Page 173 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 1-4

She was pacing, turning away from him, and his gaze settled on the lush curve of her buttocks.

If she’d ditched the green bra and thong, what did she wear under those pale trousers?

Then he realised where his thoughts had strayed. How dangerously off course they’d gone.

It wasn’t only his thoughts. He was off course. He felt like he’d stepped off the dock onto his yacht only to discover the vessel had already pulled out to sea and he was falling into thin air.

Ten minutes in her company and his libido was leading his brain. Panos couldn’t allow that. He’d learned his lesson too well.

Even more disturbing was the realisation his instantaneous physical reaction to this woman was more intense than anything Chiara had ever stirred in him.

That made him furious.

Dido Jones made him furious with her sham distress and her conniving. There was no way he’d believe her presence was mere coincidence. Oh, no, she’d planned this fiasco.

‘How could you do this?’

Accusing eyes met his across the room. She stood braced, shoulders back and head up. But with her arms wrapped around her middle, drawing her shoulders defensively forward, she looked more like a victim than the source of this catastrophe.

Panos knew better than to be taken in by her performance. She’d engineered this. She must have.

‘I haven’t done anything.’

He paced towards her, watching with interest as her eyes widened and her shoulders pushed back. But she didn’t retreat. No, she’d come here to do battle. But why? That was what he had to discover.

‘Not done anything? You—’

‘Why are you here, Dido? What do you want?’

Even as he said it he knew the answer. It had to be what everyone else wanted. Money. He knew how venal she was. She’d proved that years ago. No doubt she thought she was entitled to something from him because he’d foiled her earlier ambitions.

It had been a lucky escape for him when her brother Charles let slip that she’d hooked up with Panos for his money. That she’d lied to him from the first, carefully planning their ‘accidental’ meeting and all that followed. She’d even expected Panos to fund her family’s failing company.

He looked away to the pristine white shore with its aquamarine shallows. Life was terribly predictable.

‘I’m here to do a job, of course. Your… fiancée…’ He didn’t miss the sour note as she said the word. Envy? After all, she’d never got her hands on his money as she’d hoped. ‘Chiara wants Weddings by Gilette to organise her wedding.’

‘So you’ve changed your name to Gilette now, have you?’

‘Cut the sarcasm, Panos. I’m not in the mood.’

She wasn’t in the mood!

He wasn’t in the mood for her games. He wasn’t happy to see the manifestation of his greatest error of judgement standing in front of him. And he particularly wasn’t happy when she called him by his first name.

Not when the sound of her husky voice scraping across the syllables made his skin prickle with awareness and some atavistic part of him growl and lick its lips hungrily, like a lion waking from slumber, eager for a meal.

His normally ordered brain reminded him how good she’d tasted and how satisfying sex had been with her.

It was enough to make any man furious, since the woman was poison.

He swung around to see her standing with hands clasped before her. If she were anyone else he’d be tempted to think she was ill at ease, shocked even. But this was Dido Jones.

He was about to lash out verbally but restrained himself.

‘Okay.’ He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘Tell me your story.’

‘It’s not a story!’