Page 184 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

She had not packed everything. Just enough to get her through the first week or two if she stretched things. Once she figured out where she was going, what exactly she was choosing, she would send for her things.

London felt like the best option for a first stop. She had spent her early childhood there with her mother. Maybe there would be bittersweet memories, but she was hardly going to be afraid of that likesomepeople were.

She would need to secure a position, but she was a frugal sort and had been carefully tucking away her salary the past two years. Plus she hadn’t touched what her father had left her.

She would now. She would finish his journals, use his money, say goodbye. She would not be afraid to say goodbye.

He would always be with her, regardless of what she did or didn’t do with the things he’d left behind.

Amelia hefted her bags downstairs and put them by the door so she would be ready when Mondo returned, but before she could decide what to do next, she heard the shout. Concerned, she raced into the kitchen to find the source. Had someone fallen? Was there a fire?

She found Mrs. Moretti in the kitchen, the house’s landline phone at her feet. Apparently the sound Amelia had heard was it clattering onto the ground.

Mrs. Moretti looked as white as a ghost.

“Mrs. Moretti. What is it?”

She picked up the phone she’d dropped and put it back in its cradle. “That was a police officer. Mr. Folliero is in the hospital.”

For a moment, Amelia could not react. The words would not penetrate in a way that made any sense. Luckily, Mrs. Moretti kept talking.

“There was a car accident. The ambulance brought him in this morning, but they could not identify him right away. They finally did and… And you must go.” Mrs. Moretti crossed to her, grabbed her hands and squeezed hard enough to break through the fog of shock. “You must go at once,” she insisted.

Go. Go. She was supposed togo, not run back to him.

Car accident. Hospital.

“Is he… Will he…”

Mrs. Moretti shook her head, eyes filling with tears. “They will not give me his prognosis. They were looking for next of kin, and he has none. But you… You’ll know what to do, Amelia. Won’t you?”

Amelia felt like her mind was a scramble, but she’d done this before.

Oh God.The thought of Diego ending up like the rest of the Follieros curdled her stomach.

She pushed the end result of the past out of her mind. She’d been the one to contact Diego, to handle things, back then. She could handle this. She would have to handle this.

There was no one else.

“Yes. Yes, I’ll know what to do.” But she didn’t move, because… “How will I get there?”

Mrs. Moretti threw her hands in the air, hustled over to a closet and then pulled out a purse. She pawed through it before retrieving keys. “Here. You will take my car.”

Amelia looked down at the keys Mrs. Moretti shoved into her hand. She knew where the hospital was. And his being at a hospital was a good sign. A positive sign.

Her father and the Follieros had never made it there. So there had to be some semblance of a living body to try to save. Diego had to be alive. He had to…survive.

She didn’t have to go be there by his side while he did it, though. Even if he had no one, that was his own choice.

She couldn’t accept that though, even if part of her wanted to. Maybe he’d chosen his pain and his guilt and his punishment, but it would be her choice to abandon him now. A choice made in direct opposition to whatshewanted. A choice that would remind her too much of the way she hadn’t spoken up to her father when he’d left the last time.

She wouldn’t beg Diego to love her. She would go on with her plans to leave.

But first, she had to be certain he was alive.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Diegofelthimselfswim through a strange, cloudy mist. He did not hear any voices, and that was both pain and comfort. He wasn’t hallucinating anymore, but for a brief few moments, it had felt as though his family had returned.