Page 176 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

Fate had slammed them together when the probability of them ever meeting was not only improbable, but it should have been impossible.

And yet it had happened.

They had met.

They had recognised each other.

He knew her.

He’d always known her.

But this she must do.

Confess.

‘Come to bed, Emmy.’

It would be so easy to pretend. To walk inside their suite and follow him to bed. To climb inside the sheets and wrap her body around his. It would be so easy to shut her eyes and claim one more night. To keep him in the dark. To shield him from the truth that would end them.

‘I can’t,’ she croaked, denying him, denying herself, because if she did, if she stayed, if she went to bed with him, she knew what the jail sentence would be.

She’d lived it. Understood exactly what she’d be signing up for. And she’d only fall deeper for him. Get deeper into a situation that would echo her mum’s. And she knew how that ended.

So she couldn’t follow him. She couldn’t pretend even for one more night. Because if she did, it would be worse than loving him. It would be knowing she loved him. It would be hope that one day he’d love her back. And hope killed.

If she followed him, if she waited for his love, it would kill her.

She wasn’t naive anymore. She’d left him because she’d been afraid of her developing emotional attachment to him.But now...She understood him better than she ever had in their marriage. Understood herself more. And what she’d tried to stomp out and forget the day she’d left Mayfair had grown beyond attachment.

She was his worst nightmare come true.

She was emotionally attached.

She was his soulmate.

She was in love with him.

And she’d been fighting it for months. She’d still been fighting it when he’d come for her in the hospital. She’d clung to her younger self. That naive young woman who was certain she wanted nothing like that for herself. She’d had rules in place. Knew what love did to a person.

And even without her memory, she’d needed a way out too. In case she’d needed it again.

She’d demanded a divorce if she wanted one, as he’d demanded a get-out clause in their marriage contract. He’d needed it as much as she had. Because his wounds ran as deep as hers, didn’t they? And she didn’t know how to mend him. Mend herself. Mend them.

She knew what he wanted. He’d never lied to her. Never failed to deliver what he’d promised. But the goal posts had changed. She was changing them. She wanted something different.

She wanted a real marriage.

‘Why not?’ he asked, his eyes pinning her and penetrating hers deeply. ‘Why can’t you come to bed with me?’

Her time was up.

The end was coming and she would summon it with her confession.

Unless this wasn’t the end of them.

It was a beginning.

She should have used her words three months ago. But she had been afraid. Afraid his needs would not align with hers.