Modern Romance April 2026 Books #5-8

Chapter One

ERIN’S PHONE BUZZED. She didn’t bother to look at it because she knew exactly who was texting her. That made it six texts since she had arrived at her boss’s mansion in Chelsea, where a celebratory cocktail party was currently in full swing.

Raffaele Rossi had just closed a major deal and the champagne was flowing.

The company he had acquired was small but in rude health.

They needed his financial clout to take the next step and he wanted them because in under three years, he anticipated their stock skyrocketing with his judicious investment, bringing yet more millions into his already healthy coffers.

More than the money, though, Raffaele Rossi would be celebrating the new challenge of taking something small and turning it into something huge. Every new acquisition had him as excited as a kid in a candy shop.

Thirty people were milling around in his living room while waiters and waitresses circulated with trays of exquisite canapés and, naturally, the finest champagne on tap.

Lawyers, most with other halves, accountants, most with other halves, the CEOs of the firm Raffaele had taken over, all with other halves—and Erin. With no other half and text messages that kept coming through.

She caught Raffaele’s eye across the crowded sitting room and he winked at her. Erin’s mouth tightened in response, and she saw him stifling laughter.

She swiped a passing canapé and turned to one of the young lawyers next to her, a guy she had met several times over several deals.

He had been trying to engage her in conversation while she distractedly banked down rising impatience with her boss.

This time, she wouldn’t be making her excuses early and leaving, which was her usual approach to these dos.

No, she would be sticking it out, because she intended to have a word with her boss and for once, to heck with the consequences.

Enough was enough.

‘Your phone seems to be buzzing again.’

‘I know.’ Erin smiled apologetically at Colin. He was a bit older than her, with a neat, tidy appearance that belied a sharp legal brain. She might only have met him a few times but she’d always liked what she’d seen.

‘Maybe you should just answer whoever keeps trying to get in touch.’

‘No. I won’t be doing that, Colin.’ Erin smiled at him when he reddened. ‘And I don’t mean to be rude. What do you think of the company merger? Are you exhausted after working solidly for the past week?’

‘Comes with the fat salary, doesn’t it?’ He grinned. They looked at one another in a moment of wry agreement.

‘That and loyalty.’ Erin wondered how loyal her boss would think her once she’d given him a piece of her mind.

‘Everybody knows that Rossi Holdings is the golden ticket. Pays the most and in fairness, we only have to work mega long hours now and again. People would kill for my job so even if I was collapsing on my feet, I’d know better than to complain. What do you think the next big deal’s going to be?’

‘You know I can’t breathe a word about what’s in the pipeline.’ Smiling, Erin met his eyes and made a shushing gesture with her finger over her mouth.

‘What’s it like working for Raffaele every day, Erin? I only deal with him when something like this happens and it’s all hands to the pump. Is he as tough as everyone says?’

‘Tough but fair.’

‘Tough, fair and with a different woman on his arm every other week. Sorry.’ Colin looked at his champagne flute ruefully. ‘Too much of the fine stuff. I’m gossiping.’

Erin laughed but didn’t carry the conversation further.

A different woman every other week? Maybe not quite that…but it definitely wasn’t a million miles away from the truth.

She stole a look through her lashes at Raffaele, who was standing across the room. She knew very well that if he caught her eye, he would raise his eyebrows and stifle another amused grin.

He thought Erin was dull.

Dull but incredibly capable, incredibly efficient and probably indispensable.

She caught a glimpse of herself in an impressive oval mirror sandwiched between two abstract paintings.

Shoulder-length chestnut hair, hazel eyes, short, straight nose and full lips.

Not unattractive, she knew, but definitely not in the same ballpark as the string of women who entered and exited Raffaele’s life with monotonous regularity.

She suspected, in addition to dull but incredibly capable, incredibly efficient and probably indispensable, she could likely add plain.

The perfect secretary from Raffaele’s point of view.

Certainly, before Erin had arrived four years ago, her boss had managed to burn his way through six PAs, all of whom, he had later confided, had to be dispatched because they’d ended up having a crush on him.

He’d confessed that he was in perpetual mourning for the sixty-something-year-old lady who’d worked for him for years before inconsiderately inconveniencing him by emigrating to New Zealand to be with her daughter and grandchildren.

Erin had stepped in, killed his curiosity about her personal life before it could really take root, and now they couldn’t have had a more harmonious working relationship.

Except for the times when she’d had to grit her teeth and remind herself of the size of her pay cheque.

Like now.

Except this evening, she was going to do a little bit more than grit her teeth.

‘What are you doing after this?’

‘Huh?’ Eric blinked and looked at Colin with surprise. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Fancy coming to a bar with me? Or we could go have a proper meal somewhere? These canapés are amazing, but I could eat ten times what I’ve already eaten and still be hungry.’

‘Colin, that’s very nice of you…’

‘I can sense a but coming after that.’ He smiled at her. ‘Can I add a but of my own?’

‘Of course.’ Erin could feel herself blushing.

‘Okay, but if you do change your mind and ever fancy having a date with a lawyer two floors down, promise me you’ll get in touch.’

‘I will,’ Erin said warmly, still pink. She drained her glass, only her second for the evening. She was still all hot and bothered as Colin gave her a little half salute, then headed away to join everyone else who hunting around for bags and jackets.

Raffaele’s cocktail parties were always lavish and always brief. He opened his house in a show of generosity but there was always the unspoken understanding that no one outstay their welcome.

Erin watched the gradual exodus of people but remained where she was, standing by the bay window with the empty glass in her hand.

Her boss’s house was magnificent, an exquisite, vast Georgian mansion in one of the best postcodes in London, with grand Corinthian columns and ironwork balconies as intricate as lace.

The floor-to-ceiling windows that they guarded were impressive from the outside and even more impressive inside because of the light they let in.

They had all been ushered through to the largest sitting room in the house, whose marble floors with handmade inlays oozed opulence. Lots of pale colours everywhere and an abundance of paintings, all vaguely recognisable and all priceless originals.

Erin had only ever been into a couple of rooms on the ground floor but she imagined that the rest of the magnificent house was the same—cold, elegant and luxurious. Not her thing, if she was honest. She thought of where she had grown up and stifled a smile. Definitely not her thing.

She blinked her thoughts away and found that Raffaele was seeing out the last of the fast-departing crowd. Then he turned, lounged indolently against the wall and looked at her with raised eyebrows.

The man was stupidly beautiful.

Six foot two inches of pure, sexy alpha male.

His Italian heritage was evident in his classically beautiful features, in the dark hair which he wore slightly too long and in his Mediterranean colouring.

Only his eyes, a deep navy blue, suggested other roots.

Those eyes were fixed on her now in a lingering, amused stare.

He began strolling towards her.

‘Why are you still here?’ was the first thing he asked when he was towering over her. ‘Shouldn’t you have been at the front of the queue when everyone started leaving? You’re usually the first to go. Plus…is that an empty glass I see you holding?’ He looked at it with an unduly shocked expression.

‘I’m not teetotal, Raffaele. Why wouldn’t I be holding an empty glass?’

‘You didn’t drink at the last do I had. I noticed.’

‘You noticed?’

‘It’s my job to notice what my employees are getting up to. You didn’t touch a drop—although, in fairness, you had a cold and spent most of the evening trying not to cough. I notice things like that. It’s why I’m so successful and such an amazing boss.’

‘That’s very modest of you.’

‘You still haven’t answered my question. Why are you the last to leave? No, before you answer, let’s get out of here. Let’s have a drink in the blue room. I want to talk to you about something interesting that came up in one of my discussions with Archer.’

Typically, he didn’t give Erin time to answer. He spun around on his heels and headed to the door, grabbing a bottle of champagne on his way ‘I’m taking it that you’re not in your usual rush to leave?’

‘I can stay for another drink.’

Raffaele grinned approvingly and Erin was cross with herself for reddening.

He got to her. She hated to admit that, even to herself, but the man got to her.

Even though she never, ever showed it. She was utterly professional in her dealings with him, fully aware that anything else would be as good as signing a death warrant on her very, very well paid and very, very satisfying job.

The blue room was one of the smaller sitting rooms that led into an expansive conservatory and out to the back lawns which, by London standards, were ridiculously big.

‘So,’ Raffaele said, the second they reached the blue room, ‘what’s going on with you and the lawyer? Was that why you were hitting the bottle?’