Page 55 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
I’m giddy. Because not only do I have a boyfriend who touches me in ways that intoxicate me, he’s… Obsessed with me.
It feels naughty, and I feel a small amount of guilt over the pleasure I take it. He’s in his thirties, and if the girls that I hang out with at university knew, they would retch and gag aboutage gapsand howproblematicit is. They would shout at me aboutpower dynamics.
I love the power dynamics.
He makes me feel like he holds the whole world in the palm of his tattooed hand, like he could take care of anything I needed. Like I didn’t have to try so hard. He didn’t know me, he just saw me and wanted me. Not for what I could do, and he wasn’t drawn to me because I’d worked so hard to get where I was. He just was. Like it was magic.
Every boy my age around me in class now looks so insipid by comparison. They wouldn’t know how to do the things Dragos does to me in bed.
But it isn’t just the sex, though it’s incredible.
It’s everything. He loves to take me shopping. He takes me to gorgeous restaurants. He shows me off. Like he’s proud of me. He’s a very important man. The owner of a major conglomerate that has its hands in nearly every industry on earth.
Another thing my friends would be horrified by. There are no such things as ethical billionaires, after all.
But there’s something about even that which makes it all feel that much more amazing. The truth is, he can have any woman he wants just because of his money. He can have any woman he wants because of his raw physical appeal. He can have any woman he wants and he wants me.
What am I supposed to do with that? How am I supposed to fight that? And why would I want to?
Secretly, deep down, I’ve always wanted to be special. I’ve accepted that I have to work hard to get what I want, but part of me has always wished someone would look at me and see me. See the hard work, the talent, and just…recognize me and lift me up.
He has.
No, it’s not my art, but he seems to see me. I’ve been so focused on this, all my life. I ignored men, I ignored any desire for romance and now I feel like I could drown myself in this feeling and be happy forever.
When he asked me if I want to go to Paris for the weekend, I imagine a long train ride, and instead, we take his private jet. We stay in the most gorgeous penthouse that I never could’ve even imagined. It overlooks the Eiffel Tower, we have private dining on the rooftop and the first night he draws me a bath with rose-scented water.
I sink into it, and he sits behind the tub, lathering up my hair and washing it for me. I look up at him, and he smiles, and I’m certain that no one has ever been this happy.
I imagine explaining this to my mother.
I haven’t told my mom and dad about Dragos.
What is there to say?Hi, Mom and Dad, I was waiting tables at an event and I met a man who told me I was pretty so I fell into bed with him without asking his name and let him take my virginity, and now I’m in the world’s most delicious whirlwind courtship?
Now I’m rethinking everything I ever thought I knew about myself and planning a future that can’t actually happen because there’s no way a man like him will ever marry me.
But I don’t care. I let him take me to Paris and I’m letting him give me a bath.
Letting him wash my hair.
“I was not looking for this,” he says, a note of wonder in his voice.
“Well, I wasn’t either.”
“No?”
I laugh. “No. I was a virgin, Dragos. Men were not on my mind. They still aren’t. It’s just you.”
I wonder if I’ve said too much, but he doesn’t look upset. In fact, he looks pleased.
“What are you going to do after university?”
“I don’t know. I’ve spent so long working so hard. To get the scholarship, to keep my place in this really competitive program. I haven’t had time to think about what I want to do after.”
“You’re an artist.”
“Yes. Well, I want to be.”
