Page 25 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8

She didn’t need to follow his gaze to know what he saw. Aching breasts with nipples standing to attention, making her wonder if she’d lost her mind by depriving them of the sweet torture they craved. A moan was furiously flattened in her throat as she prayed for the hard throbbing between her legs to cease.

‘Tell that to your body,mi precioso.’

She pried herself from the wall she would forever associate with the most wanton act of her life to date, and crossed her arms over her chest. ‘It’s just a chemical reaction, which I stopped because I came to my senses. Let’s not blow anything out of proportion.I’d rather crawl over hot lava than let you touch me again.’

He sucked in a slow breath and did the opposite of what she’d expected. He smiled. Genuine mirth, dissolving the fearsome expression and causing her heart to lurch, her jaw to gape, before she rapidly resisted the betraying action. Because evidently, a smiling Jario wastransformative.

He didn’t quit being dark and formidable. But when brooding gave way to glinting eyes and heart-stopping, softer lips, he was lethally compelling...addictiveto watch. With the very dangerous side effect of yearning to keep that experiencing it.

‘Fighting words. I look forward to watching you take them back with the dirtiest apology I can conjure up.’

She groaned inwardly and shook herself free of this need to keep throwing gauntlets at him. She couldn’t remain at this crossroads of her life forever, kissing, challenging and prevaricating with the very man who held the key to swinging it one way or the other. ‘My question.’ She blurted it out, the prompt far overdue.

His smile faded so swiftly that if her heart hadn’t still been racing wildly, she would’ve doubted it’d ever happened.

But she didn’t allow that to deflect her.

Not even when he visibly gritted his teeth and said, ‘Ask it.’

‘Why are you hell-bent on destroying my father?’ she demanded in a heartbeat, her voice low but firm enough for him to hear it.

A single step brought him back to her, his marble-hard frame filling her vision as he leaned close, intent on her not missing a syllable of his answer. ‘Because he was directly responsible for the death of mine.’

‘You can’t just walk away after that!’

Her father was deeply flawed, prone to exaggeration, outright lies and riddled with an overblown ego. But he wasn’t amurderer.

Horror and disbelief speckled her frantic words. Admittedly, his answer had frozen her solid for several seconds until the knowledge that he didn’t intend to elaborate—dear God, was he seriously not going to?—sent her after him. The buzzing in her head grew louder as Jario continued to ignore her.

She shot past him, then pivoted to stop directly in his path. ‘I’m talking to you!’

He attempted to freeze her out with his clinically detached stare but Willow saw beneath it to the faded pallor and the shadows leaping in his eyes. It struck her that she’d forced his hand by insisting he reopen this particular can. But...hadn’t he provoked this outcome by ignoring her initial attempts at contacting him?

‘Jario—’

She gasped as he seized her waist, picked her up and set her aside and carried on walking.

‘The agreement was one question. I’ve answered it.’

‘You’re kidding me, right?’

His ominous silence and rigid, unbroken stride said he was not. Whether by design or pure coincidence, one of his security guards strolled into the hall. A nod from Jario, and the burly guard was blocking her way.

Heart dropping, Willow forced herself to stop before she collided with the meat mountain. ‘What are you doing? Wait! Jar—Mr Tagarro!’

‘Miss, your break is over, I believe?’

The combination of the game, the kiss and the shocking revelation leached the fight from her. She sagged against the wall, battling frustrated tears.

She didn’t allow them to fall.

The last thing she’d do was give that insufferable man the satisfaction. Even if his accusation triggered memories of her father’s return from that business trip a changed man, with the rabid need to succeed and the demons that had chased him into the bottle.

Was he? Could...?

No!

The moment she finished her last task from Ripley—a surprisingly easy one of collating RSVPs for an upcoming dinner party on the yacht—she tracked Jario down to the topmost deck.