Page 164 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

‘My demons are my own.’

‘You can’t control them.’

‘I can.’

‘No, not until you face them,’ she said, realizing now it was the truth. ‘Or they will own you. Mind, body and soul. Forever.’

She could almost touch it, see it, standing between them. A real-life demon blocking the connection between them that could be so much stronger if he allowed it to flow freely.

If only he talked to her.

Really talked.

‘No. Aurora, I can’t give you this. I have given you everything else, but I can’t give you this.’ His hands moved, and he stroked her hair. He coiled his fingers in it and tugged, not enough to hurt, but enough for her to feel the tension, the strength, in his hands. ‘I will not put the images that haunt my dreams into your pretty little head. I won’t dump my trauma into your innocent mind. I don’t want you to know it.’

‘But I want to know you, and whatever has happened is a part of you.’

‘It’s not a part you need.’

‘So you’ll keep it all to yourself?’ she asked, undeterred. ‘You’ll continue to lock yourself away? I could have done that,’ she almost shouted, but she didn’t. ‘I could have done what you did. Locked myself away in Arundel Manor with my grief and my guilt. But I didn’t. I am here, with you, becauseIdidn’t.’

‘We are not the same. You don’t know—’

His jaw locked.

She searched his eyes. Those amber-and-green-filled depths. And she wanted to break down the walls surrounding him, but only he could do that.

‘Then tell me,’ she urged. ‘Tell me everything.’

And she waited…

Hadn’t she just revealed her own wound? Her own guilt? Hadn’t they both tried to be something they weren’t, something they shouldn’t have had to be, for other people?

Their stories were so similar and yet so different.

His throat squeezed tightly.

She made it sound so easy to make a different choice. There were no different choices for him. But she was here, so soft, so determined to…help him.

No one had ever wanted to help him. Esther… He was money for her, pure and simple. Over time, she’d grown loyal. Loved him.Maybe.But Aurora… She had no reason to demand this of him, other than that she naively thought this would change something in him.

It wouldn’t change anything. So why not tell her?

It might make her leave.

His stomach tensed. If he didn’t tell her, she might leave too. Either way, it was a chance. A risk he wouldn’t take.

It was only a story…

‘There is no official story of my life before…’ He was unsure where to begin.

‘Tell me the unofficial one.’

‘I have told no one about it,’ he said. ‘No one knows about the before.’

‘No one?’

He shook his head. ‘As far as the world knows, I’m Sebastian Shard, born the moment my agent Esther discovered me on the streets. Already a man.’