Modern Romance October 2019 Books 5-8. Annie West

a mistake with you.’

      He didn’t say it was a mistake, and she was so glad for that, because it would unstitch a part of her soul in a way she’d never recover from to hear those words now.

      ‘But it wasn’t a mistake. I never really believed that.’ She shook her head slowly, an unconscious smile on her lips. ‘I went to London but a part of me stayed on Chrysá Vráchia with you. A part of me stayed with you from that night, and I took some of you with me. I didn’t stop thinking about you, Leonidas.’

      He stiffened in front of her and there was wariness in his features, a look of panic that was the antithesis of what she wanted, but she pushed on, knowing she needed to do this.

      She couldn’t marry him and hope for the best—that was what she’d been planning to do with Angus and it had been stupid. Stupid, and a recipe for disaster.

      ‘I don’t know if I would have had the nerve to contact you if I hadn’t been pregnant. But I do know I never would have forgotten you. I do know I never would have met anyone who made me feel like you did. I always laughed at the idea of love at first sight, but in one hour, you reached inside me and changed who I was. In one hour, you transformed me and I can’t marry you today without telling you that I…that this…isn’t just about our baby or security or anything so pragmatic and rational as that. This is me offering all of myself to you, for all our lives.’ She reached down and laced her fingers through his, as he’d done so often with her.

      He didn’t speak, though. Her words filled the room, developing a beat of their own, throbbing with the strength of what she had offered him, and every moment that passed with utter silence was like a tendril wrapping around her throat, constricting her airways, making breathing almost impossible. She stood there, her breath raspy, and she waited.

      ‘Why are you telling me this now?’

      It wasn’t exactly the answer she’d expected, but it didn’t matter. Having said what she’d been thinking, she felt as if a weight had been lifted.

      ‘Because I can’t not,’ she said simply, and his brow furrowed, his expression dark.

      ‘Hannah.’ It was a sigh and a plea. ‘Don’t do this.’

      Hannah stood very still, regulating her breathing, trying to stay calm. Because this was important. This mattered. ‘I got engaged to Angus for all the wrong reasons. I thought I loved him, I thought he made sense. But nothing about what I felt for him was love. Love isn’t a tepid, calm, considered choice. Love isn’t a choice at all. Love is a lightning bolt—’

      ‘Desire is a lightning bolt,’ he interrupted, shaking his head, his expression tense. He took a step backwards, raking a hand through his hair, staring at her with obvious frustration. His body was a taut line of impatience. ‘Desire is what you felt for me that night, and it’s what you feel for me still. It’s clouding your judgment, and you have no experience to discern the difference between that and love.’

      ‘I’m not an idiot,’ she murmured. ‘I get that there’s desire here, too. I know I feel lust as well as love.’ She swallowed, trying to order her thoughts. ‘One of those things makes my mouth dry when you walk into the room, and the other makes me feel as though my feet are two inches off the ground when you smile at me.’

      He wasn’t smiling now.

      ‘I was going to marry Angus, you know, even when I wasn’t in with love him. I was going to marry him and hope that everything would just work out. I nearly made that mistake once and I can’t do it again.’

      Now Leonidas was completely still, his face like thunder. ‘What are you saying?’

      Hannah didn’t know, but the words tripped out of her mouth before she could consider them. ‘If you don’t love me, Leonidas—not even a little bit—if that lightning bolt struck me and me alone, then we can’t do this.’ Her eyes filled with tears and she found herself powerless to halt their progress. ‘If I didn’t love you, maybe it would be different, but feeling like I do and marrying you…it would be hell. Every day would be a torment.’

      His nostrils flared as he expelled an angry breath. ‘We have discussed this. There is so much in our marriage that would be good, so much you would enjoy.’ He forced a smile to his face but his eyes remained intent, disconnected. ‘You will see the world, travel to places you cannot imagine, and all in five-star luxury…’

      ‘With an army at my back?’ she challenged.

      ‘No matter what happens, the army is something you will have to adjust to.’

      She shook her head, pushing that aside for the moment. ‘That’s not enough.’

      ‘It has to be!’ He spoke loudly, the words thick with impatience. ‘I have told you all along what I am offering. When you came to me in Capri I was clear, and I have been clear all along.’

      ‘Are you saying you still feel that way? That nothing’s changed for you since then?’

      He regarded her through half-shuttered eyes, lifting his arms and crossing them over his broad, naked chest for good measure. ‘Things have changed,’ he conceded, finally.

      Hannah relaxed, just a little.

      ‘But I don’t love you. I’m not free to love you, Hannah. I made a promise to someone and even though she’s dead, it doesn’t change that. I have told you this as well, and I cannot fathom why you can’t just accept it.’

      Misery exploded inside her. Hannah drew in a breath, her eyes firing to his, hurt unmistakable in their green depths. He looked away, his jaw rigid as he unfolded his arms and reached for the piece of plastic paper that was on the windowsill. It was a photo, she saw now, and he’d been looking at it right before she’d entered the room.

      He handed it to her, his eyes holding a challenge when they met Hannah’s.

      She turned her attention to the picture slowly, scanning it and frowning as similarities leaped out at her. For the briefest second, she thought the photo was of her, but it wasn’t. Close, though.

      The woman in the picture was smiling, her lips painted a similar red to the colour Hannah favoured. Her eyes were wide-set and almond-shaped, like Hannah’s, and an almost identical shade of green. Her skin was pale, like Hannah’s, though Hannah had tiny freckles on her nose and it didn’t look as if this woman had any.

      Her hair was loose around her face, falling to beneath her shoulders, and it was the exact same auburn red of Hannah’s own hair.

      Hannah looked at the picture without comprehending, at first.

      ‘Is this Amy?’ she whispered, something in the region of her heart bursting, shattering his internal organs with the force.

      ‘Yes. My wife.’

      It was just three words, three tiny words, but they were wielded like a machete. Hannah lifted her face to Leonidas’s, her skin completely blanked of colour, so that even in the midst of this conversation, he felt a blade of concern.

      ‘Please sit down.’ He gestured to the bed, putting a hand on her elbow, but she wrenched out of it, moving away from him, dropping her gaze to the picture. Her fingertips shook and her eyes were filled with tears, making it difficult to focus properly. But she’d seen enough.

      Clarity—a different kind of clarity from what she’d experienced last night—settled about her.

      ‘This is what you saw in me that night on Chrysá Vráchia, isn’t it?’

      Leonidas was quiet.

      ‘If I didn’t look like this—’ Hannah lifted the photo in the air a little, at the same time she reached for her hair ‘—you wouldn’t even have noticed me, would you?’

      Still, he was silent. What could he say? How could he defend this? The evidence was staring back at her.

      ‘Did you think of her when you slept with me?’