Page 44 of Modern Romance May 2026 Books 5-8
‘And this is so that everyone thinks that we’re together.’ He could see the wound in her eyes; a wound he had given her. ‘You want to give them concrete proof that our marriage is real.’
‘I don’t care what everyone else thinks. And it’s not about proving our marriage is real. This is about us. It’s about this thing, this thing between us that we don’t have to prove is real. Because we both feel it,dolcezza.’
Dolcezza.Sweetness.
That was what he used to call her, a play on her name and because she made him think of spun sugar. She drew the eye in the same way. There was a lightness about her that made people curious and intrigued.
It had started in Paris that first morning they finally left his room, five days after she had knocked on his door, a need she had never felt for any other man blazing inside her as the storm roared through the empty streets. They might have walked into the hotel as two strangers but now they were a couple. Walking the streets, with the pale, serene sun tracking their progress, it felt like the dawn of a new world. Dulcie and Ettore’s world.
There was no evidence of the hailstones that had stopped their flights, but there were signs of the damage they had caused. Boarded-up windows. Torn awnings. Broken slates on the pavement. Cars with dented bonnets.
Only then they walked past a patisserie and there was a Paris-Brest behind the cracked window, topped with cream and a shimmering halo of spun sugar, as delicate and ethereal as stardust and yet it had survived the storm.
Dulcie wanted to stop and look at it, and he understood why. Because he was as fascinated by her as she was by those gossamer-fine strands of sugar. So fascinated that he found it hard to look away.
Pushing aside his memories, he fixed his eyes on her face, the warm, damp, feminine scent of her enveloping him.
It was still hard now.
Her blue eyes searched his face. ‘Will it work?’
‘What? You and me and a room to ourselves with no interruptions?’
She smiled. ‘What about room service?’
He touched her cheek. ‘I know it feels like a big deal, but we’ve done all the hard stuff. How many couples have gone through what we have? We know everything about each other.’
‘What about all of this?’
‘The castle? It survived the Roman Empire, pirates, the Ottomans, Mussolini and Second World War bombers. I think it can keep standing for a few days without me.’
‘I meant running the estate, and all your noblesse oblige stuff.’
‘Gianni is perfectly competent, and my family can pick up the slack. As for my obligations, I intend to focus all my attention and resources on you.’
Her pupils flared, and he felt his own body snap to attention.
‘And if we need to get back for Oscar, I will take you.’
She wasn’t sure. He could see the conflict in her eyes, the battle between self and other, safety and risk, sense and desire. He had fought the same battle, and desire had championed. As he heard her soft ‘okay’ he lowered his mouth to hers with a soft groan of relief.
‘It’ll be okay. He’s in good hands.’
‘He’s been through so much.’ Her voice stumbled. ‘And he doesn’t have anyone looking out for him, except me.’
‘He has us.’
He saw the sheen of tears in her eyes, and he felt a fierce rage with a world that blithely encouraged the goal of marriage and parenthood without adequately equipping people with the skills to make those life-changing decisions work. Dulcie was such a good person, but she had been forced into making a choice that she should never have had to make as a child. And the consequences for Oscar were far-reaching and devastating.
And then he had forced her to make a near identical choice.
His stomach twisted. He could still remember how Dulcie had braced herself that day in London when he’d asked her to choose between him and her brother.
Except, he didn’t need to remember it. Growing up, that feeling of tightness in his jaw, neck, shoulders, back, as if his body was tensing up to absorb a blow, had been so much a part of him then that he’d thought it was normal.
By the time he realised it wasn’t, he had developed coping strategies like the ones Oscar’s psychiatrist had mentioned. Ways to block out or numb the pain and the shame of being superfluous, second-best, and, worst of all, saved.
‘Why did I have to lose him? Why couldn’t it have been you?’
