Page 170 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 5-8

Her mouth tightened.

That was what Sanzio told me too—what I know too.

But so what? Just because that was true, and Sanzio, just as Tonia had said, knew it for himself—that her sister did love a challenge—didn’t give credence to any of the vicious claims Tonia had spat at her. That Sanzio was trying to get Tonia interested in him again was palpably absurd. Of course it was.

Just like it’s absurd that he wants me to be besotted with him so I wouldn’t suspect him of lusting after Tonia!

Of course that was absurd. Untrue. Of course it was.

That wasn’t anything to do with why Sanzio had made her his.

It was nothing to do with Tonia! All that Sanzio wanted in respect of Tonia was what he told me at the gala, about why he’d planned for Tonia to see me looking so fabulous. Basically—to put it crudely!—it was to give her the finger. That’s what it was all about—

But for all her defiance, Eleanora could feel more of Tonia’s poison seeping into her memory.

‘Whatever line he’s spun you—’

Her hands tightened in her lap. Was that just a line Sanzio had spun? About wanting to stick it to Tonia for her having jilted him?

No, she was sure it was not. It wasn’t just a line—it was why Sanzio had, indeed, done what he had, exposing Tonia as he had.

She wanted to look across at him, relaxed at the wheel of his powerful car, speeding along the autostrada, but did not let herself. Instead, she found herself trying to block out more of Tonia’s jeering scorn.

‘Because it’s not about you—it’s never been about you. It’s only ever…ever…been about me.’

No—not true. That was just Tonia trying to work on her old self-doubt and insecurity, just as, and now Eleanora made herself face the most vicious and venomous of everything her sister had thrown at her, Tonia was just feeding her own ego and vanity in the threat she’d made.

That Sanzio wants her back—and that all she has to do is snap her fingers for him.

That was the most absurd of all. The biggest load of garbage.

Because of course it was garbage—everything Tonia had spewed at her.

I can trust him. I can trust him absolutely.

She let her gaze go to him now, resting on his strong profile, his eyes keen on the road ahead, feeling, as she always, always did, whenever she looked at him, or he at her, the lift of her spirits that warmed her gaze.

Yet this time something plucked at her. Oh, nothing to do with Tonia’s vicious, poisonous threats, but something that could not be so easily dismissed. Could not be dismissed at all.

Our marriage.

And how it had changed since they’d left the Palazzo to go to Rome.

Or had it? Had it changed?

That was what plucked at her now. Oscillating between the two answers to that question. That the marriage I made, for the purposes I made it, has changed completely!

For how could it be otherwise? Now that we are lovers.

But even as she declared it, the shadow she had felt that morning, before her reckless meeting with Tonia, fell across her again, even as the sunlight played across Sanzio’s face, eyes shaded by his sunglasses. The shadow that fell across her as well. Darkening her thoughts. Driving forward the question she did not want to acknowledge.

But does that make any difference?

That she and Sanzio were lovers now, did that make any difference to their marriage? The answer came, the one she feared. The answer she did not want to give. That for herself, that she and Sanzio were lovers now made all, all the difference to their marriage.

But to Sanzio—none.

Because why should it? It had never been one of the reasons for their marriage, and of those reasons, two had already been achieved. All of Rome had seen Sanzio’s trophy wife, created and shown off by him, completely routing the woman who had jilted him. Now, the only reason for their marriage that remained was to complete the restoration of the Palazzo. And once done…