Page 142 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

“I will convince him of that,” she whispered into the quiet night around her. “I promise.” Then she waited, not going inside just yet. She watched the sky turn dark, searching for that first star to appear. When it did, in perfect harmony with the timed lights, she smiled.

Not all wishes came true, but she wouldn’t say no to a little celestial luck.

Diego thought he might crack into two and crumble. Perhaps the pressure of all this would simply cause him to die, just as the blunt force of a plane hitting a mountain had killed his family.

And hers.

There was something about acknowledging that she was Bartolo’s daughter. That she’d known his family. Been this very tangential part of his world—far more connected to the pieces he knew than to him, but here. Part of the castello. Part of the Folliero world.

Which meant she had her own grief.

But nothing to feel guilty about.

It was not the comfort he thought it would be. Who could be comforted in this nightmare?

They’d entered through the back, which had never been a part of the home he’d been in much. Still, there was something about the smells here—yeast and cinnamon and pine—that brought old memories back.

An old life back. He thought he could simply ice it away. Ignore it. Focus on the injustice of her ruining his perfectly organized penance.

Then he’d moved into the first living room.

Everything came to another halting, painful stop. There was a strange ringing in his ears, loud enough to be Christmas bells. For a moment, he thought maybe he was hallucinating. He could all but see the ghosts of his childhood in every corner. Dressed in their Christmas finest. Drinking. Laughing. Sparkling.

It looked exactly as it used to. Was it memory or reality? It was all so disorienting that he wasn’t sure.

He blinked once, tried to swallow the hard weight in his throat. The room came into focus, decorated just as it was in his memories. Greenery in boughs across the fireplace. Unlit candles in red, green and white scattered across everything. Angels that seemed to peer at him from their mantels, finding him unfit.

The tree in the corner was huge, and white lights glowed from the scented branches. Red bows, gold bells, silver angels. He recognized all the ornaments—not individually, but as the aesthetic his mother had preferred.

Mother had insisted they all handle the trees in different rooms. Aurora had been in charge of the tree in the library. Father, his den. Diego, the sunroom. Because Mother and Father liked classic Christmas decor, Aurora’s tree had always been a brightly colored rebellion, but she’d still partaken.

As a child, Diego had enjoyed the tradition, what felt like autonomy. As a teen, he’d resented it more and more and more. This insistence he be involved in a family performance that, to him—though he wasn’t able to articulate it then—showed just how separate they all were rather than demonstrate any familial connection.

Because the four of them had never understood one another. Never tried to. They were connected by a name, by a legacy, but that was all.

Diego turned away from the tree, strode out of the room. This was temporary. This was simply to meet with the lawyers tomorrow. It was nothing else. So he did not need to engage with these pointless memories.

Everyone was dead, essentially by his own hand. Everyone except Amelia.

He refused to look back to see if she’d followed him inside or into the main room. He would not engage with her anymore. Whatever she was up to, whatever her goals, he had no interest.

Diego moved through the house feeling as though a noose was fastened around his neck. Every step in the castello was like a splint being shoved under his fingernails. Painful memories he wanted to push away, ignore. Run from.

So once he finally made it to his old room—even though that too was pain—he elected to stay there. He did not respond to Amelia’s summons to dinner. He didn’t touch any of the food brought up to him on a tray.

He sent a missive to his lawyers that he expected them at the castello first thing in the morning, then stripped and took the coldest shower he could manage, reminding himself pain was the price. Pain was good. Pain was what he deserved.

In that icy shower, the hard band around his lungs eased. Yes, pain was what he deserved.

He got out of the shower, dried himself off and then stood at the foot of the bed, staring down at the carefully made-up monstrosity. A huge mattress that would be like sleeping on a cloud. Soft bedding that would keep him warm even as he shivered, naked and with hair dripping, in the still air of the room.

One night. He needed only one night to solve this complication. Tomorrow night he would be back in his cabin. Back in his…

It was his punishment, his imprisonment, but it was confronting and confusing that he’d preferthatpain overthispain, as if it hadn’t been a sort of selfless penance at all but hiding from the truth that his family was gone.

He ripped back the covers on a growl. This washerfault. She had jumbled things up. He would not be fooled into thinking soft beds and warm rooms were what he was really afraid of, because that was ludicrous.

One night—to handleher—and then he would go back to what wasright. He would not be lulled into falsehoods that there were things to face here in the lap of luxury.