Page 108 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

Because he’d already decided what he’d do, which was why he’d given himself leave to enjoy tonight. A goodbye for her .

But now she was talking about the opposite of goodbye, and he would have to ruin everything.

Yes, he supposed it was the punishment he deserved.

Carefully, he took her arm from around him, slid out from the weight of her and her love , and got to his feet.

When that was not quite enough to allow him a careful breath, he took a few steps away from the chaise. He had to look away from her, picture perfect in the warm glow of Christmas tree lights, in the dress he’d bought knowing she would look like some kind of Christmas angel.

Which had made it clear, again , how little he deserved this respite. How completely he belonged on his mountain, paying his penance. She wasn’t going to understand that, but she couldn’t. She did not have blood on her hands like he did. She had only grief, not blame.

He’d never convince her, so he didn’t set out to. He simply set out to make this as little of a wound on her as possible.

He considered his words, weighed them. Then made sure to deliver them with an authority she would not be able to argue. “Amelia, you are mistaken.”

For a moment, a tense silence settled over the room like a lead weight. When she spoke, her tone was cool and cutting. “There’s no need to be an idiot about it.”

He blinked once, opened his mouth, but no words came. An idiot . She’d called him…

She got to her feet now. Without the heels, she barely came up to his chin, but she had the stance of a fighter ready to brawl.

“I know how I feel, Diego. Now, you do not have to feel the same, but you will do me the courtesy of acknowledging that I am a grown woman in charge of my own feelings. I do not say what I do not mean.”

“Very well,” he said carefully, a negotiator trying to avoid the explosion. “You are not mistaken.” He should leave it at that, but… “But you are wrong.”

The noise she made was one of such outrage he was surprised it wasn’t followed by a blow.

“You are young. You are…inexperienced. And you do not know me.”

“Not… know you? I have handled every ounce of your business while you’ve hidden away for two years . I was raised by the man who tried to instill every good virtue into you because he saw something in you. I see something in you, Diego. Why do you refuse to see it in yourself?”

He hated her question, the way it created storms in his chest, the way it made it hard to breathe. All the ways emotion upended. All the ways thinking too deeply about who he was, who he could be, hurt .

So he did not answer her question. He focused on the statements. On the facts. On things that were not at all complicated, but straightforward and sure.

“You are right. I did hide. These past two years I have been hiding. These few weeks have been…informative. But it does not change the basic fact that I deserve this punishment. Now I simply have a better understanding of the how s and why s of it. I will return to my cabin with a clearer picture of exactly what I deserve. Less about hiding. More about…accepting.”

She shook her head. Her eyes were a bright quicksilver, shiny with moisture, but no tears fell. He assumed the color high on her cheeks was temper, because she seemed far more angry than hurt, though he knew she was both.

“I thought you…” She sucked in a breath, seemed to reconsider whatever she’d been about to say. “Do you really think you’re unique?”

This question didn’t create storms, because it made no sense. “I beg your pardon?”

“You don’t think I could look at that day and pick apart a million things I could have done differently that would have kept them from getting on that plane?”

It never failed to amaze him how totally she could silence him. The question was a sharp, burning lance, even when he didn’t understand it. Like his heart could absorb her words, but his mind could not.

“Aurora begged me to lie to your parents and tell them she was sick. She thought if I lied to them, they might actually believe it. Might actually let her stay behind. She didn’t want to go off to Spain for the new year.

She wanted to stay here. I could have tried to help her, and she would be alive. ”

“Amelia…” The thought of Aurora alive because of something Amelia had chosen was…insanity. She couldn’t possibly…

“Do you think I’m making it up?” she demanded, enough high-pitched near hysteria tinging her tone that he knew better than to say yes .

“Let’s take my father, then, shall we? They would be gone over his birthday, and I was irritated that he had not tried to take the day off.

That he worked remotely with you all the time, so why did he need to go to Spain with you on his birthday?

I wanted to spend the day with him. I didn’t tell him that, though, because I was hurt he did not want to spend the day with me.

I could have told him, asked him to stay.

He would have. He would have done anything for you, Diego, but I trumped you.

If I asked. Instead, I gave him a chilly goodbye and let him go. ”

These were not the same. She couldn’t make them into the same thing. He had chosen what he’d chosen out of selfishness, and a need to punish his parents for things even to this day he could not fully articulate.

She had simply been herself.

But she kept talking .

“You think I didn’t go over those events those first few weeks? Pick apart every instance, every instinct that might have changed the outcome of that plane ride? You think that these feelings, these questions, these horrible things, are unique to you ?”

“It is not the same as—”

“It is exactly the same as. Do you think the world revolves around you? That you control all its outcomes? Still? We have no control over the damn world around us, Diego. It will do what it wants. No matter what choices you make. Guilt is just a phase of grief, a misguided belief we have some control, but we have no control. Not about the end.”

He did not disagree with her. The world was mean and cruel, but so had he been. Self-absorbed and uninterested in anyone else’s feelings. Maybe sometimes he’d listened to Bartolo; maybe sometimes there’d been a glimmer of thinking he could be a better man.

The kind who handled his own life and problems. Who didn’t let the tides of temper and rejection sway him into deeper holes he dug himself into.

Who loved.

He stared at Amelia now. One tear had fallen, and it trailed down her perfect cheek. Maybe if she wasn’t so perfect, he could believe in this.

But he could never be good enough for her.

If he stayed, he would be tempted to listen, to absorb. She would absolve him, and he’d always known that couldn’t happen. He couldn’t let that happen.

He didn’t deserve it.

So he did the only thing he could think of.

He turned on his heel and left. He ran away. Not just from the room. He went to the back part of the house that led out to where the cars were parked, took Amelia’s keys and drove away.

Forever.