Page 294 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8

‘You can’t say this to me, Enzo. It doesn’t change anything. I trust you, but you won’t ever trust anyone.’

She watched him look into her eyes. The thumb caressing her cheek stopped.

When he spoke, his voice was low. Scraped raw. She heard a vulnerability in it that she hadn’t heard in him before. The master of the world, the most powerful man she would ever know, and he cast away all those layers of defence so she could see him. And before she knew it, she was reaching for him, taking his face in her hands.

‘You were right when you said my heart is scarred. It was, but, Charlotte, you healed it. Not in Italy, but over these past two years. As Celeste, then as yourself. By being someone I could trust.’

‘Do you trust me?’ She tried to control the hope that flared in her gut.

‘Completely.’ He smiled then—small and gentle, but the purity of it was like gazing at the sun. Her sun. ‘It took me a while to realise it, but I may have always trusted you. I leaned on you, Charlotte. I trusted your opinions even when you tried to make them seem like my own.’

She felt her cheeks redden. She’d always thought that she had done a good job at hiding her opinions in his, but he had seen through her. He saw over her walls. She wasn’t lost in a maze any more. She didn’t want to put up barriers between them. Except one still existed. The reason she was marrying Grant at all.

‘And I will continue to do so for the rest of our lives,’ Enzo went on. ‘My only hope is that you learn to lean on me too.’

But she couldn’t. Not when the marriage still had to happen.

‘Enzo—’

‘You were wrong about one thing.’

‘What’s that?’

He took her hands and placed them on his neck. ‘You said I see you as a possession, but I need you to know that I don’t. I just wanted to hold on to you,tesoro. I need you, but I went about it all wrong.’

Charlotte looked at her hands on his neck, remembering his words.

This space is reserved.

His vulnerability. What he’d told her. This was Enzo submitting to her. One of the most powerful men in the world submitting toher. A woman who ran. Who feared. And Enzo had been doing this all along. Offering her control. Telling her it was okay to take charge. Unlike her father and Grant, who tried to lead her by the neck. Showing her every chance they got that they owned her. And she had compared Enzo to them.

Guilt roiled in her belly. She’d been angry, and she should have never said it.

‘I was jealous at the ball,’ Enzo said. ‘I hated the thought of anyone else getting to be with you. Seeing you the way I do. I just wanted you. Please, Charlotte. Please give me a chance to prove how much I love you.’

Her father’s threat rang in her head. ‘I love you too, Enzo! With my whole heart. But it doesn’t change anything. I can’t be with you. They will never let us be happy.’ Everything she could ever want was right there before her, but she couldn’t reach for it. The leash her father placed on her wouldn’t allow it. She was breaking on the inside. So much worse than when she walked away, because now she knew how much Enzo loved her. Now she could see a future where they could grow old together. Dangling before her. A cruel taunt.

‘Tesoro, how did they threaten you?’ The passion and love in his voice were instantly turning into cold anger.

Unable to stem the flow, she let tear after tear fall into the layers of her wedding dress. Her voice cracked, her throat raw. ‘Not me,’ she managed.

Understanding lit Enzo’s features. ‘Your father threatened me.’

Charlotte nodded. ‘And De Luca and Co.’ She sniffed and tried desperately to take a breath so she could speak again. ‘I couldn’t let it happen, Enzo. I can’t be the reason you and the company suffer.’

Before she even knew what was happening, Enzo was unbuckling her and pulling her onto his lap. She barely noticed the cramped confines of the seat, because right here was where she longed to be. With Enzo. In his arms.

‘I don’t deserve you,’ he whispered as he kissed her. Hard and bruising. As if he couldn’t keep what he felt within himself any longer. Charlotte revelled in it, returning his passion, pulling him closer. Never wanting to let go. Kissing the man she loved in the dress she wore to tie herself to another. She felt Enzo’s nails scrape against the fabric, wanting to rip it off her as much as she wanted him to.

She didn’t want this kiss to end. She wanted to be here with him for ever, but he was pulling away. His hand moved up to her veil as he looked into her eyes and pulled it free, tossing it aside.

‘You never have to go back,’ he said, punctuating every word by removing another pin holding her hair up. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders, releasing the pressure on her scalp. And she knew right then, from the confidence in his voice, that Enzo had found a way to neutralise her father. And whatever it was, Gordon wasn’t going to like it.

‘What’s going to happen to my father?’

‘Let’s just say Gordon and Grant are going to have some very extensive legal trouble for a long time after everything I uncovered. And even if they somehow find a way around that, which I doubt, there isn’t a single bank that will touch them after this.’

That was the power Enzo had. Centuries of it at the tips of his fingers.