Page 219 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 1-4

Satisfaction and relief.

He stopped beside her, allowing himself a reassuring glance at their extraordinary miracle of a child. Every time he saw her he couldn’t quite believe his immense good fortune in having a daughter.

Then he turned to Dido, pitching his voice low. ‘You should be in bed. You need sleep.’

Eventually she nodded then rose. When they were out of the room she stopped, yet seemed reluctant to speak. That was new. What could make this normally confident woman hesitate now?

‘Did you mean it, Panos? What you said in bed?’

His heart stopped for an instant. There was no question what she meant.

He’d told himself she hadn’t heard the words that had been dragged from the deepest recesses of his soul earlier tonight. He hadn’t been aware of even thinking them until he murmured them against her damp, scented skin.

She’d said he needed physical completion with her and he’d admitted, ‘Only with you, Dido.’

Because what he experienced with her was a compulsion, outstripping anything he’d felt with another woman. It was different, something he’d barely let himself admit, even in those glorious early days. Because to him such powerful emotion was dangerous and untested. He’d had to guard against it until he fathomed what it meant.

‘Panos?’

He cleared his throat and it sounded like a growl. ‘Yes, I meant it.’

He rolled his shoulders and met her eyes. Her lips were parted and her stare hooked at something deep inside him. He felt tension, confusion, then relief.

Dido moved nearer, jaw angling up, and it took everything he had not to touch her there, hard fingers against smooth flesh. He saw her quickening pulse.

Did it thunder like his?

‘When you say only with me…?’

Maybe this was another reason he didn’t have close relationships. Admitting the truth felt like tearing off strips of skin. But she deserved honesty.

‘I haven’t been with another woman since you.’ He didn’t know what to do with his hands and shoved them into his pockets. ‘I haven’t wanted any other woman.’

Her gasp was loud. Shock or rejection?

It must be near three in the morning—in those thin hours when troubles magnified and a body’s life force beat weaker. Anxiety filled him. It was the first time he’d laid his feelings open for anyone. Not since his teenage love who’d betrayed him from the first.

Then, remarkably, he saw a change in Dido. A light in her eyes that was neither humour nor triumph. If he saw it across a conference table in a negotiator he’d call it relief. But his days of imagining he understood Dido’s thoughts were over.

Her mouth began to curl in a smile then stopped as her forehead wrinkled. ‘But you were engaged! You didn’t…?’

‘We didn’t. We hadn’t long been engaged. Our arrangement was…practical, not romantic. The truth is I’d had second thoughts about marrying her. I wasn’t sure she was the right choice.’

Because you were still hung up on Dido Jones. Even when you believed she’d conned you.

Settling on Chiara from the matchmaker’s list, he’d felt none of the fervour or anticipation he’d experienced when Dido had agreed to marry him.

‘You were going to break off with her? Or you’d overcome your doubts?’

He shook his head. ‘I wasn’t sure, but by the time I arrived in Tahiti I’d decided my doubts weren’t important. Until I saw you on the beach.’

Dido’s eyes rounded. She wrapped her arms around herself and slumped back against the wall. ‘You saw me? Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘I wasn’t sure. By the time I swam ashore you’d gone and I decided I’d mistaken a stranger for you in the darkness. You were on my mind and I couldn’t be with anyone else when I still wanted you. Though I didn’t want to want you.’

Her too-brief chuckle pooled sunshine in his belly and drew his flesh tight. He’d missed that sound.

‘I know the feeling.’ Her voice was rueful, or was that resigned?