Page 33 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

It fills me with fury, and absurdly, makes me want to grab him. Kiss him. Remind him.

We’re the best. He and I. When we’re together we break furniture and sound barriers. He leaves bruises on me, I leave bite marks on him. We aren’t like anyone else.

I don’t have to have a long list of lovers to know that.

He loved that I was a virgin. He told me.

He loved that he claimed me. That he was the only man to ever see my body, to ever touch it.

He recited poetry about it while he thrust deep inside me.

The idea that it hadn’t actually meant anything, or that my inexperience might have actually bored him made me want to die now.

Or maybe kill him.

I might be more likely to stab him than he is to stab me, if I’m honest. I’m almost certain I’m being figurative.

“Did you?” I ask. “Miss me?”

“Yes, though if you’re going to be unpleasant I might revise my opinion.” He says all this in the same smooth voice he’s said everything else in.

“Have you been working on a big project or something?” I ask.

Apostolis Enterprises is a Death Star–level conglomerate. It’s not a moon; it’s a giant megacorporation coming to kill you.

It keeps him busy and that’s understandable. Maybe it’s something to do with that.

“No,” he says. “Nothing new.”

I feel certain he’s goading me with that. I move into the room and walk behind him, sliding my fingertips over the black marble. “I think I’d like to go visit my parents.”

“I don’t have time to take you to America right now.”

I stop. “I didn’t ask you to come with me.”

“You aren’t going alone.”

“Don’t be unhinged, Dragos.” I frown. “I managed to travel the world without you when I was much younger.”

“Now you’re my wife, Cassandra Apostolis, and that puts you at risk.” There was a dark flame in his eyes that rose up suddenly and it set me on my back foot. “It’s not safe for you to travel without me.”

“I’m not your prisoner!”

“When do you want to go, perhaps I can arrange a security team for you.”

“I don’t want to bring a massive security team with me to Idaho. This is silly. They live in a small town, nothing is going to happen.”

“You’re naive,” he snarls, and then turns back to his cooking. “Go upstairs. I’ve left a dress for you for dinner, and some other gifts.”

My stomach feels sour with suspicion and anger now and in spite of all that, my heart beats faster when he says that because it reminds me of the earliest days of our marriage. It reminds me of how things were when I thought these kinds of gestures were love.

That he showered me with designer dresses and jewelry and flowers because it was how he showed me the depth of his feeling.

But the trouble with a man whose wallet has no bottom is that spending money means nothing to him.

That took me a long time to figure out. I’m firmly middle-class.

Money means something to me, and it always has.

Every dollar comes from someone’s labor.

I used to calculate how many hours of work it would take for my dad to pay for something Dragos gave to me.

I stopped because the answer was too depressing.

Over the years the meaning of money has shifted to me too, and I don’t like that.

It’s like I’ve forgotten something else about myself.

That girl who believed in hard work, in sacrifice.

My parents were always so supportive. I wanted to be an artist, and even though they’re practical people to their souls they supported me in that as long as I was serious in the career path.

As long as I went to school.

So I worked for that. And then I dropped it like it was nothing so I could hold onto him.

Still I find myself doing his bidding now, out of curiosity more than anything else. I go back up the stairs, but to my room this time, not the attic.

We have separate rooms. In the early days of our marriage that really didn’t mean anything. My room was a glorified closet. I kept my belongings there, but I kept my body in bed with Dragos.

The room is just so pretty; I’ve always thought so. I have a view of a meadow and trees, and I used to find it soothing. Now I think about escaping.

I walk to the four-poster bed and touch the dress he left there. Gorgeous and very brief. He likes me to wear as little as possible. I like to wear as little as possible for him. Driving him mad with my body is my power in the relationship. Of course, he drives me equally mad with his.

When it comes to sex, we’re aligned. It’s what brought us together after all.

It’s a green velvet that will hug my curves, and there are very high heels to go with it. Along with several jewelry boxes, and elaborate, see-through undergarments. I put it on, because this might be the last night I do something like this for him.

I put it on because no matter what, I’m still his wife.

Right now I’m his wife.

My hands tremble as I dress, adrenaline building inside of me. I put on makeup. I style my hair. I want him to react to me. I want to feel like I used to. I want him to feel like he used to.

When I go downstairs he’s finished with dinner, and is nowhere to be seen, but I know where I’ll find him. I walk through the kitchen, the dining area, to the terrace at the back of the estate house, where I find Dragos, sitting at an elaborately set table, candles all around.

For a moment I question everything. For a moment the flicker of a candle flame is more like a gaslight.

Am I being dramatic?

Am I making up issues because I’m lonely?

Am I spoiled and entitled now?

Do I just have regrets because of my own choices?

Dragos didn’t ask me to leave university; I chose to do that. I was swept up in our passion and I couldn’t imagine caring about anything as much as I did him.

I threw myself into the fire.

But over the years it has begun to feel more like a trap. He’s become more restrictive with travel, included me less. But I put the handcuffs on.

The realization makes me want to try. Why am I planning to leave him without trying to reach him first?

The dinner he made is lovely, the dress I’m wearing is beautiful. He’s never said he doesn’t love me, I’m the one that decided because he doesn’t communicate his feelings that I’ve been wrong about them.

The truth is, he did marry me.

It has to mean something.

I move to the chair across from him and I sit down, my hands in my lap, clutched together tightly. “Thank you, I’m sorry I was in a bad mood earlier.”

“It’s nothing,” he says, waving his hand.

It wasn’t nothing, but I wasn’t going to press that issue. “So you aren’t working on anything new, but has work been chaotic?” I ask.

“No more than usual, you can’t run an empire the size of mine and not run into chaos.”

I nod. “Of course not. Property management or manufacturing or…”

“All of it,” he says, nearly dismissive. “It’s very dull, Cassandra. Have you been painting?”

I think of the grim paintings upstairs. “Yes. But I don’t like them.”

“You’re too hard on yourself. If you wish to have an exposition I could arrange it.”

He could rent out a room and let me hang my paintings there. It’s not a real gallery. Not something I earned with talent. Those lines get oh-so-blurry when you marry a billionaire.

What is this life I’m in? I can hardly fathom it. Sometimes it feels like a dream. Not in a fun way, just in a surreal way. Like I can’t connect the dots between where I started and how I got here, even though I remember every single thing that’s happened along the way full well.

“I’ll think about it,” I say, because I really will. I’m not ungrateful for the offer. He asked about my painting. It almost feels like him caring. “I’m not sure my work is ready.”

He looks utterly confounded by this. “You can have it if you like.”

“That’s not how things work,” I say. “You need to earn them. What if no one wants to see my paintings? What if they’re terrible? And how will I know if you rent out a room for me?”

He looks even more confused. “I don’t understand what it would matter. You can have an exhibition and people will come. Not everyone will like it, but some will, so it goes.”

He is so practical in his way, even when he’s being extravagant and it’s one of the things I’ve always liked about him, actually. I worry about so many little things, and he just cuts right to the heart of the matter.

He isn’t wrong in some ways.

“I just would feel silly. Having a vanity gallery I only got because my husband paid for it.”

“I don’t understand this, but if that’s how you feel.”

If he’s shocked he doesn’t show it. But we don’t talk. We take meals together. He tells me that I’m beautiful. We make love. Except, it’s not even making love. It’s ferocious and fearsome, and the passion between us hasn’t dimmed.

Except it has. Lately. He hasn’t been home.

I am accustomed to walking around our home in clothing that barely covers my body because Dragos likes it.

And yet, he hasn’t even been around to appreciate it recently.

I look at him and my heart starts to beat faster.

So fast that it’s painful. So fast that I think it might burst altogether through my chest.

“Just let me think about it,” I say. I take a sip of the wine he poured for me and then stare down into it, pondering. “So, my parents.”

“I will have to make an arrangement with the security team.”

“I don’t want a team.”

“I will not allow you to go if you don’t take them.”

I look at him and I feel a challenge rise up inside of me. “Will you lock me in my room?”

“I won’t give you use of my jet.”

“Oh, noooo, will I have to fly commercial? Economy? I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.”

He looks up at me and something flashes in his eyes that chills me to my bones. “Neither was I, dragostea mea . It was a silver dagger.”

Silence settles between us and I twirl my glass. “Was it? Does that mean you’re actually ready to tell me something about your childhood?”