Page 126 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

Of course, he needed the money. But that bag…

His chest tightened at the memory. It had been everything he didn’t want. Didn’t deserve. But desperately needed.

Esther had come back again a week later. This time with food. She had intrigued him, and so he had let her stay. He’d watched her as she’d placed a meal in front of him. A cheap white takeaway bag filled with hot foil tins. She’d eaten hers beside him, silently, and left.

She did that every day, even though he never ate with her. He simply watched her eat with her little white plastic fork, sitting comfortably insidehistent. And he wouldn’t have admitted it then, probably not even now, but he had come to crave her company.

On the tenth day, she asked him a question. Several.Why hadn’t he touched the money? Why hadn’t he used it to move into a hotel or a hostel? But he hadn’t answered her questions, any of them. It was not for her to know that he deserved his concrete bed. Except her final question.

She’d asked him who he painted for, if not for people like her. If not for the money.

Sebastian had told her the truth.

He painted for those who needed to see hope—to feel it. He made art for the people who felt invisible.

She’d promised, if he worked with her, she’d help him to bring his art, and the proceeds, to those who needed it.

And so they had begun.

Esther Mahoti, renowned agent, had plucked a homeless nobody from the streets, and he had risen to heights unseen before by any modern-day artist.

‘If you’re planning to do any more,’ she said now, ‘I’ll protect them.’

And he knew she would. Esther kept her promises. She had every day for fifteen years.

He did not love her. He loved nothing anymore. But he liked her. Respected her.

‘I will stop,’ he said, and closed the paper.

‘Sebastian…’

He heard nothing else.

His gaze locked on the small article on the left-hand side of the front page of the newspaper.

He scanned the blurred photo. Noted the way the beige collar of the woman’s coat was turned up. The way her hair was in a high bun, wisps of black having broken free and kissing her cheeks. One hand was raised to tuck them away, her lips thinned, as her eyes stared at the photographer.

His gaze fell to her other hand, pressed to the rounded swell of her stomach bulging beneath the white shirt she wore.

His lungs forgot to inhale.

It was her. The woman who had made him want. Made him ache until he’d forgotten every vow he’d made to himself.

He read the title:Heiress, Lady Aurora Arundel: pregnant. Who’s the father?

Sebastian closed his eyes.

The flashback that burst in his mind was a physical assault on his senses. His blood heated instantly. The memory was visceral. The scent of her, the softness of her against him, her tightness ripping a short-lived ecstasy from his body.

He opened his eyes and found her picture again. Her big, wide eyes…

Then his blood ran cold.

Hewas the father.

His mind roared with the truth, the certainty. They had both been virgins. They had not used protection.

Of course, it was possible that he wasn’t the father. It had been six months. She could have met someone—