Page 111 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 5-8

“Oh, don’t tell me. Sex has changed things for you.” I shake my head. “You’re getting soft, gangster.”

“I assure you,” he says. “I’m not soft.”

And I marinate on that for a while.

I’ve never been to London, and when the plane touches down, I feel a rising excitement inside of me. This isn’t the end of all my dreams. There are going to be experiences I can have with him that I couldn’t have had otherwise.

His money makes a lot of things possible. And the kind of people who say that money can’t buy happiness are the kind of people who have always had it.

Because money can buy a great many things that bring happiness if nothing else.

There is a car waiting to take us into the city, and I spend the drive in awe of the views.

The city is beautiful, and what shocks me the most is how close all of the very famous landmarks are to each other. Suddenly I’m looking at Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and so many other things I’ve seen in movies and on TV, but never imagined I would see in real life.

I remind myself that this is the kind of adventure I still have left in front of me. But I’m not giving up on everything. I’m not totally surrendering and sacrificing myself on the altar of Ciro.

Though, it feels like it.

The car pulls up to a sleek modern building, and I knew that it would be nice, but what I’m discovering is that while I might know nice on the scale a regular person might use, I don’t know billionaire nice.

The building is glorious, and also very secure. Just walking into the lobby requires biometrics from Ciro, and once we get through the pristine lobby, we get into an elevator that requires a code.

“What happens when you have visitors?”

“You have to make sure they know at the front desk. They can let someone in.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’ve never had visitors?”

He smiles. “Because I haven’t.”

His residence is on the top floor, and when the elevator doors open, I realize it’s the entire top floor.

And I laugh when we go inside, because it’s exactly the kind of place I pictured him having if he designed it.

Sleek and mainly black. Concrete and stone. Clean lines and nothing sentimental.

The views of the city are stunning, though. And I find myself drawn not so much to all the state-of-the-art equipment in the kitchen, or the glorious furniture in the living room, but to the view below.

The glory of London arrayed before me.

The door closes behind us, and he enables what I assume is a security system.

Then he looks at me. “This is one of our homes. My homes belong to you as well.”

I think about my little apartment in Rome, which had my few meager belongings in it. “Do you think that I could have my…? All of my things are still there.”

Including my sewing supplies, and a great many designs that I’ve made.

“Anything that you need I can replace for you.”

“That’s…that’s great,” I say. I’m imagining the sewing room that I could have. A career I can still have. And it makes me feel giddy.

But then, that’s something I need to discuss with him.

“I want to finish school.”

He looks at me, and frowns. “You have no need to worry about money.”