Page 76 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4
‘I don’t think that’s true,’ I say, moving over to where he stands, so tall and broad. ‘A man with no conscience wouldn’t have saved me last night.’
He watches me approach, his golden gaze steady. ‘I told you why I saved you, ice queen. It was out of selfish need, not out of any purer concerns. Also, I knew my sister wouldn’t like me walking past a woman in danger.’
‘So?’ I ask him. ‘Does needing someone to guide you make you totally irredeemable?’
He gives a short, bitter laugh. ‘You think I’m looking for redemption? No, I don’t want that. I don’t need it either. I am what I am. I made my choices and I don’t regret them.’
No, he doesn’t, but they’ve hurt him all the same. Those choices have changed him. ‘Who was that boy, then?’ I ask him. ‘Who were you before you became an enforcer?’
Ulysses lets out a long breath. ‘A rule-follower. The kind of boy who always did what he was told and never argued. I hated violence. I was targeted by the neighbourhood boys to be bullied and beaten up because I never retaliated. Our mother taught Olympia and I that violence was wrong. She taught us to be kind to animals and your elders; to show respect, to never lie.’
He pauses and his gaze on me sharpens. ‘And then she died and the state came. I was certain that they would take care of us. That we would be together, because that’s what they promised us. Only, people don’t keep their promises, do they?’
‘No,’ I agree. ‘No, they don’t.’
‘But I do,’ he says. ‘And that boy couldn’t have saved her. He couldn’t be the man I had to become in order to keep my promise. So I killed him.’
He’s blunt, harsh, and I think it’s because he’s trying to push me away. Either that or maybe he’s trying to convince himself that the boy he once was is dead. Except, he’s not. He was twisted by circumstances and an enduring, fierce love into something he was never meant to be, but he’s not gone.
‘No, you didn’t,’ I say to him, just as bluntly. ‘That boy is still there. I see him in your kindness to me, how gentle you are with me. The way my feelings matter to you.’
He stares at me fixedly, the fire in his eyes burning brighter and more intensely. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he says, the words rough on his tongue. ‘The past doesn’t matter. I am who I am. And it doesn’t change what I want from you or what you’ll give me.’
He’s right—none of this will change what I give him—but he’s wrong in thinking it doesn’t matter, because it does. He thinks he lost something, something that makes him human and worthy, but he hasn’t lost it. It’s still there. It’s intrinsic to him, it’s part of him; I know it is.
He’s like me in many ways. Persistent. Stubborn. Committed. We both tried to become something we weren’t and, while he has managed to change his world to fit his new view of himself, I’ve been trying to change myself to fit the world.
But both of us are wrong, I can see that now. Both of us are denying the people we really are. He wasn’t born different like me, but trauma has changed him irreversibly. And so, like me, he finds himself on the outside. He’s not alone, though, that’s what I want him to know. Not now I’m here.
‘Good,’ I tell him, meeting his gaze head-on. ‘Because what you told me doesn’t change anything either. What I told you about yourself is still true, and nothing alters that in the slightest.’
This time it’s he who closes the gap between us, the fire in his eyes leaping high. He reaches for me, placing his hands on my hips and pulling me close to the intense furnace of his body.
‘You really have to stop looking at me like that,’ he orders, low and rough.
‘Like what?’ I challenge, staring up at him.
‘Like you think I’m a good man.’ His fingers dig into my hips, and I’m almost on the edge of pain, but I ignore it. He’s given me some pieces of himself and now he regrets it, I think. He’s trying to frighten me away, but I’m not going to let him.
I told him I wasn’t afraid of him, and I’m still not.
‘Youarea good man,’ I tell him, looking up into his eyes. ‘You’re a good man who had to do some awful things, that’s all. And I know this because it bothers you.’ I lift a hand and lay it against his cheek, the roughness of his five o’clock shadow prickling against my palm.
‘It doesn’t bother me,’ he disagrees.
‘Then why are you telling me to stop looking at you that way?’ I ask. ‘If it truly didn’t bother you, you wouldn’t care.’
His jaw is hard, flames leaping in his eyes. ‘You need to stop talking,’ he growls.
‘Make me,’ I dare him.
So he does, his mouth coming down hard on mine, hot, hungry and fierce. It’s as if he’s let himself off a leash, his kiss savage, giving no quarter. I know what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to show me the enforcer, ruthless and hard, conscienceless. But what he doesn’t know is that, over these past few hours spent in his company, I’ve seen the boy he once was. I catch glimpses of him when he smiles, when he touches my face, when he saved me from John.
He’s a ruthless man, and I’m not blind to that. But he’s also a man with a huge amount of empathy and a tremendous capacity for caring, and I know that because why else would he be so angry?
What he also doesn’t know is that I’m stubborn and persistent, and when I want something I go out and take it. And, right now, I want him. I want to show him that the boy he once was and the man he’s become both live inside him, and they can become one. He can be whole.
I kiss him back, just as fiercely, letting him know that I’m still hungry for him no matter what he’s done—that hasn’t changed. I bite his lower lip hard and then suck on it, making him growl. He slides his hands beneath the hem of the shirt I’m wearing, running them all over my bare skin before jerking open the front of it, buttons raining down as they come off.
