Page 93 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
He reaches out slowly and he takes my hand. I lift him up, drawing him to his feet. And we look at each other for a long moment. I think of all the times that he picked me up to take me to bed. But we aren’t going to bed. Not right now. Now we’re going to sit, and we’re going to talk. And say the things that we should have said all these years.
“Let’s go back into the office. I want to be able to look at everything. To understand everything.”
I shake my head. “I don’t need you to lay out the proof. I don’t really care about it. I… What I need to know is your heart. Not the things that you’ve done. Though I think I need to know those too. But whatever you tell me, I’m going to believe you. Whatever you tell me.”
He nods slowly, and leads me into the bedroom. We sit down on the edge of my bed, holding hands, and it reminds me of how we held hands at our wedding. He looks up at me. “I was never making fun of you. What I built for the two of us was an escape for myself. A sanctuary. You believe better of me than I’ve ever believed of myself. Than anyone ever has. You made me feel like there was something in me that was worth caring for. I told you, the minute that I saw you for the first time I suddenly cared about my life in a way that I never had. I was never laughing at you. I wanted to spare you. I thought that perhaps I could keep that life away from you. That I could keep that part of myself away from you. Because I had to from you in the beginning so I thought that maybe I could do it forever.”
“Oh… Dragos. I don’t think that works when you’re sharing a whole life with someone.”
“I wanted it to,” he says fiercely. “I wanted for the two of us to have something, to have more than I’d ever had. I wanted to cling to what I felt the first time we met, and I wanted to hang onto your feelings for me. You said that you loved me so quickly. So easily.”
“I thought that it would chase you away.”
He growled. “Never. No woman had ever told me that she loved me.”
“And what were your other relationships like?”
All these questions, some of which I avoided asking because of jealousy. Some questions that he simply refused to answer. All things I know I need to ask now.
“I didn’t. I had physical encounters. Consensual, always. I have never delighted in hurting people, whether you believe that or not. Yes, the business that my father established is…”
“It’s criminal,” I say.
“Yes. It is. Though he has never bought or sold human beings, and neither have I. He has never contributed to the global oppression of people. But there’s no way that it can be victimless. Can any corporation be considered victimless? No matter how you look at it, if someone is making profits on the level that my family always has, that many of these aboveboard corporations are making, someone is being exploited at one level or another.”
“Yes. But that is deflection. From the reality of the situation.”
He is silent for a moment. “Yes. It is. It’s such a funny thing, because I care now. It’s like my world got put back together in a different order and suddenly I can see the truth of it all.”
“I think that’s another thing I need to understand. When you were a boy you bought into your father’s view of things completely.”
“Yes.”
“When did that change?”
“I think… When he hurt that boy.”
“Can you explain that to me?”
“The entire village that my family home sits in is employed by my father’s business. The family business. It is a generational thing. It’s always been this way. My family has been running their operation, weapons and the like, for hundreds of years. They own the land in the village, they collect rent and they also provide the money for the villagers to pay it.”
“That doesn’t really sound like a charity so much as exploitation.”
He nods. “I would agree. Now. But at the time it was presented to me that the village depended on our family. It was up to us to provide. We had to continue to earn profits. The lives of everyone in the village. Everyone.”
“How did your father explain…breaking laws?”
“Our government was unjust. Authoritarian. It stifled the rights of the citizens, and it especially left poor villages like ours unable to defend themselves, care for themselves. So… We took it on.”
“Out of the goodness of your hearts?”
“That is… Not exactly how he positioned it. There was never any goodness. It was all uncompromising, hard and ruthless. If I’m honest, his focus was about being a firm leader. He talked about responsibility, but never about benevolence. There was no pretense about benevolence.”
“Well, I guess at least there’s that.”
“I suppose. Except I was never taught to care about goodness. There was responsibility, and a need to be seen as strong. To be an uncompromising leader, because you had to be. Because any crack in the armor could lead to anarchy.”
“Well, no dictator can have that.”
