Page 156 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 5-8

He stilled. The question was in his head—and he could not unhear it. He stared, hearing it still, as he gazed out into the night.

He’d told himself that Eleanora had not married him for intimacy, so it would be entirely selfish on his part to indulge in what he wanted. But what if intimacy gave her something too? He wanted her to believe she was beautiful—yes, there were reasons of his own why he wanted that, but what if it took more than a mirror to tell her, or even his own assertions?

What if I don’t merely tell her, urge her to believe me? What if I show her? Show her how her beauty inflames me? Show my desire for her? What if being in my arms means she can finally believe in her own beauty?

That was what he wanted.

In my arms, my embrace, she can trust me.

And I—I can do what I have been longing to do, what has been tormenting me.

To make her his.

A sense of exhilaration filled him, as if he’d found the key to a barrier that had been blocking him, frustrating him. And now need do so no more.

He stepped away from the balcony, knocking back the rest of his whisky. The burn came again, but it had a different cause this time. One he welcomed.

He strode indoors, depositing his empty glass on the breakfast bar, his mind racing now. Resolve filled him—and plans. He knew exactly what his next step would be for Eleanora.

Get her away, entirely to myself.

And then?

He smiled as he headed to his bedroom—the bedroom he would soon be sharing—a sense of eager anticipation coursing through his body.

Chapter Eight

‘What do you say,’ Sanzio put to her, ‘about getting out of Rome today?’

Eleanora looked at him across the breakfast bar. ‘Back to the Palazzo?’

He shook his head. ‘No, just out of town. A day in the country.’

She felt her spirits lift. They had hit rock-bottom last night, weighed down facing what she had to face—how hopeless it was to want what Sanzio did not. But getting out of Rome, not having to dress up, not having to know that even dressed up, looking as beautiful as he’d said she looked, she still had no allure for him, seemed like a release.

She let her eyes rest on him now. He wasn’t dressed for the office in a business suit, but in a casual polo that moulded his powerful torso, and well-cut chinos. She, with nothing planned for the day that required her to look smart, was in a comfortable open-necked, short-sleeved check shirt and cotton trousers. She hadn’t bothered with make-up, and had plaited her hair into a tail.

‘Great—’ he nodded ‘—we’ll just head off, and see where it takes us.’

Where it took them was deep into Lazio, the ancient hinterland of Rome. Ignoring the main tourist attractions, which were plentiful, from grand Renaissance villas to extensive classical remains, they kept to smaller roads, stopping for lunch at a wayside trattoria whose courtyard tables were shaded by vines and the cuisine was decidedly rustic.

‘OK with this?’ Sanzio asked her.

‘It looks very picturesque,’ she replied with a smile. The lifting of her spirits had continued with every kilometre Sanzio’s monster car consumed. It was good to be out of Rome, back in the countryside, feeling fresh air on her face, relaxing back into being the way she was with him at the Palazzo. He didn’t seem to mind that she was still in her cheap, comfortable clothes, with no more adornment than a pair of sunglasses against the bright sun, a look which he had also adopted. She kept wanting to steal glances at him—those reflective sunglasses with their uber-expensive designer logo only added to that temptation—but she schooled herself not to. Not that it was difficult, any more than it had been at the Palazzo. Dressed as she was, making nothing of herself, of course Sanzio would treat her just as he did there. And because he did, she knew, with a bizarrely comforting, inverted kind of logic, it made everything easier.

Because I’ve dropped out of hoping. I’m letting it go. Because if being glammed up like I was in Rome wasn’t enough, then of course being my normal self won’t be!

The knowledge, she realised with a strange recognition, served to take the pressure off her. Made it possible to relax with him again.

It’s like we were before—

He was relaxed too, she could see, so maybe he was feeling more comfortable with her looking the way she looked at the Palazzo?

Maybe he can relax because I’ve relaxed? I’ve set aside all that glammed up image of myself that I’d never, ever expected to be possible—which, yes, is thrilling and amazing and I am so, so grateful Sanzio made it happen—but it is also confusing as well.

Confusing enough to make her believe that maybe—oh, just maybe—Sanzio might be attracted to that glammed up her. And that probably alarmed him.

So now that I’m back being the unglamorous me, the one he’s always known, he doesn’t have to worry about me having unrealistic expectations about him. So he can relax around me again.