Page 17 of Modern Romance May 2026 Books 5-8
But she could hardly wear either of those to meet Ettore’s family and so she’d ended up rushing to the shops and panic-buying some summery dresses and shorts and the sandals that were currently rubbing her feet to ribbons.
‘It’s your turn.’
She looked up from her phone, frowning.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered to the woman standing behind her, and then she stepped up to the glass-fronted booth and held out her passport to the uniformed border control officer.
The woman glanced at her photo and then her face, her own face inscrutable. ‘What is your purpose in visiting Italy?’
Her purpose?
Dulcie cleared her throat. ‘Well, up until a week ago my husband and I were estranged. But his father is old, and his health is failing, and my husband wants to make him happy, so he came to find me, and he’s going to pay for my brother to go into rehab and in exchange I’m going to pretend that we’ve got back together.’
The woman didn’t so much as blink.
Unsurprisingly, given that Dulcie had only spoken those words inside her head.
Out loud, she said, ‘I’m meeting my husband’s family for the first time. They live in Puglia.’
The woman still didn’t blink but her expression thawed a fraction. ‘Have a pleasant trip.’
That seemed unlikely, Dulcie thought, her fingers tightening around the handle of her suitcase as she trundled towards the arrivals area. It would be a miracle if she and Ettore managed to pull off this charade. Two years ago, it would have been a breeze. But then two years ago it was real.
For her, anyway.
A pulse of panic skimmed across her skin as she glanced at the crowd of people hovering around the arrivals gate. Most were eagerly scanning the passengers and there was a sprinkling of men holding up white boards but none with her name.
Ettore had texted to say he would meet her at the airport, so where was he?
He had left London before her so that he could tell his father the ‘happy news’ in person. Which made a sort of sense. Edoardo Marchesi might desperately want to see his son married, but if Ettore turned up with a wife out of the blue obviously it would be something of a shock. And it seemed likely that Ettore would want to avoid playing marital charades on a plane for three hours. And for once, she completely understood his point of view.
She heard a noise somewhere between a sob and a gasp and she turned as a woman sidestepped past her to embrace an identical woman. Both were crying. Moments later a young, dark-haired man was spinning his girlfriend off her feet as their mouths fitted together hungrily.
Dulcie kept walking.
She could remember that hunger, those unanchored days when just seeing Ettore would make her senses grow muddied. It was like running a permanent fever. She felt shivery and urgent and there was that burning thing in her chest that she couldn’t allow herself to name at first because she was too scared to do so. Love was a choice. A dangerous choice but then all choices were inherently dangerous in her experience.
Except with Ettore, there was no choice.
She’d been attracted to men in the past. Not many, not enough perhaps to generalise. But maybe it was enough because, with all of them, it had felt as if she was making a conscious decision. That what she’d felt was generic. A basic sexual need, a woman responding to a man. They hadn’t been unique. And there had been no feeling of breathlessness, of losing control of herself. Always there had been that voice warning her, cautioning her to stay remote.
With Ettore, it had been like a rogue wave rising up and sweeping her out to sea. It had been fast and unstoppable, and it should have been frightening. She should have been scared. But she’d felt no fear and instead of fighting to get back to shore, she’d let herself be pulled under.
Like in his hotel room in London.
Her face felt scalded. No, that wasn’t the same, was it? Lips tingling, she replayed the moment when Ettore had kissed her gently at first, then more deeply, drawing her against his body.
And she had kissed him back, her hands winding around his neck, slipping effortlessly, eagerly back into the taste and the heat of him.
It had obviously been just a performance. A rehearsal, almost. They had been alone. There had been nobody there to convince, and yet—
‘Signora Shaw?’
‘Yes.’ She blinked, her feet stuttering to a sudden stop as a thickset man in a dark suit stepped forward. He wasn’t holding a board, but he smiled stiffly and made a small bow, which seemed a little formal, but then, like most Europeans, Italians had specific language for informal and formal ways of greetings. Maybe the formal kind came with a bow.
‘Buongiorno.Welcome to Apulia. My name is Carmine. There is a car waiting for you. May I take your bag?’
‘Oh, yes. Thank you.’
