Page 99 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
“You really can’t understand?” I ask. “Have youseenhim?”
“You’ve been married to him for four years, I would imagine if it was only sex that it would have faded,” my mother says, obviously deciding to go ahead and be bold.
To call my bluff, since I thought I was being the shocking one.
“It hasn’t,” I say, pushing right back. “And that might’ve been what brought us together, I’m not going to lie. But I love him. He is an extraordinary man. He’s been through so much and he…” I’m suddenly infused with conviction about this. Suddenly completely understanding of why I love this man. “No one ever taught him what was right, and he’s finding it anyway. No one ever taught him that love was something human beings needed, and he found it anyway. It’s a miracle, actually. And I want… I want to see this journey through with him. Yes, it’s a journey. And it isn’t perfect, it isn’t necessarily always easy. But I could’ve married some normal boy from the same kind of street that I grew up on, and maybe we could’ve fallen into a rhythm, and it would’ve felt like easy, but I don’t think it would’ve felt like this. Like…finding the most beautiful, rare art piece. One of a kind. It takes my breath away every day.”
“To me, love is something steady. Something that keeps you safe. Security.” She sounds so weary, wary too. And I get that. I’ve never been what my parents expected, and I can understand why this looks…
I can understand why she’s worried. But I want what I want.
“But I never wanted the same life as you. Not because I don’t love and appreciate the life that you gave me. I do. It’s that life that gave me this one. But I always knew that there was something different out there. Something I’d never seen before. And Dragos is that. I could paint pictures about that man to the end. But I can also paint home. Loving one doesn’t mean I don’t love the other. And it doesn’t mean that I don’t think… That what you’re saying is important. I do.”
“Oh, Cassie. I… I just want you to be happy.”
“Me too. But I’m looking for something more than that. I’m looking for joy. The kind that fills you. The kind that makes you into something totally new. I know it’s with him.”
She pauses for a moment. “You’re going to stay with him and have kids with him?”
I want that. His forever. His child.
“I think so,” I say slowly. “But you know what, if I need to leave, I’m strong enough to do that. Because you taught me to go after what I need. So don’t worry about me. And please come to the auction.”
“Of course we will.”
She doesn’t understand. And I’m okay with that. I understand. I’m the only one that needs to.
And that’s a revelation I didn’t expect to have. It was one I wasn’t even looking for. The focus has been on fixing Dragos. But this new firmness I’m finding in myself is something I needed.
Because suddenly all my actions make more sense. I’ve felt this whole time like I got caught up in his current. But the current was mine too. It always has been. We are mutually undeniable. That means I am too.
What we have is something that not everybody understands, and I don’t need them to. I cannot please everybody. Which means I’m going to please myself. Because I want the kind of wild passion and joy that I can find with him.
I don’t want staid and steady.
And yet, I find that more and more we seem to have both. And that seems like something altogether magical.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dragos
IT’S LIKEI’Mliving an entirely different life in the same body that experienced all of the disastrous things that it did. But Cassandra was there with me. My Cassandra. And she makes everything feel endurable. My sunshine.
She keeps me from descending into the darkness.
This charity event is the first thing I’ve ever done for the broader good. I’ve done good things that served me, but never for the sake of it. I feel like my skin is too tight for my body. I’ve been meeting with women who are survivors of domestic violence, representatives who are going to speak tonight, and encourage donors to open their wallets.
Their stories feel so close to my own experience of growing up in a house where violence was normal.
I never thought that I would have something in common with a housewife from Essex. I do, though. The problem with all of this is that I’m becoming human. Where before I think I existed somewhere outside humanity.
But this is doing nothing but driving home the truth that my father was a man like far too many men.
And he turned me into something a bit too close to him.
The one thing that makes me feel even a little bit proud is that I never raised my hand to a woman. At least I can look at these women knowing that he didn’t manage to make me into the kind of person who relished harming those weaker than himself.
Cassandra looks beautiful. Dressed in bright pink, her dress hugging her glorious curves.
