Page 80 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 1-4

The words were liquid heat in his veins, a red rag to a bull, and when he’d accepted that challenge… He’d seen the answering thrill in her gaze, an electricity that had lit him up inside. That had happened sometimes when they’d been working together. He’d have an idea, and Wren would run with it, making sure it could work, getting all the details in order and managing everything with the effortless calm she seemed to have no end of. It had been thrilling working with someone so in tune with him, and that moment in the ballroom had seemed to capture that thrill, making him burn. Making him want to cross her. Making him want to know how she’d make him regret it.

Yet then she’d suddenly turned away and it had been as if she’d switched a light off inside him, leaving him in the darkness. Why had she done that? Why had she looked away?

She was hiding something and he wanted to know what it was.

He took another sip of his Scotch and rested his head on the back of the armchair, staring up at the ceiling. He was half tempted to go to her rooms right now, but he didn’t want to wake her. She needed her rest, especially now she was pregnant.

Isandro drained his tumbler, debated having a second, then dismissed the idea. His father had often drunk himself into a stupor in this very study, sometimes sleeping in this same armchair. His mother, before she’d left, used to get the staff to check the room whenever the King hadn’t slept in his bed.

He never slept with his wife after Isandro was born, or at least, that’s what he’d told Isandro. Again, he’d been drunk and had treated Isandro to a litany of complaints about Lucia, Isandro’s mother. It had been an arranged marriage that he’d entered into in good faith, only to find that his new wife was clingy, demanding, and unstable—his words. Lucia had loved him and Xavier had tried to love her back, but he’d soon realised that he couldn’t even pretend to. He was incapable of love, he’d told Isandro. In fact, all the men in the family were incapable of it. Even Isandro’s grandfather had tried to love his queen, yet had ended up scandalously divorcing her after she’d given birth to Isandro’s father.

Relationships were problematic, Isandro learned, especially when one person was in love and the other wasn’t, and most especially in arranged royal marriages.

Xavier’s lack of feeling for his queen had prompted him to find his comforts elsewhere, regardless of the consequences, and led his wife to depression. She’d gone, in the end, without a word to anyone, even Isandro. One day she was there, the next she wasn’t. His father had been furious, mainly because he hadn’t wanted to mobilise the entire Valdoran police force into finding out where she’d gone, so he hadn’t. ‘Good riddance,’ he’d said instead.

By that point in his childhood—he’d been twelve years old—Isandro was used to being on his own, so his mother’s departure hadn’t upset him unduly. In fact, after she’d gone, he’d decided that his lack of feeling meant he was as incapable of love as his father and grandfather had been. Still, he hadn’t liked the thought of hurting anyone, so when it came time for his own marriage, he’d pretend. He would treat his queen with respect and care. Be a better husband than his father had been at least.

And look how that turned out with Carlotta. You might be a better king than your father, but you’re not a better husband.

His mood, already dark, darkened even further. Yes, it was true, he’d failed with Carlotta. He’d got too caught up in his own duties and had neglected her. He hadn’t seen how difficult she’d found it being his queen until it had been too late, and he’d been impatient with her complaints. He hadn’t listened, had let his own irritation get in the way, and one night, after yet another confrontation, she’d left the palace and had promptly driven her car over a cliff.

That had been a terrible shock. Afterwards, he’d been consumed with guilt, his own childish decisions about being a good husband coming back to haunt him. If he’d been more attentive, more loving—even if that was a pretence—she might not have turned to substances to cope with her unhappiness. She might not have driven off that cliff.

She died because of you.

Self-loathing gripped him, and he growled, slamming the tumbler onto the table and pushing himself out of his armchair. It was bad for him to sit here brooding. He needed distraction.

Before he’d married Carlotta, he’d had a little black book with the names of trustworthy women in it. Women with whom he could have a night or two, who wouldn’t go to the press or be indiscreet. He’d got rid of that book when he married, believing very strongly in his marriage vows, but now he wished he hadn’t. After all, he wasn’t married to Wren yet, and she’d made it very clear she wasn’t going to sleep with him, so why couldn’t he call someone else? Find distraction in someone else’s bed, because, God knew, it had been months since that moment with Wren and fucking years before that.

He was tired of sleeping alone. He wanted a woman, it didn’t matter who.

It does matter who.

But he didn’t want it to matter, that was the point. Ridiculous to pretend otherwise, though, when the woman he really wanted—the only woman he’d ever wanted if he was honest with himself—didn’t want him.

Except she did want him, and they both knew that.

Isandro left his office, stepping out of the door in the hall that led to the private garden. He needed some night air to clear his head and being out in the garden always calmed him.

It was beautiful out there at night, especially a summer night when the air was soft and warm, and scented with the night-blooming jasmine that crept up the stone walls. His mother hadn’t liked overly planned gardens so there was an element of wildness to this one that he particularly liked. The over-profusion of roses. Lavender bushes everywhere. A hidden pool by one wall with golden koi swimming lazily in it.

He sat on the stone bench near the pool, resting his head against the stone wall behind him, and gazing up at the stars. There was so much he needed to do. So many decisions to be made, so many fires to put out, and appointments to keep. Yet all his consciousness was taken up by one woman.

Was this how his father had felt when he went to one of his mistresses? Had he ever thought of his kingdom and the consequences of his actions? Isandro suspected not, and there was a part of him that was envious of such obliviousness. The ability not to care about anything or anyone but yourself. That wasn’t something he could ever do, and he knew that his father had despised him for it. A ‘prude’, ‘uptight’, ‘dull’, that’s what his father had called him. All because Isandro had principles.

A sound drew him suddenly from his thoughts. The garden door opening and then closing.

He didn’t move. It wouldn’t be a threat, since the guards would have alerted him, so it was likely to be one of the palace staff. Then again, why would one of the staff be in his private garden? No one was permitted to come here but him.

A small figure appeared in the starlight. A woman, with her hair loose down her back and wearing a long white nightgown.

Every muscle in his body tightened and his breath caught.

Wren.

He had no idea why she’d be out here at this time of night, since he’d thought she was fast asleep in her bed. Nevertheless, here she was.

She moved slowly along the path, before stepping onto the soft green grass in the middle of the garden. Stopping, she tipped her head back to look up at the stars, just as he’d been doing mere seconds earlier, her hair turning into a silvery waterfall in the moonlight.