Page 12 of Modern Romance May 2026 Books 5-8
It didn’t help that there were so many parallels to the last time she had stepped out of her day-to-day life. And then, as now, she was travelling to meet Ettore.
The difference was that two years ago she hadn’t known she would be meeting him.
The memory of that first time she saw him snapped into focus. As a scientist, she had always thought that being swept off your feet was hyperbole. But that was before the dark-haired man with the eyes of a lion had cut a swathe through the crowds milling beneath the departure board.
She had wanted to laugh.
Later, after he’d walked out of her flat without a backward glance, she’d wanted to cry. But she hadn’t gone after him.
Her legs had overruled her heart, refusing to let her make the same mistake as she had at aged seven. It didn’t matter that watching him leave felt like open heart surgery without an anaesthetic. Choosing to put your life in the hands of someone who demanded you sacrifice some part of yourself to earn their love was a slower, equally painful death of sorts.
And yet, here she was in London, to take up his offer and go to Puglia with him as his wife.
The idea made her feel like a biplane in a tailspin. Everything was moving so fast. Too fast for her to keep her thoughts from blurring. But one thing stayed still and clear-edged. Oscar needed help. Professional help. And all she needed to do to make that happen was something she had already done, willingly, eagerly—
So eagerly that the memory of it felt almost alien. As if it had happened to someone else. Or as if she’d been someone else entirely. Someone she neither recognised nor understood. As much of a stranger as those two random people they had tugged into the Marylebone register office to witness their wedding.
It had been the simplest of ceremonies. The perfect postscript to a fairy-tale romance. And her love for Ettore had been utterly unprecedented in its purity. Before, with her family, her love for her parents had been coloured by fear and anxiety. With Oscar, it was threaded through with guilt.
But this was her chance to atone properly. Maybe guilt was not enough of an offering to the gods. Maybe she had to suffer too.
Smiling at the doorman, she stepped in the foyer and pulled out her mobile phone. On the train, during one of the frequent occasions when she’d lost her nerve, she had dithered about simply calling the hotel and asking to speak to Ettore. She had even got her phone out and found the number. But if she was agreeing to stay as his wife, she was going to have to face him sooner or later. And this way she would catch him off guard.
Payback for how he’d ambushed her in the street.
Now, she pulled up the hotel’s website. She had seen someone do this in a film once and it had all looked very easy but she felt all fingers and thumbs.
Holding her breath, she pressed the phone icon. There was a ringtone and then a male voice answered. ‘Conisbrough Hotel, good morning, how may I help you?’
‘Hi there.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Could you put me through to one of your guests? It’s Mr Marchesi.’
‘Of course. Just putting you through.’
Without waiting to hear the phone connect, she slipped it into her pocket, breathing out unsteadily. Now for the hard part.
She walked purposefully over to the reception desk, smiling as the young blonde receptionist looked up from her screen.
‘Good morning, how may I help you?’
‘Good morning. Mr Marchesi is expecting me. Could you put a call through to his room and tell him I’m here?’
‘Of course.’ The receptionist smiled and tapped her headset.
There was a bowl of roses on the countertop and, holding her breath, Dulcie leaned forward casually as if to inhale their scent. As she did so, her eyes darted to the screen on the desk. She had seen someone enact this whole scene in a film once. This was where the room number magically appeared on the screen, but she had no idea if it would work—
She blinked. It had.
Not a number, a name. The Royal Suite.
It had worked.
A rush of adrenaline burned through her like a tequila slammer so that it took her a moment to realise the receptionist was speaking to her.
‘I’m sorry, the line was engaged.’ The receptionist smiled apologetically.
‘That’s fine.’ She rolled her eyes, doing blonde. ‘I just realised, I have his mobile number, so I’ll call him on that. But thank you.’
She melted backwards into a group of guests who had fortuitously appeared and then turned and walked over to the lifts as casually as she could manage. Her heartbeat sounded like horses’ hooves thundering against her ribs. And as the lift doors closed behind her, she slumped back against the wall, relief momentarily swamping her panic.
