Page 14 of Modern Romance May 2026 Books 1-4
What difference did it make if she continued her recovery here or there? It wasn’t like she would be taking a holiday with him. Domenico would spend his days working in his Rome office, so in that regard, there wouldn’t be any change to being here at all, and it might just be what she needed to rejuvenate her body and spirits and make her well enough to finally return to her own home.
So what was making her hesitate?
Domenico.
She didn’t trust him an inch. He didn’t do anything that wasn’t for his benefit. She didn’t deny that he’d been great these past eight weeks and had kept his word about not discussing their future, but he hadn’t needed to. She’d been under his roof, exactly where he wanted her. That she was now on the road to recovery meant he would be looking to restart the game to make her temporary stay a permanent one, and with the stakes being so high…
When he judged the time was right, he would pounce, and she would find herself under a full-throttled offence aimed solely at making her capitulate and tie her life back to his. That time was ticking closer. He would use their child as a weapon. Nothing would be off the table.
But she was stronger than she’d ever given herself credit for. She’d found the courage to break her own heart and leave him, and had fortified her spine with steel to get through the awful months of their divorce. She’d found the strength to tell him to leave after that one heavenly night of weakness…
She cut the memory away.
The only time her strength faltered was when she replayed that night, and she couldn’t afford to falter. Not with Domenico. Any weakness would be pounced on.
He didn’t want her. That’s what she needed to keep fresh in her mind. His antics during their divorce had never been about her; that had been his pride lashing out, and now she was just the incubator who carried his longed-for child.
She’d stopped being the Marnie he respected and valued the day he married her.
Turning her stare back to his, she smiled. ‘That’s a lovely idea, thank you.’
The flash of triumph in his eyes only confirmed her suspicions about this trip being his first move.
The game had restarted.
She wished her pulse didn’t quicken at the thought of where it might lead.
It wouldn’t lead anywhere.
It didn’t matter what Domenico did or what tricks he thought he had up his sleeves, she would never go back to him.
Marnie had lived alone for six years, but had never felt loneliness like she’d experienced during her short marriage.
Chapter Five
TWO DAYS LATER, their journey to Rome ran with military precision. Domenico timed everything to perfection. Their 6:00 a.m. start ensured a swift drive to the airport without any delays, and then they were straight on his jet, their flight landing to coincide with the end of Rome’s morning rush hour. They were door-to-door within four hours, and Marnie was grateful for it. The travelling had been the only aspect of their trip to concern her, but her first anti-sickness jab in ten days, plentiful sips of water and trusted bland snacks throughout the journey had kept the nausea at bay.
She was lucky. Having done her own research on her condition, Marnie knew many pregnant women with it suffered the whole of the pregnancy. A month into her second trimester and hers was easing by the day. By the time they returned to London, she would be strong enough to go home, she was certain of it, and there was nothing that Domenico could do or say to stop her.
For now, though, she was determined to enjoy her time in his seventeenth-century villa. She loved everything about it.
Nestled in magnificent sprawling grounds in the foothills ofmonteverde, the green mountain, away from the bustle of Rome proper, it was reputed to have been designed with assistance from Giovanni Grimaldi. A light sand colour, it had a five-storey central block from which three-storey wings spread out, its façade adorned with grand sculptures, the windows all topped with busts in hollowed roundels. When you approached it, you could practically see Roman history coming to life before you.
When Marnie had worked for Domenico, their time had been spent pretty equally between London, Frankfurt, Rome, Washington and New York. Domenico had homes in all those cities. Marnie and his other personal staff stayed in staff apartments, but when he did in-home entertaining, she was always expected to attend in her faithful supervisory capacity (although she’d never been quite certainwhatshe was supposed to be supervising, considering all his homes had a full complement of live-in staff). That had all stopped when they’d married. The only travelling she’d done with him had been an extended two-month break in his home city of Rome.
Marnie had learned a great deal about the villa’s history and architecture during that two-month stay, mainly because after a month of dedicated sightseeing, there had been little else left for her to do. She’d seen little of her husband but had fallen madly in love with his city and villa.
The household staff who greeted them were the same faces she’d known for years. Making the transition from personal assistant to wife had never felt more awkward than when dealing with people who’d once considered her a colleague. Now that she’d transitioned to ex-wife, she felt the awkwardness even more keenly. Here, in Rome, that awkwardness was compounded by the household staff being so very Italian.
The English staff had adopted a ‘nothing to see here’ approach to her temporary return. It was as if the six months she’d been gone had never happened. The Italian staff, on the other hand, were avid with curiosity, their stares continuously dipping to her stomach. There was warmth in their curious stares, though, especially when Domenico disappeared to make a phone call, the sense they were welcoming home an old friend, which in turn put Marnie at ease and put the few doubts she’d had about whether coming to Rome was the right thing to bed.
It was a feeling that followed her a short while later when she stepped into her bedroom, a gorgeous space with a four-poster bed and frescoed ceiling…and then fell away when she saw the adjoining door.
She stared at it with mounting horror. How on earth had she forgotten aboutthat?
It was around their time in Rome that the frequency of Domenico’s visits to her bed had started to increase from a couple of times a week to most nights, and suddenly she was hit with the memory of falling asleep after he’d had sex with her and then being woken around the time the sun had started rising by the adjoining door opening. The mattress had dipped, the sheets rippled, and she’d been gently taken into his strong arms. His mouth had found hers, and with the sensation that they were both in a waking dream, she’d dove her fingers into his soft hair, wrapped her legs around him and welcomed his possession. It had been slow and tender and exquisitely beautiful, and when he left her bed afterwards, it had been with a lingering kiss goodbye.
It was a coupling that had never been spoken of or repeated. Not repeated like that. Sex between them had returned to its usual detached but pleasurable exchange of orgasms. Their marriage had continued in its usual non-affectionate, non-emotional way.
