Page 186 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

“Ghosts cannot make phone calls, Amelia,” he said, sounding very certain…even though he felt not at all certain. “Someone saw it from far away. That’s the only reasonable explanation.”

But he looked at her gray eyes and knew she did not chalk it up to anything reasonable. To Amelia, some afterlife interference had saved him. A guardian angel. Or angels.

He didn’t know if he would ever be able to fully believe that, but what he did believe in this moment was that he had been given a second chance.

One not afforded to his parents, his sister, Bartolo. And he could blame himself for that—it would be soeasyto blame himself for that—but instead he let it go.

Whatever selfish acts he had done that might have caused damage, he had not been the reason for their deaths.

“Amelia, you must let me… There is so much to discuss.”

She looked down at her lap. “Diego, I am not here for any discussion.”

“Amelia.”

“I’m going to handle the logistics of getting you home, hiring you a nurse, of course, until you are well enough to go to your cabin. I won’t leave you in the lurch laid up in a hospital bed, but you should know, I plan to quit the moment I have secured all you need to get by.”

“Amelia.”

She did not look up. She kept her eyes decidedly downcast. “We both have made our choices. So now we must live with the consequences.”

“Am I not allowed to change my choices?”

She so badly wanted to cry. Bury her head in his chest and feel the rise and fall of it andsob. He was so injured, but alive.

Alive. That was all that mattered. He had survived. He would survive.

Am I not allowed to change my choices?

Was it weakness to say yes? Weakness to say no?

A tear tripped over and onto her cheek, though she tried desperately to keep them in check. It fell from her cheek onto her hands, clasped in her lap.

“Amelia.” His voice was a pained rasp. “Look at me,tesoro.”

She did not want to. Partly because she hated seeing his face. Swollen and bandaged. There was so much damage to him. He could have so easily lost his life, andthen what? What would she have done or felt?

It didn’t do to deal inwhat ifs, though. She knew that all too well.

She blinked back the tears still in her eyes, lifted her face to look at him.

“I know it was a dream,” he said, his voice that horrible rasp, but his eyes were luminous and dark. Determined. “A hallucination. It could only have been. But your father’s voice… He said I could not leave you like he did.”

Anger sparked inside of all thispain. “Well, by all means, change your mind over a hallucination.” She nearly got up and left right then, but he continued to speak.

“No,tesoro, you misunderstand me,” he said, a laugh to his voice. Alaugh. “This voice that sounded as though your father was talking to me was full of guilt, and why should he be guilty? I caused his crash.”

“I am done with your guilt, Diego.” She got to her feet this time. If she stayed, she might be swayed by him, and she could not let herself be. He’d had some sort of near-death experience, but he still didn’t understand.

“Let me finish, Amelia.” He reached out, and somehow, even with the hospital bed and machines andgraveinjury, his hand grasped her arm.

“Please. Please stay. Listen. Perhaps I do not deserve it. Perhaps I was always right and there was never any good meant for me—butplease, let me finish.”

He was so desperate, and he was injured.

Am I not allowed to change my choices?

It didn’t matter if he changed them, did it? Didn’t she have to make her own?