Page 225 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8

‘I’ll be in the middle of a court case.’

It wasn’t the answer she wanted. She wanted him to understand how much it hurt that her parents had cancelled visiting her on her birthday, for him to fix it, to tell her not to worry.

To tell her they were about more than sex.

But, as charming as he could be, he didn’t step in—and he didn’t wave a wand and say,Susie, you shall go to the ball.

‘What are you saying here, Susie? If I ask you to the ball then I get to come upstairs?’

Susie flushed. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘No...’ He shook his head. ‘You want to use me in whatever strange competition you have going on with your sisters.’

‘I might be in competition with them,’ Susie retorted, ‘but I’d rather that than throw in the towel as you have with Sev.’

Dante abruptly turned and walked off.

And, as he did so he raised his arm as if he was doing just that—throwing in the towel on them.

Damn...

Susie ran up the stairs and wanted to immediately run down again. Instead she sat on the couch and buried her head in her hands.

Oh, she knew she’d handled that terribly. But the shock of seeing him two seconds after she’d realised she might be pregnant...

‘Susie?’

It was Juliet, carrying two boxes of pizza, with Louanna behind her.

‘You missed all the fun,’ Louanna said.

‘It wasn’t fun—it was awful,’ Juliet groaned.

‘The Casadio brothers...’ Louanna said with glee.

Susie’s heart sank. ‘What happened?’ she asked.

‘Mimi sang“O Mio Babbino Caro”,’ Juliet said, sinking down on a chair. ‘You should have seen the look that passed between the two brothers.’

‘And...?’

‘Apparently it was played at the older brother’s wedding,’ Louanna explained. ‘And I think it might have been played at the wife’s funeral too. I thought Sev was about to explode... Then apparently there was a fight on the walls.’

‘No...’ Juliet shook her head, and told her the gossip she’d heard while getting pizza.

Only Susie wasn’t listening.

She closed her eyes in wretched regret for her handling of things.

Dante really had wanted to talk.

And kiss...

It was the worst Valentine’s Day ever.

CHAPTER TEN

‘HOWWASCLASS?’ Juliet asked Susie when she came in on Monday.