Page 31 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8
‘It worsened. They started rowing. A lot. They were close before...whatever happened occurred. He started drinking heavily, keeping things from her...from us, and she...sought attention elsewhere.’
‘And you? How did that affect you?’ Somewhere deep inside him, that kernel of unwelcome concern grew larger.
She shrugged. ‘I fell through the cracks caused by the fractures, I guess.’ The flippant answer didn’t ring true.
But he couldn’t summon the energy to gloat. Not when his senses had gone hyper-alert. ‘Did you ever wonder what had triggered the change?’ he asked, even though he didn’t need to. They both knew.
Paul Chatterton had returned home from cruelly betraying his partner and partner’s child and hadn’t quite been able to pick up the pieces of his life. Had the cosmos sought to right the wrong for him?
Not thoroughly enough. If life was fair, his father would still be here.
She exhaled. ‘I assume that business trip was the one involving your father?’
‘Sí.’The confirmation seared him to the soul.
And in that moment, he grudgingly accepted that while it’d appeased him for a while to visit her father’s punishment on her, it now left him hollow and unsatisfied.Because she’d suffered, too?
‘Do you want me to stop?’
Did he want her to leave? To dwell on this new detail, dissect it until he was brimming with more grief and bitterness? When he’d tasted the absence of it with her presence and her touch?
‘No. Stay. Continue. If you want,’ he added gruffly.
A minute passed. She resumed her massage. And something deeply soothing settled over his senses.
Dios.
‘Anyway, I came home from violin lessons one day to find my mother on the driveway, about to leave with another man.’
Her fingers slowed halfway up his back and he wanted to command she keep going. But different words formed. ‘She left without you?’
He caught her nod. ‘She remarried and moved to New York. She promised I could visit her when she settled. She never called. And eventually, I realised she never would.’ Her eyes drifted up to meet his. ‘As for my father, his drinking got heavier.’
Jario held her gaze, waiting for the predictable plea on her father’s behalf. Something hard jolted inside him when he realised it wasn’t coming. That not once this evening had she demanded more answers. That conversely, he’d spotted flashes of anger mingled with her own pain.
Síit would be a betrayal of his father’s memory to offer solace to the daughter of his enemy, and yet cruelty just for cruelty’s sake left a bitter taste in his mouth. So he didn’t gloat. And he said nothing as her hands moved again, skirting his buttocks to dig into his traps and quads, offering a kindness that baffled and disarmed. That drew longer, deeper breaths from him, slowly slackening the tightness in his chest and leaving a curious swell of peace he hadn’t felt in a long time.
Until hands shook his shoulders once. Then again.
Jario turned over, eyes snapping open. ‘What are you doing?’
Her bikini was now partly covered by a monogrammed dressing gown but he still smelled the lemongrass on her skin as she bent over him. Still caught glimpses of her delectable body through the opening.
‘You fell asleep. I think you were having a bad dream,’ she murmured, traces of that kindness she’d shown him softening her eyes.
The chest tightening returned in full force.
He wanted to say her probing gaze would find nothing. But wouldn’t that be shutting the barn door after the horse had bolted? He’d already shown her a physically weakened Jario Tagarro. Displayed the lake of desolation and grief rushing beneath the surface.
And she hadn’t taken advantage of it. She’d offered a helping hand.
Pushing that voice away, he startlingly realised something else.
Although the room mostly remained in shadow because of the position of the yacht, the sun was streaming through the farthest window. He jerked upright, alarmed at how refreshed he felt, despite the nightmare that had eventually disturbed him. ‘How long was I asleep?’
‘Six, maybe seven hours?’
Six...sevenhours?