Page 173 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

He frowned at her. “Does it matter? I was a spoiled child. And I needed to grow up. I didn’t then, but I needed to.”

Amelia contemplated how much to give. How much would only make him feel badly. How much would help heal. “It is a parent’s job to set their children off in the world. My father said that to me more than once. That it was hard, but he wanted me to be able to exist on my own two feet. It is thejobof parenting.”

“Then I suppose my parents did their job.”

“Maybe. Sort of. But you see, even when my father was setting me off into the world, he was there as a soft place to land if I made a mistake. He wasthere. He did not simply…stop being a parent.”

“And then he died,” Diego pointed out. The impliedbecause of mehung in the air.

“Yes, he did, but I’d had the soft landing just the same.” Before she lost Diego to his guilt, she grabbed on to the past. “So, what happened after your parents told you to handle his insubordination yourself? You didn’t sack him, obviously.”

“I tried, I suppose. He’d followed me to the castello, waited outside the room where I’d yelled at my parents to fire him. I walked out and there he sat. I was fuming, so I told him that I would no longer need him as my assistant. That I would not tolerate insubordination. Particularly when it came in the form of physical attacks. I was pompous and overwrought, and your father sat there and nodded along like I was right.”

Amelia smiled in spite of herself. That was how he’d gone about winning an argument. Agreeing and agreeing until a person began to realize they were being ridiculous, and Bartolo Baresi was right as usual.

“He stood and shook my hand. Told me he hoped that I took away the lesson he’d wanted to impart. That it was my job to take responsibility for things. That no one else could do it for me. That even my privilege and my parents and my money couldn’t excuse me from basic self-responsibility. He said he could leave, then and there, and I could hire any replacement I saw fit. Or we could consider it a fresh start.”

Amelia wrapped her arm around Diego, squeezed. “You took the fresh start.”

Diego shook his head. “I was being lazy. I didn’t want to hire someone else to handle things like correspondence and arranging travel and the like. I wanted someone to do it, and I didn’t really care who.”

She studied him then. He would remember all the bad… “I wonder, Diego, what made you decide you could not take responsibility for anything except the bad.”

His frown turned into something like dawning horror, but the doorbell that played “Ave Maria” sounded around them.

“That’ll be our first guest.” She rose onto her toes, pressed a kiss to his cheek. “But if you must blame yourself foreverything, I’d consider that this requires blaming yourself for the good too.”

And with that, she left her room, blinking back tears, to greet their first guest.

Diego had known the dinner would be an exercise in annoyance, discomfort and pain. He told himself that was why he’d come. Why he was still here. To see through these terribly painful things. His punishment.

He told himself it had nothing to do with Amelia.

It had everything to do withher.

The realization creeped up on him over the course of the evening. A terrible, choking thing he had to pretend wasn’t there along with all the grief that shrouded every corner like ghosts of Christmases past.

If he wasn’t here forher, he would have walked out of the room the first time someone came up to him to express their sympathies over the loss of his family. He would have walked away from the castello and the idea of taking credit for anythinggoodforever.

Instead, he stayed. Instead, he nodded along to the sympathies, the stories, the memories. Mostly, it could have been worse, he supposed. But it was as if that thought made theworstappear.

Luliana Longo had been a staple at this weekend in his youth, and he’d never understood why his mother insisted on inviting her worst enemy to theirhome. But Mother had thought it gave her the upper hand, to never slight Luliana, no matter how mean and grasping she could be.

“It has beenforever.” She airbrushed kisses across his cheek, then rocked back to study him with sharp eyes he remembered.

She’d liked to pinch young children who got “too loud,” then feigned ignorance if they tattled. Diego hadn’t tattled. He’d gotten even. He and Aurora had gotten back at her by pouring gravy in her purse. No one had ever been able to prove it was them, either, as Luliana had spent the entire weekend making people mad.

The memory brought him joy. And a sarcastic retort. “If only,” Diego replied, but he said it with a smile, so Luliana was frozen there, unsure how to respond.

His smile grew wider.

It was almost as if Luliana saw that smile as a personal affront, or a challenge.

“This brings back so many memories of your dear mother.” She blinked a few times, as if to give off the impression of tears, though her dark eyes remained dry as dust. “And that sister of yours. She was…a free spirit, wasn’t she? I don’t know how you stand it. Being here. Remembering them. Their lives cut so short.”

“You’re here. Remembering them,” Diego pointed out. “I suppose that is what we humans must do.Remember.” It was something Amelia would say, though she would probably mean it.

“Of course,” Luliana replied dully, but then she immediately perked up. “You missed so many of these. Off galivanting. Leaving your poor sister to be one of the few youngsters. She never took it well. It was always the talk of the weekend. What temper tantrum would Aurora throw?”