Page 205 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 1-4

Slowly she nodded. ‘Thank you.’

A little of the tightness in his chest eased. Because she accepted he meant it? ‘Your family… You had other support while your aunt was away?’

‘You mean my half-siblings?’ She put her glass down with a clunk. ‘We’re not in contact. Not in almost a decade, since just after my parents’ funeral.’

The words dropped like grenades into the silence, their explosive impact slamming into him.

She scraped back her chair, eyes full of raw emotion. Yet her chin was high as if daring him to call her a liar. ‘Please give Evadne my apologies. I’m not very hungry.’ Then she was gone.

Panos sat, immobile but for his racing thoughts. It wasn’t often he felt undone, as if the earth beneath his feet turned to quicksand.

The initial time had been with the first girl he’d slept with, to whom he’d given his yearning teenage heart. Too late he’d learnt she already had a lover. She’d dated Panos for the prestige of being seen with him, selling his expensive gifts and sharing the money with her real boyfriend.

The second time was the day Dido’s betrayal gutted him, slicing through his belief that no one had the power to hurt him so much again.

Now this third time. A sensation as if the world were out of kilter and him with it.

Dido hadn’t seen or spoken to her half-siblings in a decade?

It wasn’t possible. He had the proof of Charles Fitzallan-Jones’ call three years ago. The man had been working with Dido. No one else knew of their marriage.

And yet…

Panos had believed every word she’d said about her pregnancy and illness. He’d felt the truth of it. She’d spoken with the same matter-of-factness about her family. Though when she’d mentioned her parents he’d heard the tremor of suppressed pain.

Why would she lie about her siblings now? There’s nothing to be gained.

Unless she was trying to mess with his head.

Yet this evening he’d felt closer to understanding Dido, as if they were beginning to forge a truce. Now he didn’t know what to think. Suddenly his certainties didn’t feel so concrete.

Instinct urged him to follow her and discover the truth once and for all.

He wanted to go after her and comfort her!

Not to mention hold her and lose himself in that rush of fiery passion that simmered just below the surface whenever they were close.

But remembering her expression stopped him. The strain on her features and that disturbing shadow of fragility had been unmistakeable. A fragility he realised she’d fought to conceal more than once.

When talking to her aunt she’d sounded upbeat but he’d seen that was an act. How often when confronting him had she concealed weakness behind bravado?

He thought of his threat to cut her off from Athena and for the first time in his life felt like a bully.

His chair crashed to the ground as he erupted from his seat. No one had ever made his head spin the way Dido did. Or made him question his actions so profoundly.

* * *

‘So you’re spending the day on another island?’

Dido watched him nod, his expression unreadable behind reflective sunglasses, and wished her traitorous heart didn’t beat faster at the sight of him.

In shorts and short-sleeved shirt, unbuttoned after his early morning swim, Panos looked awesomely fit and disturbingly attractive. It took everything she had not to let her gaze follow the sliver of olive skin and hard muscle bared by his open shirt.

If that weren’t enough, the way he held Athena on his thigh, giving her treats from the breakfast spread, made Dido’s maternal heart melt. What was it about a strong, handsome man holding a little child so tenderly, that sent hormones out of control?

Her hormones and only with Panos.

Something had changed yesterday. Partly it was his interest in her pregnancy and his concern. There’d been no mistaking that for anything other than genuine. But then he’d asked about her family and she’d told him the truth—that there’d been no contact with her father’s older children—and instead of calling her a liar, Panos had looked like a man stunned.