Modern Romance Collection February 2025, #1-4

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

D IONI A DRIANAKIS DID not like a single thing about New York City, though she would die before she admitted such cultural heresy to anyone. It was crowded. It was almost entirely concrete. And astonishingly dirty and smelly, as was only to be expected, given the first two points.

Most especially, it was not a temperate and beautiful Greek island like the home of her childhood and her last few years. Nor was it the lovely finishing school she had gone to, high in the Alps, where serene views beckoned in all directions and one did not have to be debutante material to enjoy it.

But people were meant to love New York City. Love was one of the city’s defining characteristics and Dioni had decided she would adore it based on its legend alone. Sight unseen, she had informed her brother that she wished to move here, he had consented, and off she’d gone.

Hoist with her own petard, really, she thought now as she rounded the corner onto her street in the West Village.

Or, more accurately, as she turned onto the street where one of her older brother’s properties waited. It was a lovely brownstone on a pretty street, as these things went. She had no complaints about it whatsoever. Everything in it was perfect and well-maintained. It even had its own garden, which she knew was a near unheard-of luxury here. Sometimes she would sit out in it and pretend she couldn’t hear the city all around her. But when she opened her eyes, there were tall buildings in place of the sky, no stars in evidence, and she was still alone.

She started down the street, reminding herself that it was better not to worry too much over her laboring steps because she wouldn’t be pregnant forever. A happy little thing she’d been telling herself that seemed less and less amusing the more pregnant she became. She had a good three months to go yet and she’d felt for a while as if she was trying to navigate the world, and this packed-tight city—in someone else’s body.

What she did like about New York City was the ease with which she could indulge the mad cravings that had taken her over these past months. The trouble was that she had to go and fetch them herself, something she would have loved if she had her old body. But she didn’t. And Dioni had told her older brother that she required fierce independence in this stage of her life, and therefore didn’t want the staff he’d offered here, which she knew he would have been only too happy to provide.

The trouble was, any staff members here would be loyal to her brother. Which meant they would report back to him.

She might not know what she planned to do, but she did know that there was no point bringing her brother in on the reality of her life until she had at least some part of it planned out. It wasn’t Apostolis’s fault that he was lovingly overbearing. It was simply who he was. Her hero, always, but he did have a tendency to take charge so there was nothing to do but trail along in his wake.

That had been fine when she was a girl. But Dioni was keenly aware that this situation was hers to solve. If there was any solving to be done.

And besides, how could she tell her beloved older brother exactly how and when and with whom she had gotten herself pregnant? She still couldn’t figure that out.

Today she’d run out—well, she’d waddled —to get the particular cakes she fancied that were made at a bakery just around the corner. She could admit that it was that sort of thing that really did make New York special. Have a whim, cater to it within moments. She wasn’t sure that made up for the total lack of natural beauty that she was used to, but it was something.

And there was something else, she thought as she walked on, her eyes on the figure who looked to be standing there at the foot of the stairs to her brownstone. There were so many people in New York City at any given time that it was impossible not to walk down the street without thinking she saw every single ghost of every single person she’d ever met.

Though the truth was, Dioni saw this ghost all the time, so she didn’t have to wait for random strangers on a leafy street in the West Village to bring him to mind.

Her curse was that Alceu Vaccaro was the shadow cast over every breath she took.

No ghosts were necessary.

She took the opportunity to think of him objectively as she lumbered closer, and the figure that was almost certainly a figment of her imagination stayed where it was. She had known Alceu for what seemed like her whole life. Her brother, who had in many ways raised her while her father was off chasing the celebrities who were always present at the family hotel, was some ten years older than she was, and Alceu was his closest friend from his university days.

Alceu hailed from Sicily, an island of mystery and lore that he always spoke of in dark tones—though it was clear to her that a deep passion for his island lived in his gaze. She had always admired him, because who could not? He had grown up in what looked to her like a perfect fairy-tale castle set atop a hillside, surrounded by thick, reckless vegetation, and possessed of a commanding view of the rugged island and the sea beyond.

She’d seen all the pictures online, years ago. And more all the time in this age of drones that could fly where they would, privacy be damned.

What she had spent her months in New York asking herself was this: Had she always had a soft spot for him? A crush , if she was being honest?

The simple answer was yes.

But the real answer was harder to fathom, because it had never occurred to her that Alceu was aware that she existed. As a woman, that was.

Of course he knew that his best friend had a younger sister, but in the same way that he knew that the Adrianakis family were intimately intertwined with the Hotel Andromeda, that legendary former mansion that was considered by many to be its own character in a sweeping, iconic story of the Greek islands and the very, very famous people who came there.

And to be honest, the hotel was far more impressive.

Dioni was not down on herself when she thought such things. She knew precisely what place she held in her storied family. Her father was larger than life and had been known to call himself the embodiment of Greek hospitality, especially if the guests in question were rich, powerful, and famous. Her brother had their father’s charm, but was also capable of thinking of others—like his lonely little sister. Her mother had been a woman of such grace and charm that even today, people felt the need to share with Dioni the many ways in which they had always felt touched by stardust in her mother’s presence. Just as her father had when he was still alive.

Strangers never seemed to remember that Dioni had never met her mother, having been instead the reason her mother had died, in childbirth. She thought her father had wanted to make sure she never forgot.

Not that she allowed herself to think about deaths in childbirth now that she was six months pregnant herself.

Which was to say, she thought about it all the time.

But Alceu was unlikely to have considered Dioni’s inner life overmuch, assuming he thought about his friend’s younger sister at all. What people normally thought about Dioni was that it was astonishing that she was related to her exquisite mother, her over-the-top, legendary father, and Apostolis himself, who had long been considered one of Europe’s most eligible bachelors. So sophisticated. So charming. Never a hair out of place.

Dioni, by contrast, never had a hair in place. Her old headmistress had applied herself to the task, certain that she could tame Dioni’s bedraggled hems, wild hair, and inability to even take a breath without looking like she’d rolled around in something distressingly humid.

I believe you’re the only failure of my entire career , the poor woman had said at graduation, shaking her head. I can’t believe it myself.

Then she’d tried to straighten the dress that Dioni was wearing, to no avail, as a kind of last attempt at making the proverbial purse out of a sow’s ear.

There was no possibility that Alceu, who made Apostolis’s perfection seem casual and faintly bedraggled by comparison, would ever notice a wild-haired little sow like Dioni. And even if by some chance he did, it would not be for positive reasons.

How could she have a crush on a man like that? A man so remote he made the stars seem accessible and familiar?

And yet.

The thing about Alceu Vaccaro was that he made Dioni’s heart hurt. And he always had.

She had always felt drawn to him, as if he was a source of light.

When nothing could be further from the truth.

Her brother had a way about him, and could certainly be charming when it suited him, but Dioni had never seen any evidence that Alceu could do the same. He was a grim, forbidding, deeply self-contained kind of man, and that should have been more than enough to have her running for safety. Instead, there was something about him that simply...sent her spinning.

Though inside her, when she was near him, there was a kind of glorious stillness.

And so she never would have called her reaction to him a crush .

Or any of the sophisticated words that she imagined her best friend Jolie would use to describe the situation. Jolie had always been the chic, knowing one between them. It was why Dioni’s own father had married her, straight out of school. And no doubt why her brother had married her too, after their father had died, supposedly because it was in the will.

Though Dioni rather thought that had Apostolis wanted, he could have fought that.

She didn’t like to think about Jolie too much these days, because she hadn’t told her best friend about that unexpected connection with Alceu—however brief—or this pregnancy, either. How could she risk it? Jolie was now married to Apostolis and would certainly feel compelled to tell him that his only sister was pregnant. Thanks to his best friend.

That would lead to far too many questions Dioni didn’t want to answer, and the kind of trouble she liked to avoid, after growing up with her father and his dramas.

And she was terribly afraid that Apostolis would think less of her once he knew.

She reminded herself that she had chosen all of this, and quite deliberately, as she made her way down the street. It was a quiet street, for New York City. It was usually empty, though she could still see that person standing there outside her building, making her whole body shiver. Almost as if she had somehow manifested Alceu into being, right here before her eyes.

When she knew better.

Alceu had made it very clear that what had happened between them represented a loss of control on his part, an unforgivable lapse of judgment to hear him tell it, and had left him with nothing but pity .

At first, that had been hard enough to live with.

It wasn’t as if Dioni was bulletproof, after all. She did have feelings, it was only that she’d found a way to keep them to herself. Because in her family there were already far too many emotional outbursts. She had never fancied contributing to the show. It had always been easier to let the things her father said roll right off of her, leaving no marks. Her brother had always been there to assure her that she was better off ignoring the old man, so she’d tried.

But it was that word, pity .

It had stayed with her. It had sunk in, deep, and she’d discovered that when she was truly upset, garments simply stayed on her body the way they were supposed to. Her hair didn’t bother to fall out of clips and bands to go follow its own bliss.

She had spent the first few months in New York City so sophisticated it hurt, yet with no one around to notice.

Dioni had taken it as a sign that she might actually survive this that she’d managed to clumsily drop her mug of tea all over herself last night—happily after it had gone cold. And today, she’d thought that she was looking smart until she’d seen herself in the bakery window. And the reality was all wild hair, her huge belly, and the hems of her jeans dragging on the ground—unevenly and clearly not deliberately frayed.

In other words, she looked her usual fright.

Evidently, that meant she was going to be okay.

Some people grow wan and pale when they’ve had an upset, Dioni had written in the letters she did not send to Jolie. But I fear that I become dreadfully proper. I will know myself again only when I realize I’ve been walking around all day with my dress on inside out .

She was laughing about that as she drew even closer to the brownstone and was struck even more by the still, watchful stranger’s resemblance to her memory of the man she kept meaning to make herself forget.

But the thing was, there had been that storm.

It had been a tense and awkward day. It had been Apostolis and Jolie’s wedding day and neither bride nor groom had even bothered to pretend that they were happy about the union. Dioni had therefore felt that it was her task to enjoy it for everyone. And as she and Alceu were the only guests and legal witnesses, she had dedicated herself to the cause.

She had planned an elaborate wedding breakfast, complete with cake and fizzy drinks, and despite Alceu’s seeming lack of interest in the entire affair, she had enlisted his help, too.

In the sense that she had sat next to him and made it seem as if they were acting in concert. Instead of what had actually happened, which was that she kept trying to make it a happy occasion and everyone else had been in some or other state of horror.

And after her brother and Jolie took the opportunity of their wedding toasts to rip into each other, Dioni had intended to stay and sort it all out herself. Because she, after all, was the only person in the room who loved both of them.

But instead, while her brother and her best friend had been leaning in close, smiling with malice as they landed one verbal blow after the next, Alceu had escorted Dioni away from the danger zone.

Looking back, she still didn’t know how he had managed that.

It had been so smooth. One moment she had been sitting there, literally gaping as Apostolis and then Jolie in turn made it sound as if their marriage should be a literal deathmatch. The next thing she knew she’d been led by the elbow out from the breakfast room.

Then she was in one of the sitting rooms, which had already been prepared for the hotel’s guests, because there were always guests at the Hotel Andromeda. Though that day, said guests were off adventuring on a different island. That was how they’d snuck in a wedding.

And nature had done the rest, because it was vile weather that day. The storm had pounded down, the rain had seemed to dance sideways, and she could not remember a single other moment that she’d been alone in a room with Alceu Vaccaro.

Much less in a nearly empty hotel in the rain.

I wonder if they’ll make it , she had found herself saying, moving over to the window.

They must , Alceu had replied curtly, and he was not staring out at the swath of cliffside and the stormy sea beyond. He had instead moved over to fix himself a drink. There are legal considerations at play, which are always more likely to produce a strong union between two people than anything more fanciful could.

I meant the night , Dioni had said. Then she’d turned from the window and frowned at him as he fixed himself a drink. I think that’s the most words you’ve ever said in my presence. Certainly the most you’ve ever said to me.

She didn’t think. She knew.

Alceu had taken his time looking at her again, but when he did, it had simply thrilled her. She had understood, then, that thrilled was the right word. He was so uncompromising. He was so quietly ferocious. Maybe it was no wonder she had never had any interest in the sorts of boys she’d encountered along the way, because always humming along in the back of her mind, there was this.

Him.

A man who seemed to her to be more like a mountain, impossible, unyielding, and wholly unimpressed with her presence.

That last part would likely sound bad, she knew, if she ever shared it with someone. But then again, she rarely met people who didn’t know who she was, and they always acted much too interested. Only it always turned out that what they were really interested in was her father. Or the hotel. Or her brother. Or the legend of her late mother that they wanted to play out with her.

Alceu, by contrast, looked at her the way any high mountain gazed upon a person foolish enough to wish to climb it.

It stirred something deep inside of her. Because wasn’t that why people climbed mountains in the first place? Because they were there?

There was all that storming tempest outside, right there at her back, and she understood with a deep kind of knowledge that seemed to come from the storm itself, or possibly from her own bones, that she was powerful or reckless, mad or daring in the same way.

That she was the kind of woman who stood in front of a man like him and thought yes .

It was the same impulse. One false move and she could tumble to her death.

But first, there in that sitting room, there had been the way that gaze of his moved over her.

Mountains and stars and the ache in her heart aside, Alceu was a remarkably attractive man.

So much so that there didn’t seem to be any appropriate words to describe it. That dark hair that he kept cut short, as if he found the hint of any length a challenge to his authority. It only emphasized the harsh lines of his face, from his bold nose to his sensually stern lips that would not have looked out of place carved in marble. His eyes were dark and his brows almost too expressive, given how little he usually spoke.

She had thought, in that moment, that he’d felt like a lightning storm of his own in front of her. And that she would have given anything she had just to see him smile.

She hadn’t dared imagine him laughing.

What words would you like me to speak to you, Dioni? he had said, and though the words had sounded as if they should have been a question, they had not been. They were a silken challenge, and there was a different sort of menace in his tone.

She had understood none of it.

What she had understood was that she could not have prevented herself from walking toward him then, or from stopping only when she’d gotten much too close. She had watched his eyes widen in a kind of arrogant astonishment, as those brows of his arched.

It wasn’t that Dioni was bold, because she wasn’t. Her father had often called her his jewel, but it was worth noting that jewel was meant to shine on others. It was not necessarily in itself anything more than a stone.

She had never had that sparkle. What she did have, however, was a lifetime spent walking around as her own mother’s murderer. And yes, she knew that no one liked to use that word. It made people uncomfortable. But the fact of it remained.

If she hadn’t been born, her mother would still be alive.

It had been clear to her early on that she could not cringe to and fro, apologizing for the very air she breathed. Dioni would forget to do it, for one thing. And for another, she was the only person who hadn’t actually met her mother. So she could only piece together an idea of who her mother had been.

And in her head, all was always forgiven. Her mother was perfect and loved her deeply.

But as that was not necessarily true for anyone else who had known her, Dioni had chosen early on not to attempt to reach her mother’s level of perfection. Possibly because she’d always known, even as a child, that it was unattainable.

It was also true that her father had found ways to remind her of that, too.

She’d had no other choice but to become good at living down to people’s lowest expectations. Or as she liked to think of it, simply being who she was, regardless of the judgmental eyes upon her.

The result of that, all these years later, often looked like boldness. But what it really was, she thought now on a relatively quiet street in a very noisy city, was that she simply had nothing to lose.

So six months ago she had tipped her chin back and looked up at Alceu, that mountain filled with impassable ranges and desperately steep slopes, and she had smiled.

Do you know , she’d said, I’ve never been kissed .

I cannot imagine why you would consider that an appropriate topic for discussion , Alceu had replied in frigid tones. With me, of all people.

What if I am expected to get married one day, like my brother? How will I know?

Know what? Alceu had asked, the words bitten off in hard, grim pieces.

Anything, she’d replied blithely. As I told you already, I’ve never been kissed.

She had watched, fascinated beyond measure, as a light she’d never seen before gleamed hot in Alceu’s stark gaze. He had not bent closer to her. He had not moved.

And yet she’d felt as if he’d expanded to fill the whole of her vision.

Let me make certain that you understand , he had said, very distinctly, that I will not kiss you .

But it had washed over her like heat.

And it had been true. He had not kissed her that night.

Sometimes she thought the lack of kissing was her biggest regret.

He had certainly showed her other things, far more catastrophically life-altering things.

But she woke up sometimes in her room here, sirens in the distance and no hint of the sea, and wondered what it would have been like to kiss Alceu the way she’d wanted to do.

Even now kissing seemed far preferable to what she was actually doing, which was still trundling along down the hard, faintly malodorous street, wishing that she hadn’t told her brother she wanted to live in this great, hard place.

While drawing ever closer to that man at the foot of her steps who looked like Alceu, but couldn’t be.

It just couldn’t be.

And so she was only a few steps away when she was forced to admit the truth.

This man didn’t simply look like Alceu. It was Alceu.

Dioni stopped dead, suddenly wishing that this was a far busier street. One where she could call out for help from passersby, or hail a cab.

But there were only the two of them.

Closer, he looked as perfect as always. As if he had been put upon this earth to wear clothing that exalted the sheer glory of his form in an exquisitely cut suit. Wide shoulders, narrow waist. He was a lean man who nonetheless had power pouring out of him from every pore.

As she had discovered, and vividly.

Though today there was something a whole lot like fury blazing from his dark eyes.

“Alceu,” she said, and it wasn’t until she said his name that she understood how nervous she was, how breathless she became in his presence. She had forgotten that, somehow. “I’m shocked that pity brought you all the way to New York. That seems like a long trip.”

He lifted a hand and slashed it through the air in the universal signal to stop. Except in this case, it was also imbued with the kind of temper she would have sworn he could not possess. Not Alceu. Not this remote, inaccessible man.

“I think,” he said, every word a frigid punch, “that you had better explain yourself, Dioni. And fast.”