Page 89 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
“And you bought it.”
“I’m your husband.”
“But you weren’t. You weren’t… How did we meet, Dragos?”
“I hired your catering company to work at a charity event. An event which I planned for the sole purpose of hiring your company. I insisted that they send you that night.”
“You insisted that they… And they agreed to that?”
“If you pay enough money you can have anything you want.”
“No. You can’t. That just isn’t… It isn’t true, not in any regard. You cannot buy people. You cannot buy their affections.”
“You can buy their loyalty. And you can buy favors, and those were the only things I wanted or needed. I got you. I got you into my proximity. I got what I needed. And then we met. At the perfect moment.”
“You pretended that you were simply… Attending.”
“I didn’t,” I say. “I told you that I owned the venue.”
“You didn’t say thatyouarranged the entire thing.”
“No, I didn’t, because that would’ve been counter to my goal. But had you not left with me…” I feel a lashing of shame. Which I know is an unfamiliar sensation for me. “I would’ve taken you.”
She looks at me like I’m a stranger. I suppose I am.
This is a truth I was avoiding telling her. This is a part of myself I wanted to keep hidden. Because I knew she would look at me this way; I knew it would change things.
She thinks she hasn’t been patient enough with me, that my broken upbringing set me up for dysfunctional relationships. But I know when I’m doing something most people would think is wrong, it’s an easy enough thing to recognize. If you feel the need to hide your actions, there is a reason.
My reason is, and has been, that I knew she would find me to be what I am.
A manipulative bastard who puts his own needs before the needs of others.
But I don’t want to lose her. I can’t lose her.
“I thought… I thought I had a spontaneous meeting with the only man that I had ever felt chemistry with.”
“But it doesn’t matter,” I say, because I need to believe it. “You felt it too. When you saw me for the first time you felt the same thing that I did when I first saw you.”
She shakes her head, and she takes a step away from me. “No. I didn’t feel the same thing that you did. I didn’t feel like the sun was shining on me. I didn’t feel like I was suddenly no longer in darkness. I felt like you were dangerous. To everything that I was. And I was right. But I dismissed it, I told myself that it was just a little bad-boy fantasy. But a bad boy’s different than a bad man, Dragos, and every time I think I can connect with you, every time I think…”
“I had to have you,” I say, moving to her and taking hold of her, my thumb and forefinger gripping her chin. “And I didn’t know any other way. I have never felt that way about anyone before. I can have any woman I want. And I have had any woman I wanted. But then there was you, my Cassandra, and I needed you. In a way that went beyond sex, though I needed the sex. Badly. But I needed you. I needed you with me. Always. You must understand that I never even envisioned getting married. And once I met you there was no question. I knew that you would be my wife. Because I knew that you had to be mine.”
She pulls away from me and holds herself, wrapping her arms around her midsection. “You don’t understand, do you? You took this thing that I thought was a beautiful, spontaneous, fated thing and now I know it’s… It’s more of your machinations. It’s more of your manipulation.”
“Please,” I say, feeling desperate. I move toward her again, and I palm the back of her head, holding her still. Keeping her from running away. “It was fated forme.” I’m breathing hard; I can scarcely think. “It changed me. If you cannot… If you can no longer feel as if it was fate for you because I made sure we met again, surely you can see that it was still fate. I did not have to stop that day. I might never have seen you. But I did. And it changed everything. Absolutely everything.”
I have no practice at making others understand me. I’ve never had to.
“Dragos… I can’t…” She clutches her head like I did only a little while before. “Every time I think I am starting to know who you are I realize I don’t.”
“I feel that way about my own self,” I say. “Because it’s true. I don’t know the whole story of who I am, but what I have known from the beginning of all of this is that you were an extremely important part of it. That you are integral to the man that I am.”
“Dragos…” She puts her hands up against her eyes now. “Why are you making this so difficult? Why is every new revelation like an assault?”
“I don’t want to hurt you. And yet I understand that I have. Continually. I was…the day I met you I was doing an arms deal.”
There was a pause.
