Page 75 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
“You don’t have to…”
“Sit,” he says. “I am the one that has to stay awake so that I don’t die. Let me move. You take a rest.”
So I do. I just sit there. I sit there and for a full minute I don’t think about anything. When he returns with a tray full of fruit, cheese and cold cuts, I don’t even know what to say. He’s like a dream pulled from my deepest fantasies. He’s like a Greek myth. A god offering a woman fabulous, irresistible temptation.
“That looks amazing.”
“I hope you like it,” he says.
“What’s not to like?”
“Would you like some wine? I thought that I probably had better not. With the head injury.”
“Yes,” I say. A moment later he returns with a large glass of red wine, and I wonder if I just should’ve grabbed him and instigated sex instead, because it might have made me feel a little bit more in control. Dragos being controlled by a softer aspect of his soul is disconcerting to say the least.
“Do you want to know what made me feel drawn to you?”
I look at him. “Do you know what made you drawn to me?”
“Yes. I feel it so clearly. It was like I could see the sun for the very first time. When I saw you… And you were smiling. Though then you smiled at another man.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“In Trafalgar Square. You were dressed in yellow.”
“You keep talking about that. But you didn’t meet me there.”
“I did,” he says, insistent. “I didn’tmeetyou, no. I saw you. You were sitting with your friends. You were sitting with him.”
I shake my head. “I don’t even know what him you’re talking about. You did take me to Trafalgar Square. After we met, though. We met at an event that was hosted at a venue your…company owns. It was a charity thing, I think. And the catering company that I worked for was hosting it. I was attracted to you instantly. And as we’ve discussed, I was a very good girl, so I didn’t even consider, not for a moment that I would… I just thought that I would look at you, and I would go home and nothing would change. But then you approached me and we started talking, though it very quickly turned into a proposition and I… I wanted to say yes. I thought it would be a one-night stand.”
“I didn’t,” he says. “Not for one moment. I knew that you would come home with me, and that you would never leave me. I knew that I had to keep you. Because you were so beautiful. But more than that. It was more than that. I can’t explain it. I just know that I feel it. Like it was dark, and then it wasn’t.”
It’s so strange to see him like this. Trying to communicate with me when before he would have rather cut his throat out than speak to me about anything of substance. Now he can’t find the words, and he wants them desperately. I feel sorry for him. Almost.
“Dragos, this version of you is so dramatic.” I pause for a moment. “I kind of like him. I mean, I especially like the cheese platter.”
He moves nearer to me. “I can make you one every day. I don’t care if I never remember.”
“That’s not true. You do care.”
“Well. Yes, I do care, because I could never stand not knowing everything. Everything I might need to know to keep you safe.”
“You actually have a life that doesn’t revolve around me. The trouble is, I’m the only memory that you have. So you think that I’m the only thing that matters, but that isn’t true. You care about your work so much. You spend most of your time on that. And you don’t even share it with me. Which is how I know I am not a huge priority in your life, whatever you might think.”
He frowns. “I don’t like this interpretation of me.”
“I would welcome your perspective. But the truth is, you never gave it. Not even when you could.”
“I’m trying to give you some of it now. About you.”
“I understand that. But I’m telling you that as much as you might feel this way now, you didn’t really show it when you could have.”
He shakes his head. “I was afraid. Afraid. Of something.” He puts his hand on his forehead. “It’s got something to do with my father. Because I do think he was a very bad man.”
I feel bad, because I’m taxing him, and I can see that. I should probably be more concerned about that than I am.
But I’ve livedso manytaxing lives with this man. Too many.
