Page 47 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
“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?”
He lifts a brow. “You say that as if there was a time I didn’t tell you about it. You know many things about my childhood.”
“I suppose, though it seems superficial.” I never push him, but now I feel I have nothing to lose. So I am.
“My parents are dead, what is there to say?”
“Some people would maybe have something to sayabouttheir parents.”
