it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Especially if you let someone reach out and help. ”

What was he doing, standing half naked in this woman’s bedroom having a philosophical conversation about choice ?

After he’d taken her virginity, or whatever the hell verb she’d rather use.

He stepped away from her hand. “I should go back to my cabin,” he ground out, because this was becoming something intolerable. He’d crossed all the lines he’d once crossed without caring. He’d taken what he’d wanted rather than maintained his penance. It was wrong and he should go.

“What you should do is get dressed and come with me to look at some nativities. What you should do is decide why you think wasting your life away isolated from all signs of humanity and warmth is better penance than actually living for the people who cannot.”

He didn’t know what to say to these should s. Why should she be the one to know what he should ? Why did she get to decide anything about what he should?

“I’ll be in the car at noon,” she told him. “You can meet me there or not. It is up to you, Diego. Your life, and only your life, is your choice. Your responsibility. Your consequences. Including the guilt you find so damn comfortable.”

She did not storm away, as they had a habit of doing from each other. No, she walked over to her bathroom door, humming something that sounded suspiciously like “Joy to the World.”

He watched her go, speechless and frozen in place.

What the hell had just happened?

A mistake. What could only be categorized as a mistake.

And you get to choose how to deal with it, Diego. Your responsibility. Your consequences.

He stalked away from her voice in his head, her room, her scent, and still didn’t know what the hell to do with any of it.