Page 203 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

‘So we are,’ he agreed, before dropping his head and finding her lips, kissing her as though it was what he’d been born to do, kissing her so that her breath burned in her lungs and her whole body exploded in an electric, binding flash of light. Kissing her at the same moment his fingers brushed the silk of her underpants and found her most sensitive cluster of nerves, teasing her there through the fabric; teasing her until she was moaning into their kiss, and her body was awash with a strange, overwhelmingly heady rush of adrenaline.

The fact they were in a bar no longer mattered—Jane couldn’t have saidwhereshe was in space, time or life. She knew only that if he stopped touching her, she might scream. Fortunately, he didn’t stop touching her, nor kissing her. She writhed her hips, eager for more, wanting him to really touch her, no longer conscious of who she was, who he was, nor what she was supposed to be doing. He moved his kiss lower, to her neck, and then held her tight against him as his fingers began to brush faster. The waves that had been building inside her hit a peak and crescendoed, and then, because she’d lost all sense of time and place, she moaned loudly, so he kissed her again to swallow the sound, kissed her as she moaned into his mouth, as sanity and pleasure seemed to burst apart, forming a thousand droplets inside her. Making her whimper, making her weak, when she’d sworn she’d never be weak again.

She pulled away from him quickly, staring at him with a look of absolute shock.

He couldn’t blame her.

When was the last time he’d done anything like that? Years. Years and years. Maybe as a younger man, he might have given in to the temptations of his body and found a woman who was as driven by a need for pleasure as he was, enough to throw caution—and geography—to the wind, but Zeus was thirty-three now, and in far greater control of himself.

Or so he’d thought.

But one look at Jane…hell, he didn’t even know her last name. No matter. One look at her across the room and something had slipped into place inside him; and it didn’t take a genius to work out why.

The marriage ultimatum.

Zeus was not a man who enjoyed ultimatums, nor did he relish the prospect of marriage, particularly not with the woman—or the sort of woman—he had in mind. So Jane, whoever she was, was simply an act of rebellion, of acting out while he was still free to do so. A last hurrah, so to speak, before he turned his mind to what he absolutely had to do.

‘Give me your number,’ he demanded, pulling his phone from his pocket and putting it on the tabletop. Her cheeks were flushed, and her fingers shook. She glanced around uncertainly. Shy. Like a sweet little innocent, when he suspected the opposite was true.

But she nodded then and quickly tapped something into his phone. He took it and for good measure, pressed the call button. He heard hers begin to trill and hung up, satisfied that he would see her again.

‘I—that—I don’t—’

He pressed a finger to her lips, the same finger that had just been so achingly close to her sex. ‘Don’t explain. I felt it, too.’

Her eyes widened and her tongue darted out to lick her lips but instead connected with his finger. His gut felt as though it were filled with stones. Suddenly, the date he’d organised in response to his father’s revelation was the very last thing he wanted to do.

‘It’s just not—’

‘No explanations,’ he insisted. ‘I’ll call you.’ And because he suspected that if he were to remain for even five more seconds, he would lose the willpower to walk away altogether, he stood and left in one swift motion, refusing to look back even when he desperately wanted to.

He had more important things to consider than indulging his suddenly voracious libido. Like getting married just as soon as he could possibly arrange it.

CHAPTER THREE

Rightupuntilan hour ago, Zeus had decided that Philomena was the perfect contender to be his bride. She was smart, incredibly ambitious, and they’d known one another for more than ten years, so he knew he could trust her. She had dated a couple of men, for around a year each, but as far as he knew, had never been seriously involved with anyone, which made him wonder if she was as averse to commitment as he was.

Most importantly, she was available and, going by her dress, interested enough to want to impress him. Which made it impossibly frustrating that he couldn’t get Jane out of his mind.

Even here, sitting across from Philomena, listening to her talk about her work at a law firm a few blocks away, he could barely focus on what she was saying—and a lack of focus wasnotsomething Zeus generally experienced any issues with. On the contrary, he had a laser-like intensity when he turned his mind to something. And what he’d decided to turn his mind to was the imperative to marry, and fast.

Jane was a tourist. Someone he didn’t know the last thing about—including her surname. So what if one look at her made his whole body aflame with desire? He’d had great sex before. Surely, he wasn’t going to be led around by a certain part of his anatomy that should have known better. Not now, when the stakes were so high.

He couldn’t afford to get distracted. He couldn’t afford to be seen around town with Jane, if he wanted someone like Philomena to take him seriously. Which meant he should do the smart thing and delete her number off his phone. As in, an hour ago. He should have deleted it as soon as he walked out of the bar, not stared at it the entire car ride over here, as if willingherto callhim.

And what if she had? Would he have ditched Philomena and the carefully laid plans for his future, all to spend one night with Jane?

He was at a juncture in his life, a turning point. Everything he had grown up to believe was his by rights was now in jeopardy. The business wasn’t just a business to him, but rather, a home.

When he was nine years old and his mother received her first cancer diagnosis, he’d gone to the office with his grandfather, sat opposite him while he worked. When he was thirteen and the cancer came back, it was his father he shadowed in the holidays, learning, focusing on the business, understanding every aspect of it because it was better than thinking about his pale, slim mother and the light that was fading from her. When he was eighteen, and his mother had been in a brief period of remission, it was Zeus who took over the company for six months, while his parents went on holiday together. At twenty-one, when a new diagnosis had come, he did the same thing, allowing his father to support her through the frequent hospitalisations. The business was his sanctuary; it washis.Watching his mother’s illness return time and time again had left him with an unshakable sense that human relationships were frail and untrustworthy, that the greatest love of all could be taken away at any point.

And yet, in the midst of that, he had known he would always have the company. He would always be the sole Papandreo heir. Ensuring that remained the case was what he should have been focused on, and only that. Not Jane.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and he saw her as she’d been at the bar. He’d been drawn to her almost the moment he’d stepped across the threshold. And who could blame him? She had the kind of beauty men went to war for, with that tumbling, lustrous blond hair and wide, curved mouth, full lips that had been painted a seductive red, wide, pretty blue eyes, high cheekbones and deep dimples when she smiled. As for her figure—

‘Zeus?’ Philomena reached over and put a hand on his. ‘Are you well?’

He stared down at Philomena’s hand and forced himself to concentrate. Too much was riding on him getting married quickly to be distracted now.