Page 58 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8

That last one had often caught him on the raw. But more so now since Willow had shone a spotlight on him. Would his often even-tempered father be proud of him avenging their shattered family to the exclusion of all else barring his stratospherically successful company?

Would his father be disappointed that he’d never sustained a relationship past a few months? That he hadn’t been able to set foot in their home in over a decade?

That the thought of becoming a father himself drew acid bile to his throat and doused him in horror? That the notion of experiencing even a fraction of what they’d endured but with him as the role of a father desperate to save his son, would’ve driven him to insanity so it was better not to go there at all?

Questions careened around his thoughts until he raked shaky fingers through his hair, gripping tight in the hopes of the pain shutting them off. And it disturbed him deeply that for once, perhaps when he needed it most, he couldn’t hear his father’s clear response in his head the way he had so many times.

All he heard was...Honour your father with happy memories...All you have to do is listen to it...

With a growl he wrapped his arms around her, squeezed his eyes shut, even though he knew sleep would fight him as hard tonight as every night. He didn’t care. She was here, and until he was done with her, he would take the balm she offered—

‘No. No. Dios mio. No!’

‘Jario! Wake up. Jario, you’re—’

The moment he realised what was going on, that he’d fallen asleep despite thinking he wouldn’t, he jackknifed from bed, dislodging her head off his sweat-slicked shoulder. His frantic eyes searched his upturned hands for blood.

His father’s blood. Flowing freely from his bullet wound as he died in his arms.

There was nothing to see, of course. It all remained locked in his head, ready to spring loose the moment he closed his eyes.

‘Go back to sleep.’ He cringed at the raw rasp in his voice, the result of tormented screams he didn’t want to discuss.

‘How can I? Jario, you sounded so...distressed.’ Worry drenched her words, seeped into his tortured soul. A soft hand rested on his shoulder. ‘Are you sure you’re all ri—’

He twisted towards her, ready to shut her down. The bitter words dried in his throat. Sympathy blazed from her eyes, the same emotion he’d claimed he didn’t need, and wrapped around him unbidden, warm and powerful enough to leach the resistance from his bones.

He wanted...he wanted...

Heneeded—

Jerking to his feet he stormed towards the bedroom door.

‘Where are you going?’

He was deeply disconcerted by the thoughts and yearnings weighing him down, foiling his plans to escape his own bedroom, stopping him at the door. ‘I think we both know by now how this works. Go back to sleep, Willow.’

He firmed his gut against the hurt that slashed across her face. She had no right to be hurt by anything he did. He was the wronged one here. He was the one who needed—

Dios mio, enough!

A few dozen rounds with his punch bag should wear the demons out. Or...as a last resort, another marathon bout of steamy sex. And the way she looked, sitting up in the middle of his sex-rumpled bed, with her sex-tousled hair and those rose-pink lips swollen from his kisses—

With a muffled growl he slammed the door, shutting off the thought.

If the demons and this new witch he’d willingly brought into his bed were going to plague him, they could do so while he made himself a few hundred million.

Half an hour at his desk was enough to prove his concentration was shot to pieces. Another ten minutes confirmed Chatterton Financial’s decline had stagnated since he hadn’t devoted energy to it recently. After confirming the affected staff had been secured jobs in his own organisation, Jario clicked on the next email.

The email from the director of the facility where his mother lived these days threatened to tip him over the edge. It reminded him that in some ways, he was also failing the much-loved remaining parent he only now saw twice a year. Guilt bit into him as he replied before leaving his desk to seek some semblance of peace from the calming blue ocean, his head buzzing with enough discordant thoughts to fell a lesser man.

But the paramount one he couldn’t rid himself of was the one that clamoured for Willow Chatterton.

So he wasn’t entirely surprised when she appeared in his doorway just after sunrise, conjured up by the force of his thoughts. Resigned to how the mere sight of her excited and rejuvenated him, he braced his shoulder against the glass window and simply stared at her.

She didn’t rush to fill the silence, another annoyingly endearing trait most women of his acquaintance lacked. She copied his stance, tucking her hands behind her back and resting her shoulders against the doorjamb. But she went one better and drew up one foot, hardening his shaft just from one glimpse of her shapely leg. Heat pummelled him at seeing her in his T-shirt, the hem skimming the tops of her thighs.

Here he was caught in a riptide ofam I doing the right thing?and a dangerous desire that would distress his remaining parent, yet he couldn’t stop hungering for Willow.