Page 91 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

CHAPTER SIX

Amelia knew it had been a Folliero tradition to visit the Christmas markets in the towns surrounding Castello di Natale in the weeks leading up to Christmas Day, so she would force Diego into reliving such traditions for as long as she could force him to do anything.

She was a little surprised he hadn’t put up more of a fight, especially as furious as he’d looked after the meeting with his lawyers.

He’d no doubt found out what she already knew—though he could get rid of her or strip certain powers from her, because he had instilled so much responsibility and power to act in his stead, it would take time to untangle her completely.

Especially if he didn’t want to do the work she’d have to leave behind if he fired her.

This gave her some satisfaction, and it was something she tried to hold on to as she found her gaze drifting to him. To places she should not look. To things she should not remember existed under the fabric of his clothes.

She carefully folded her hands in her lap and chastised herself to keep her eyes there. She hoped that his meeting had not gone well this morning, and it meant she could stay in this position, well, forever, but at the very least with enough time to get through to him.

So she had to use her time wisely. Today, they would spend the afternoon at the Christmas market. Tonight, they would have a pleasant, homey meal. Together.

Whether he liked it or not.

This entire endeavor was about life. About Christmas, which was about togetherness.

Since he had no family to speak of, no friends since the accident, she was about all he had left.

So she would be there and do everything she could to help a good if misguided, man find himself and wade out of his debilitating and self-harming grief.

For a brief moment, it dawned on her that she was in the same position. He was about all she had left. If he did not spend Christmas with her, she would be…alone.

But she was happy, for the most part. She talked to people. She did not self-punish. So it was not the same. She had celebrated the last two Christmases—with tears, yes, but she hadn’t hidden away from her grief.

The car came to a stop, and Amelia lifted her gaze to the window. The entrance to the market was a grand wrought-iron archway decorated with greenery, bright red bows, golden bells and a dusting of snow that hadn’t accumulated on the ground.

Beyond that, stalls stretched out, decorated in bright colors. Greenery and red bows littered every available decorative space while people moved together, shopping and taking it all in. The mountains loomed, beautiful and awe inspiring, in the distance.

Amelia couldn’t stop a smile. It was stunning. It was perfect. She pushed her door open and stepped out into the cold, the sounds of carolers somewhere in the crowd immediately wafting through the air.

She waved off the driver and skirted the vehicle to open Diego’s door for him. He got out of the car like an old man, careful of any move that might break a brittle bone. His scowl was as dangerous as any blade as he took in the festive scene around them.

Stalls of crafts and homemade treats. Scents of cinnamon and vanilla and roasting nuts filled the air. Christmas music flitted around them—from string quartets, carolers and even speakers at some of the stations. It was a beautiful cacophony of color and noise and life .

“What are you attempting to accomplish with this?” he demanded—and it was a demand, all sharp and angry, but she heard something under all that. Saw something under all his fury.

Hurt. Pain. So much damn pain.

Yes, sometimes one had to hurt in order to find healing. He would, no doubt, shy away from some of that. Fight it. This would not be easy.

And she would not give up. For her father’s caregiving legacy.

Despite an internal hesitation, she reached out and tucked her arm into his. His heat enveloped her, and she could smell something piney and fresh coming from him , not the scene around them. All too clearly she could remember what he looked like completely naked, moving across his room.

She pushed the memory away and pulled him forward into the melee. And she told him the truth, in as much effort to remind herself why she was here and shouldn’t be thinking about him naked as it was to have him possibly understand.

“My father thought you were a good man but that you struggled to see that in yourself. I think remembering who you are might allow you to see the punishment you’ve doled out to yourself is pointless.”

“You’re wrong on just about every level,” he replied. “And I cannot fathom why some tacky market would change my perception of anything.”

“Then there is no danger in walking around the market, Diego,” she returned brightly, still pulling him forward. “No need to fear it.”

He stopped dead in his tracks, causing the people behind to bump into the both of them. They expressed outrage, until Diego whipped his furious gaze toward them. They lowered their eyes, mumbled apologies and skittered off.

His dark gaze moved to her. She shivered underneath her coat, and definitely not because of the cold air. He was angry, and it didn’t scare her. It excited her, and she did not know what to do with that at all .

“Fear?” he repeated, very carefully.

She had to swallow to speak, but she certainly wasn’t going to let this awareness of him as a man stop her from speaking her mind. Stop her from her goal. “Yes, I think you’re afraid of anything that might remind you that you’re alive.”

She led him to a stall that sold Christmas treats, trying to cast back to think if she’d ever known what Diego might favor in terms of dessert.

“Alive,” he repeated in the same stunned, offended kind of manner, but he allowed himself to be tugged along. “You do realize your father is also dead because of me?”

So many things about that sentence caused her pain.

The finality of the word dead . A reminder that she would not return to the castello and find her father waiting for her.

But as big as all that hurt was, she also felt a deep, sharp edge of sympathy for what must be going on in Diego’s mind to blame himself so fully, so simply. “Diego, fault is complicated.”

“You’ll find in this case it is not. There is no arguing it away. They waited for me. I let them. I had no intention of coming. The wait was pointless and allowed the weather to turn, thus causing the plane to crash.”

He delivered this all dispassionately, but underneath that layer of stoicism, of distance, was the pain that caused this self-recrimination. Amelia’s heart ached for him, but she knew that would be rejected, so she sought to deal in facts and reality over feelings.

“Who’s to say they would have survived if you had been there and on time?”

He looked at her as if she’d taken full leave of her senses. As if suggesting he might not be the sole fault of the accident was a personal attack. “Every report on the matter.”

“Reports aren’t reality. They’re supposition.

” She said this with an easy shrug, because it was all tied up in a fact she’d had to learn at a young age.

“ Life is supposition. You can choose this one—the one that absolves you from living, but I will not absolve you of anything while you hide away in your own self-pity.”

“Pity?” Again his tone was all offended fury.

But he wouldn’t be offended if some part of him didn’t know it was true.

“Yes, pity.” She gestured to the man behind the counter, handed him the correct change in exchange for a slice of pandoro .

She held it out to Diego, powdered sugar dusting off the paper that held the slice and onto her coat sleeve. She paid it no mind.

“Eat,” she instructed.

When he did nothing—not take the offered cake, not refuse, simply stood there staring at her as if he couldn’t find the words to suitably mark his anger—she shook the cake at him again and adopted her best scolding tone.

“Don’t be petulant. Take a bite.”

Something in his expression changed at the word bite .

Some of that stiffness left his shoulders.

His sharp gaze seemed to…smolder. Like it had this morning, reminding her of what she’d witnessed.

Against her own will, her eyes drifted down before she shook herself into maintaining eye contact with him.

But this wasn’t better. He leaned forward then, slowly, his gaze never leaving hers. Even as he bent closer, and closer, until his mouth closed over the edge of the cake and he took a bite while she held it.

She felt as if she’d been struck by lightning. How was that sensual? How did that have an effect on her? She did not know. Only that it was far too easy to now imagine his mouth closing over some part of her.

Electricity. It shot from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, until she felt as though she vibrated from some inner power she could not name. She throbbed, everywhere. Deep, deep in her core, at her neck, between her legs.

“Be careful, tesoro .” She could feel his warm breath against her cheek. She could feel her own breath struggle to inhale, exhale. “Should you bring me back to life, you might not like what I would like a bite out of.”

The problem was, she thought she’d like it very much.

Nothing in this whole ordeal was what Diego might have anticipated. That Amelia would somehow be able to lure him off the mountain, that his lawyers would be wholly unhelpful, that he would find himself in the throes of desire when it came to Bartolo’s daughter.

His assistant .

He thought all these things would have been easy enough to handle if she behaved sensibly, but she was affected by him, and she did not seem to have the sophistication required to hide it.