Page 202 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8

How did they do this?

Certainly he didn’t want her to be endlessly here waiting for occasional visits, but nor did he want her whirring her way through the air to Milan.

For what?

They were too close for comfort. What had felt right a moment ago now felt unfamiliar and unwelcome, and he knew he was too dark for her light.

He could hear her talking, apologising for her feelings. Oh, she didn’t allude to the question begged in the throes of lovemaking instead admitting to being embarrassed by her earlier tears and what she’d revealed about being jealous.

‘So there you have it,’ Susie said. ‘The fatal flaw...my Achilles’ heel.’

‘It’s really not that bad,’ Dante said.

And then, as she often did, Susie practised her Italian.

‘Qual è l’azione peggiore che hai impegnato?’

Dante frowned as he deciphered her dreadful pronunciation. ‘What is the worst action I have ever committed?’

He started to smile—he knew she’d got the words wrong, and had been trying to get him to share—but then his smile faded.

He reached down to rescue one of the pillows that had been scattered by their lovemaking, but then he put his hand behind his head and lay flat.

He was tired of carrying his secret.

Possibly he knew his truth would deal with things and push her away for ever.

How?

Dante knew how to end them—‘I slept with my brother’s wife.’

Susie looked over at him. Watched as Dante stared at the ceiling...

‘Is that why...?’

She didn’t finish the question. Of course that would have caused the brothers to fall out.

But then Dante gave a small shake of his head. ‘Sev doesn’t know.’

For a second she wanted to sit up, to hug her knees, to resist looking at him—for surely there were few betrayals worse than that? But she was held by the agony in his eyes, and she knew that whatever her own feelings were on the subject he surely didn’t need to hear them.

She didn’t doubt Dante was already burning in his own guilty hell.

She had never been entrusted with something so big, and she touched his arm, not knowing what to say, but trying. ‘Was it...?’ She tried to keep the shaky note from her voice. ‘Did it go on for long?’

‘It was once.’

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and Susie thought he was trying to banish the memory rather than summon it.

‘I was in Milan, a student. I’d just passed my first-year exams.’

She frowned, trying to get her head around things. Surely Dante had been at the end of his studies when Sev had got married? She stayed silent rather than speak.

‘Even back then I never got involved with anyone who came from here. But she was in Milan for a visit and we met up.’ His laugh was both dark and resigned. ‘We were nineteen—you know what it’s like...’

Susie had had no idea whatanythingwas like at nineteen—at least not on the dating front. She’d been awkward in herself, working shifts in a kitchen bar and...

Hiding, Susie realised.