Page 7 of Modern Romance May 2026 Books 5-8
‘But that’s the point. I don’t want to forget about it.’
His eyes grazed her face, watching her reaction. She had loved that before. That he had been so focused on her, so attuned to the infinitesimal shifts in her body and mood. Now though, she hated it. Worse, she was confused. ‘I don’t understand—’
‘I didn’t come here to get a divorce, Dulcie. I came here to remind you that we are still married.’
The simplicity of that statement sent shivers down her spine. Now she was even more confused. She crossed her arms, to stop the feeling that she was unravelling in the street.
‘Why would you come all this way to remind me of that?’
There was a pause, and she got the feeling that Ettore was processing a dozen answers to that question.
‘Because,’ he said, at last, ‘I believe it would be in both our interests for us to stay married. Not like this. Not living in different countries. But under one roof. I want you to come back to Italy with me. To Puglia.’
Chapter Two
DULCIE STARED ATEttore in shaken silence, sharply aware of the cool paving stones beneath her feet and the breath bottling in her throat. She knew her face was showing her shock and confusion, and she felt horribly exposed.
Because it wasn’t just shock and confusion she was feeling. A part of her, a tiny, shaming, ridiculous part, felt something like hope or relief that he wanted her still.
‘Not for ever, you understand. Just for the immediate future.’
She blinked, flinched inside.
Stupid Dulcie. Of course, he hadn’t meant for ever.
Her shame engulfed her and maybe she made some kind of sound because his eyes narrowed on her face, and she felt her cheeks start to burn. She was such an idiot. Of course, Ettore didn’t want her. She had been a summer fling. Was meant to stay a summer fling. That was how it had been every other year before Ettore. Most years, by the time summer ended, there had been many such flings. None had overstepped the mark.
All had been easy to give up.
Except him. Ettore Marchesi, the man standing in front of her, telling her in a cool, matter-of-fact voice that he wanted to stay married for the ‘immediate future’ because apparently it was in both their best interests to do so.
A stiletto blade slid between her ribs, the pain so sharp that she almost lost her balance. Two years ago, she’d thought their lives would be entwined for ever. She was his, and he was hers. Unconditionally.
Until he’d forced her to choose between him and Oscar, the brother she had failed to choose all those years ago.
Actually, make that just failed.
Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed in a vice as she remembered a two-year-old Oscar, with his huge, worried blue eyes and his small, sticky hand reaching for hers, climbing into her bed to the distant but audible soundtrack of their parents screaming at each other downstairs.
The marriage had limped on for far too long. Secretly, a part of her had longed for it to end so that the shouting would stop. So that their house, her home, didn’t feel as if it were sitting on top of a fault line.
When her mother had called her into the kitchen and told her that she and her father were splitting up, her first feeling had been relief.
And then her father had asked her to choose who she wanted to live with.
It was an impossible, inappropriate question for a child to answer and she had been tongue-tied with panic because, even as a seven-year-old, she’d known that if her father left without her, none of them would see him again. If she was being generous, she told herself that was why she’d chosen him.
But if she was being truthful, she had chosen her father because her mother was an alcoholic and she hadn’t wanted to be responsible for her.
Pushing the thought away, she took an unsteady step backwards.
‘And that’s why you came to find me.’ Her voice was starting to spiral and, over Ettore’s shoulder, she could see people glancing over curiously. It reminded her of when her mother had been drunk and she’d fallen over in the supermarket and everyone had stood frozen, watching her flail about on the floor.
Dulcie’s heart thudded jerkily inside her chest. She had that feeling of a wave building, rising behind her to block out the light. She’d had that feeling so many times in her life. Of things getting impossibly big and beyond her ability to manage.
But not today.
‘Let me think.’ She pressed her finger against her forehead. ‘You know what? I don’t need to think. Obviously, I’m not interested in playing some weird marital charade with you. I don’t know why you would even ask that question.’
