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F elix held to his word, which led to a much lengthier session that left both of them exhausted. He tried to convince her to stay the night, as he wanted nothing more than to fall asleep with her in his arms, but she wished to get home to Marcus, so he escorted her back and then returned home.

Heavy satisfaction weighed down his limbs as he traversed the streets between their houses.

Dusk had fallen, late at this time of summer, and everyone’s work was done for the day.

Laughter and music echoed from the taverns he passed, and lights glowed from houses and apartment buildings as families gathered to share an evening meal together.

At that moment, he realized he would love nothing more than to return home to Lucretia and Marcus after the end of a tiring day.

Lucretia, if she wished to keep up her work, would have had a long day of her own, and a picture rose in his mind: the two of them relaxing on a dining couch together, feeding each other morsels of food with weary contentment. Could there be anything better?

But tonight, he had to return to his lonely house, empty but for his unobtrusive staff.

His mind ran over the events of the earlier evening.

He had been looking for a sign that Lucretia felt something deeper than lust for him.

Had she given it to him tonight? Surely she wouldn’t have let anyone do what they had just done, agreement or no.

Surely she had offered this because she harbored a true attachment to him.

Even something as small as her appreciation of the marjoram with which he scented his clothes reinforced his conjecture. Suddenly, his mind was made up: he was going to propose to Lucretia.

Again.

At the end of a productive day of work, Lucretia returned home as the shadows began to lengthen in late afternoon. She visited the kitchen to obtain a pre-dinner snack and then planned to catch up on some weaving before the sunlight disappeared.

Only yesterday, she had finally divested Felix of his virginity. Already, she was eager to have him again. Not tonight, unfortunately, but they had another meeting set up for tomorrow evening. She couldn’t wait to continue her debauching of him.

As she sat at her loom in the atrium, where the light was greatest, a knock came at the front door. Her household was busy with other tasks and Marcus had gone to the races with his friends after school—a rare break from his apprenticeship—so she rose and answered the knock herself.

Felix stood outside her house. “Good afternoon, Lucretia.”

Lucretia blinked for a moment, taken aback, but stood aside to let him in. “Good afternoon.”

This was strange. Felix had never visited her home. Was something wrong? Perhaps he’d had ill news from his family—could something be amiss with his sister or the new baby?

But he didn’t look as if anything was wrong.

Wearing a tunic of emerald green that looked very pleasing against his fair skin and dark hair, he followed his greeting with a smile.

His bearing was relaxed, but there was an eager intensity to his eyes.

This visit was odd, but it didn’t seem to signal any mishap.

Seeing him here, looking composed and dignified to a fault, reminded her how undone and disheveled he’d been after their coupling. Cheeks flushed, hair tousled, barely able to form a coherent sentence…It had given her great pleasure to render him so thoroughly defiled.

“This is a surprise,” Lucretia said. “You couldn’t wait another day to see me?”

He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her close. “I couldn’t.” He lowered his head to kiss her, which she permitted for only a moment before breaking away.

“I’m in the middle of things,” she chided teasingly. “You think you can just show up at my house, give me one charming smile, and I’ll fall into bed with you?”

“You think my smile is charming?” He brushed his lips over her throat, making her shiver.

“Only as of recently. I used to find it irritatingly conceited.”

He chuckled. His hands wandered up her torso to palm her breasts, fingers deftly locating her nipples.

She wanted to slap his hands away, but his light stroking of her nipples sent tingles straight to her quim, and it was difficult to think. Perhaps she could spare the time for a brief tumble…maybe she could teach him a new position…

“You’ve never visited me at home before,” she said.

“Well, this is not a business matter, and I thought it more appropriate to see you here,” he murmured, breath tickling the crook of her neck.

She curled one leg around him, drawing him close enough to feel his growing arousal against her. “Oh?”

The noise of the front door opening made her break off. A shock of horror ran through her. Marcus. Oh no. Oh no.

She jumped away from Felix as fast as she could, disentangling their bodies and putting distance between them.

But the front door was only a few arms’ lengths away, and Marcus was already entering the atrium.

He stopped short as Lucretia was in the midst of righting the fallen sleeve of her dress.

“Marcus!” she gasped, trying to force her voice to sound light and cheerful. Instead, it came out shrill, with a distinctly guilty edge.

By the confused, horrified look on Marcus’s face, she knew he had seen them. Or at least seen enough. Lucretia tried fruitlessly to summon the words to explain, but nothing came out.

Marcus’s eyes flicked between Lucretia and Felix, who had retreated a few steps, as if trying to fade into the background. His gaze settled on Felix. He marched forward, drew back his right arm, and landed a vicious punch to Felix’s nose.

The impact sent Felix reeling backward, hitting the floor hard on his backside as he clutched his nose with one hand.

“Marcus!” Lucretia exclaimed. “What have you done?”

Marcus rounded on her, fists clenched and eyes blazing with fury. “I saw him!” he spat. “I saw his hands all over you—”

“Fucking Dis!” Felix groaned, still on the floor, his hands quickly becoming slippery with blood.

“Watch your mouth,” Lucretia snapped. “I hope you don’t regularly use that language around my son.”

Felix shot Marcus a baleful glare. “Only when he breaks my fucking nose .”

Lucretia returned her attention to Marcus, attempting to soothe his rage. “Sweetheart, I don’t know what you think you saw, but—”

“Don’t lie to him, Lucretia,” Felix interrupted. “Marcus, it was exactly what you saw. I love your mother, and I came to ask her to marry me.”

Love. Marry? There wasn’t enough time for his words to sink in.

“Marry?” Marcus yelled. He launched himself at Felix again, and Lucretia had to grab the neck of his tunic to stymie another attack, her head spinning from everything happening at once.

“Marcus. Calm down.” She kept a firm grip on her son’s tunic. He was probably more than capable of breaking her hold on him, but despite his anger, he allowed her to restrain him.

When he stilled, she released his tunic and clasped his shoulders, forcing him to meet her eyes. “Please let me speak with Felix in private. I will handle this.”

“But he said he wants to marry—”

“I will handle it,” she repeated, firming her voice. “Please go to your room.”

“Fine,” Marcus muttered. He gave Felix one last threatening scowl, then left the atrium.

Lucretia turned to Felix. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” And then we can talk .

The ruckus had drawn several servants to the atrium, and Lucretia asked for cloth and hot water to be brought to the dining room. Felix rose to his feet, one hand still clasping his nose, and she led him to the dining room.

“Surely you’ve had a broken nose before, with all the boxing you do,” she said as she dampened a cloth and helped him clean his bloodied hands. Anything to avoid talking about what he’d said earlier.

“Only once.” He gingerly poked his nose with his index finger, then winced.

“There is a tacit agreement among those who box for recreation to avoid any permanently damaging shots, to the best of our ability.” He sighed.

“I suppose I only have myself to blame, teaching him to throw a punch like that.”

Together, they mopped up the majority of the blood, and Felix held a clean cloth to his nose to staunch any further bleeding, but it seemed to have slowed. The front of his tunic, however, was saturated.

“I can give you one of Cornelius’s old tunics to wear home, if you wish,” Lucretia said. “So you don’t look like the victim of an attempted murder.”

“Thank you, but I’m not ready to leave yet.” He reached for one of her hands. “I meant what I said to Marcus. I came here to ask you to marry me.”

“Felix,” she murmured, unable to meet his gaze. “I don’t know—I don’t think I can—”

“Hear me out before you say anything.” He tightened his grip on her hand, as if worried she would pull it away. “We could be the perfect team, Lucretia. Between your network in the western Mediterranean and mine in the east, we could have everything we’ve ever wanted.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Everything you ever wanted. I never thirsted for total control. I am happy with the way things are.” Exerting gentle force, she withdrew her hand from his grasp. “We’ve covered this ground before, Felix. I have no wish to marry, and certainly not for mercenary reasons.”

“It’s not mercenary,” Felix objected. “I love you, Lucretia.”

That word sent a flutter through her, but she ignored it. “You love my ships. That’s what you’ve always wanted. I have no desire to give up my independence to a husband, even you. Nothing has changed.”

“Everything has changed!” He leaned close to her, lowering his voice even though they were the only two in the room. “Lucretia, I know . I know about your guardian. I found out when I tried to visit him on my trip to—”

Lucretia shot to her feet, fists clenching. “ What ?”

When Cornelius died and she took over his business operations, she had decided to take a calculated risk—giving the authorities the name of a deceased male relative to serve as her guardian.

She even went so far as to forge a letter from the man, indicating his acceptance of the role and his assent to her conducting her business as she saw fit.

No one had ever bothered to check, just as she expected.

No one, except Felix.

He rose too. “I found out, and I didn’t say a word. If I hadn’t changed—if you hadn’t changed me—do you think I would have kept silent?”

Lucretia’s head spun. She backed toward the wall and braced an arm against it. Felix took a step toward her, concern flickering across his bruised face, but she held out a hand. “Don’t touch me.”

“Don’t you see what I’m telling you?” he demanded. “I will keep your secrets.”

She exhaled a long, shaky breath. “How did you find out?” Her voice was flat, too shocked even to summon the energy to rage at him.

Felix shifted, crossing and uncrossing his arms. “Long ago—before our truce—I set Siro to find out who your legal guardian was. It was underhanded, I know, but my intent was to convince him to withdraw his consent for you to manage your business.”

She felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “You—you would have done that to me?” She couldn’t even look at him. This man she’d grown to trust, to like —he had plotted against her to that extent? Nausea swirled in her gut, and she swallowed hard.

“That was before,” he insisted. “Before our truce. We were both sabotaging each other, remember?”

She shook her head. “You were trying to ruin me. I was only defending myself.”

“Well, yes,” he admitted. “But then, like I said, I found out your guardian didn’t exist, and I said nothing.”

Her hand, braced against the wall, curled into a fist. “You said you discovered that on your trip to visit your sister. But that was after our truce. So why were you trying to locate my guardian then?” She drew in a sharp breath through her teeth.

“You never intended to hold to the truce. You wanted to destroy me regardless.”

“No, I didn’t—” Felix reached for her, but she shoved him away. “That’s my point. I said nothing.”

“You should never have found out in the first place!” she shouted. “You should never have been looking!”

He flinched. “Perhaps that’s true. But you’re not hearing what I’m saying. I love you, Lucretia. You’re the only woman I have ever wanted.”

“You have a strange way of showing it,” she spat.

“Let’s say I agree to marry you. I give it a month before you try to convince me that it would be safer for me to transfer all my assets into your name.

Just in case someone should find out about my guardian, even though I’m married now—they could still make trouble.

Still question everything I’ve worked for.

So of course it would be safest to give you full control.

Which is what you always wanted, isn’t it? ”

His mouth opened and closed. The lack of an instant denial sent a stab of pain through her heart.

“I-I wasn’t thinking that far ahead—” he stammered.

“Liar,” she snarled. “You do nothing if it doesn’t benefit you. I bet even with Marcus, you thought giving him boxing lessons would reveal something you could use against me.”

“No!” he protested.

She ignored him. “I know you will hold this secret over my head for the rest of our lives, whether I am married to you or not. So let me maintain what little independence I have managed to scrape together.”

His jaw worked, as if he was trying to summon more words.

She didn’t let him. “We have nothing more to say to each other. Ever .”

His shoulders slumped, and he turned and left the dining room. Dimly, she heard the front door open and close as he let himself out.

The sound sent a pang of loss through her, turning her rage to a deep melancholy. She lowered herself to sit on the nearest couch. Felix’s betrayal seemed to have sapped all her energy.

She should have known better than to think she and Felix could be anything more than rivals.

He couldn’t stop himself from trying to win, at any cost. He might believe he loved her; their couplings had grievously muddied the waters there.

But a man who loved her wouldn’t scheme against her, wouldn’t use her most carefully kept secret to try to manipulate her into marriage.

Felix loved no one but himself, and she would not allow herself to forget it again.