Modern Romance May 2026 Books #1-4

Chapter One

MARNIE WARE ENDED the call from her solicitor with shaking hands.

The marriage she’d entered with the wildly unrealistic dream of a fairy-tale ending was over. She was officially divorced.

Covering her mouth, she frantically swallowed back a swell of nausea that felt much different to the sickness that had been plaguing her for days and staggered back to the bathroom, the only vaguely cool room in the tiny flat she’d spent all but one year of her life in.

A ray of mocking sunlight shone on the white stick she’d left upside down on the sink.

By the time she psyched herself up to turn it over, her whole body was trembling.

Her chin was wobbling before she’d dared look at the window on the stick.

Two pink lines.

Sinking to the floor, Marnie hugged her knees to her chest and burst into tears.

Domenico Cannavaro ended the call from his divorce lawyer and closed his eyes.

Failure, he’d learned since his wife had left him, tasted bitter.

And now she was no longer his wife. She was now officially his ex-wife.

That she was his second wife, specially chosen for the role thanks to her unswerving loyalty and devotion to him, along with her compliant, meek and mild manner, made the bitter taste especially acrid.

His mousy little wife, a woman who wouldn’t say boo to a goose (if that was the correct English saying) had got her way and severed herself from him.

She’d dumped his surname the same day she’d had the temerity to dump him.

It still made him incredulous to remember how he’d gone out of his way to take her out for dinner to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, presented her with a beautiful bracelet chosen with great care by his PA, and been handed divorce papers in return.

Galling didn’t begin to describe how that had felt.

To think this was a woman he’d talent-spotted working the reception desk of his English branch as an eighteen-year-old, promoted onto his personal team and then promoted numerous more times until she reached the dizzying height of his PA, and then, all those years later, promoted to wife!

This was the thanks he got for plucking her out of obscurity and nurturing her career and then giving her the most lavish lifestyle any woman could wish for? He was well rid of her.

Forget failure and bitterness; this called for a celebration. Not just any old celebration, a party.

Lifting the receiver on his desk phone, he summoned his latest PA.

Janie was in his office in a flash, all buxom, busty beauty with tumbling, glossy black hair. The contrast between her and Domenico’s wife could not be greater, in both looks and demeanour.

‘I want you to call the usual caterers and have a buffet for two hundred people delivered to my home by seven this evening,’ he ordered.

He didn’t need to tell her to order the best stuff.

‘Champagne too. Crates of it. Cocktails. A full bar. And call that DJ we used for the staff summer party. Tell him to set up in the basement.’

Janie didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘All this for tonight?’

‘Yes.’

‘No problem. Anything else?’

‘Let Washington know I won’t be flying over tomorrow, and reschedule all my appointments. I’ll fly over on Sunday.’

‘On it.’ She tilted her head and made the coquettish sweep of her eyelashes she’d adopted in recent months. ‘Are you celebrating anything special?’

‘Indeed I am, Janie. My divorce.’

She raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow and smiled. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Thank you.’

She made no effort to leave. ‘Shall I attend the party to make sure everything runs smoothly?’

He didn’t let his smile drop. ‘That won’t be necessary.’

She sidled to the door and swept her eyelashes at him again. ‘I’ll keep myself available in case you change your mind.’

‘That’s very thoughtful, but you enjoy your evening… Close the door on your way out.’

The moment the door was shut, Domenico dropped his smile and grimaced.

Since it had become common knowledge that he and Marnie had split up, Janie had dropped more than a few hints that she would be a willing replacement.

While she was an excellent PA, he had no desire to make her anything more, but her subtle flirtations were an excellent reminder that he was now officially free to flirt and sleep with whomever he wanted.

His six-month celibacy had been broken only once during a night of madness he would give anything to eradicate from his memories, and it was time to throw himself back into the dating scene and enjoy his newfound freedom.

He hoped Marnie choked on hers.

Marnie got out of the cab and stared through the electric gates at the magnificent three-storey mansion she’d walked out of six months ago. An abundance of cars was parked on the sprawling driveway. It seemed like every light was on.

To her surprise, her fingerprint still worked to open the gate, which was just as well as Domenico was ignoring her calls.

Which wasn’t a surprise, not after the way things had ended the last time they’d seen each other.

That had been exactly six weeks ago, the day their decree nisi had come through.

She didn’t like to remember that night. Especially didn’t like to remember the morning after.

She’d practically thrown Dom out of the flat she’d moved back into after she’d left him.

His parting shot had been a cruel, ‘One day you’ll wake up and look around this shithole, and it will hit you; everything you threw away.

’ His light brown eyes had been dark with anger.

‘You threw it away, Marnie. Remember that. You did it.’

She’d shut the door in his face without responding.

She would never regret her decision to end their marriage, and while the flat she’d moved back into seemed impossibly dingy and tiny compared to the luxury she’d lived in as Domenico’s wife, there was comfort in the familiar.

In any case, the settlement she’d accepted had meant that moving into something bigger was impossible.

He’d expected her to fight over the paltry settlement.

A man worth billions could expect to hand over a decent chunk of his fortune in the event of divorce, even after only a year of marriage, but Marnie had taken the derisory lump sum offered in his opening gambit.

Her solicitor had been horrified, the sum being equivalent to two years of the salary she’d been on before quitting—not through choice—her role as his PA for the much more exclusive role of his wife.

She hadn’t wanted his money. She hadn’t wanted to fight him—she hated fights, always retreated inside herself at the first sign of confrontation. All she’d ever wanted from Domenico was the one thing he would never give her. The one thing she’d spent her life craving.

The closer she walked to the house, the more attuned her ears became to the music vibrating through the walls.

He was throwing a party. Celebrating the end of them.

Why he should celebrate being rid of a wife he’d cared nothing for was a mystery she no longer cared to solve.

None of the fights he’d tried to engineer after she’d left him or his general crappy behaviour over the divorce had been because he felt anything for her. Domenico just hated losing.

Marnie’s love for him had died a death of a thousand cuts of his indifference.

She pressed her finger to the doorbell and willed the nausea to stay away for a little longer while she had the conversation she couldn’t delay.

As much as she hated Domenico, he deserved to know now, not later, and this was the first time that day she’d felt well enough to leave her flat and make the trek across London.

When no answer came, she placed her hand flat on the security lock and was again surprised to find the door opened for her. She’d assumed all her security clearance had been voided the day she walked out.

The noise blaring out explained why none of the staff had heard the bell. It was deafening, not just the music but the screams of laughter floating up from the basement.

Uncaring that she was wearing a floaty, pale green everyday summer dress and flat Roman sandals while the female guests milling around on the ground floor were dressed in all their high-heeled party finery, Marnie didn’t allow any eye contact as she passed curious stares at her appearance and slipped down the stairs to the basement.

Domenico’s basement was a party room. He loved entertaining.

All his many homes had a dedicated entertaining room, and this, his London one, was his gaudiest, the one most designed for partying rather than corporate entertaining.

When she’d still been his PA, she’d been expected to attend all his parties and functions to ensure everything went smoothly, and she prayed her replacement, Janie, wasn’t one of the many bodies glittering under the strobes of the disco balls on the dance floor.

Janie had once been Marnie’s junior, a beautiful, vivacious creature who’d made her feel even more insignificant than she usually did.

In Janie’s presence, she felt as invisible as she had as a child.

As well as the people boogying on the dance floor, other bodies were taking a breather on the plentiful plump sofas.

There were many faces she recognised. Most of them.

Make that all of them. Domenico’s friends and acquaintances.

Marnie had always felt invisible amongst them, had been too shy to make any of them friends of her own.

Invisibility could have been her superpower.

She didn’t feel invisible now. Over the pulsing music, eyes began to clock her and widen with the same surprise she’d felt when finding herself able to enter the grounds and then the house.