Page 149 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

Then shelaughed. “Oh, you look so grumpy with me.” She reached across the space between them, gave his shoulder a friendly kind of shove. Which only stoked the flames of his insult higher.

Friendliness. As if they were…siblings or some such. As if she had not watched him walk across the room, naked, with avid eyes and heat in her cheeks.

“I guess easier isn’t the right word,” she amended, attempting to look both contrite and like she was putting that repentance on.

“I should like to see you do half the manual labor required of living the way I do,” he said stiffly, unable to let the insult justsit.

She made a kind of face then, as if she was trying not to laugh.

Laugh.

Athim.

He could only stare at her. How dare she.

But she nodded, looking almost solemn.Almost.“You’re very right. I’m sure it’s physically challenging, and perhaps mentally as well. Not the kind of thing I’d choose to do, for certain.”

Perhaps.“Yet you call it easy,” he reminded her, not sure why he needed her to agree that what he’d done was far harder thanstaying, but he wanted to see her realize she was wrong. He needed her to admit that she did not understand in the slightest.

“Well…” She gave a little shrug, then met his gaze straight on. “It allows you to ignore all this.” She made a gesture toward the tree, the house, who knew what all that gesture encompassed. “You claim these…challenges up on the mountain are your punishment for being responsible for the deaths of your family and my father, but it seems to me it’s just made it very easy for you to forget about all you’ve lost. I mean, the physical labor alone must take a toll that makes itveryeasy to sleep at night.”

He had no words. Shock muted him. Paralyzed him.

She’d called him responsible for the deaths, hadn’t even tried to argue with him this time. Nosupposition is lifeand whatever rot she’d said at the Christmas market. Justresponsible for the deathsthis time around.

She wasright, of course, but he’d expected her continued absolution. Notadmittanceof his crimes.

She was accusing him ofsleeping easydespite this. Of taking theeasyway out.

“You see,Ichose to live with what I lost,” she continued, and this time her solemnness did not seem so put on. “It did not require carrying water from a stream or cosplaying the nineteenth century, no. But it did require a different kind of fortitude. Perhaps fortitude is not what you’re looking for, and that’s fine enough.”

She shrugged again. “It is your choice, of course, what punishments you see fit. My feelings on the matter are rather inconsequential, don’t you think?”

She didn’t wait for him to find an answer. She wafted out of the room, leaving only her scent and infuriating words behind.

And he stood there…seething. Furious. Because…he could not find a way to argue against what she’d accused. He had considered his sacrifice to give up the monetary luxuries his position, his family name, had brought him to be pain, suffering,punishment.

But he had not faced the pain of what he’d lost by beingawayfrom all these reminders. He took a slow look around the dining room, where he’d eaten many a holiday dinner with his family in his youth. He had pushedthisaway.

He did not want to come out and say she wasright, but there was a part of what she was accusing that was notwrong.

If facing this room, Christmas, his memories was pain, and itwaspain, then it was what he should do.

He would stay, let her shove Christmas and memories down his throat until he drowned. Only when the comfort of his luxurious surroundings outweighed the emotional pain of memory would he leave.

She was right. It would have to be this way.

Pain. Pain.Pain.

His due.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ameliawasquitepleased with herself when Diego made no plans to leave the castello the next day. Reverse psychology had worked wonders. She had been afraid it would not work on him, but he was so deep in his complicated grief, guilt and denials that it was clear he hadn’t seen through her.

What a triumph.

She didn’t know that he was avoiding her on purpose all morning, but she suspected he was. What else would he be doing in this big house alone? She considered bringing the lunch tray to him herself, but the last time she’d brought him a meal hung heavy in her mind.