Chapter 24
The growling of Lea’s stomach woke her some time later.
She sat up, groggy. Kallias was asleep behind her, his features smooth and relaxed.
Somehow, he looked both strange and utterly at home in her bed.
On one hand, he had the air of some sort of foreign prince, alluring and indolent, who had inexplicably found his way into her bed.
On the other hand, he looked like the only person she ever wanted there from now on.
Her stomach growled again. She hadn’t eaten much for dinner, too full of nervous excitement at the prospect of Kallias’s visit, but now her hunger made itself known. She eased herself out of bed and went to fetch the stash of nuts and dried apricots she kept for situations such as this.
Though she strove to be quiet, Kallias was stirring by the time she returned to bed. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I was trying not to wake you.”
He glanced down at the bundle of food in her hands. “Because you didn’t want to share?”
She rolled her eyes. “I assumed my humble food isn’t good enough for someone who eats at the same table as an emperor.”
She meant the remark as a joke, but he didn’t laugh. His brow furrowed, and an odd distance grew in his gaze.
To distract from her misstep, she busied herself separating half of the dried fruit and nuts, placing them on the bed beside him. “Here.”
He took an apricot but didn’t eat it. “You might not believe me, but I don’t relish my position at the palace. I feel my skills could do much more good elsewhere.”
She recalled their conversation the morning after the dinner party, when he’d told her how he’d gained his freedom. She’d noticed a hint of bitterness then, though she hadn’t known what to make of it. “Do you wish to leave?” An unexpected pang struck her; what if he planned to go back to Greece?
It doesn’t matter to you, she told herself. You’ve known him for all of a few weeks. He can go where he likes.
He nodded. She glanced down, expecting his next words to inform her he was making plans to leave Rome at the earliest opportunity.
“But I can’t leave,” he said, his voice lowering.
“You’re free, aren’t you? If you want to leave, just leave.” Even if it breaks my heart.
“Nothing is that simple when the emperor is your employer.” He shifted in the bed, raising himself to sit higher against the wall.
“Gaius trusts few people, but he clings to those he does. So if I were to simply walk out of the palace one day, I have no doubt there would be a squadron of Praetorians dragging me back before sundown.”
Lea took a moment to absorb his words. It seemed that while Kallias might be free in the eyes of the law, in reality his situation was little better than hers. Perhaps even worse, as Lea didn’t have to contend with the whims of a paranoid emperor.
She recalled the emperor’s anxiety over the wine at that dinner party, which now seemed so long ago.
Kallias had been the one who soothed his fears.
Those situations must recur with some frequency.
And then there was Gaius’s rapid change of heart with Lea herself, enraged one day and sending her gifts the next.
It must be exhausting to serve someone like that.
“Sometimes I feel guilty for resenting my position,” Kallias continued. “I have what many pray for. Food on the table, a safe place to sleep. Status, respect. And a generous wage besides.”
“It’s not wrong to want a life that’s entirely your own,” Lea said. “But what’s your plan to get out of there, if you dislike it so?” She lay down, resting her head on his chest.
He curled an arm around her. “You met Sextus, my assistant.”
She nodded, remembering the young man who’d appeared in his office the morning after the dinner party.
“My plan is to train him up, help him win the emperor’s trust, and then when I tell Gaius I wish to leave, he’ll let me go.”
“That’s your plan?” Lea sat up and twisted around to stare at him. “That could take…months. Years even.”
He nodded, a resigned expression on his face. “Closer to years, I expect.”
“So you’re going to spend years doing something you dislike…
just for the chance that the emperor will prefer your assistant and let you go with a smile?
” She’d expected his plan to involve something like a daring escape in the middle of the night, flight to a foreign land, a new identity that the emperor could never trace.
He shrugged. “It was the most prudent option I could think of.”
She lay back down, disgruntled on his behalf.
Now that she understood his true feelings, she didn’t like the thought of him spending years trapped in unhappiness.
But maybe he was right to take the prudent approach.
He wasn’t one for reckless actions. She recalled what he’d done that day at the palace.
His measured response had seen her freed.
“I wish you could think of something faster,” she grumbled.
He traced his fingertips up and down her spine. “Don’t worry about me, Lea. I’ll manage. What about you? Do you have a plan once you attain your freedom?”
“Sort of.” She smoothed a hand down his arm. “It’s this thing my mother and I used to speak of. Just something silly to pass the time. But I want to make it real.”
“What is it?”
A bittersweet feeling welled at the memory.
“We’d talk of having a little cottage somewhere quiet.
Maybe on the seaside. With an orchard, so we could just walk out and pick fruit and eat it.
And maybe a cat, but one nicer than Nyx.
” Lea and her mother had spent many nights whispering to each other about what fruit trees they’d plant in their hypothetical orchard, what color the cottage walls would be painted, even what they’d name their cat.
“That sounds pleasant.”
Her eyes fell shut again, and her mind conjured a vision of this improbable cottage.
She wasn’t entirely sure what peace and quiet actually felt like.
Both were present in this very moment, a tranquil midnight hour wrapped in Kallias’s arms, but as soon as dawn broke, he would leave and it would shatter.
“I only have one question,” Kallias said. “Do you think you’d entertain visitors in this cottage?”
She ran a hand over the lean planes of his chest, smiling. “Only handsome physicians, I think. There will be a sign out front to that effect.”
He chuckled, and the sound vibrated through his chest to her ear, a pleasing rumble.
He was silent for several moments, his breathing deep and even, and she thought he’d fallen back asleep.
Then he spoke once more. “Lea,” he said, something tense and uncertain lurking in his voice. “I have to confess something.”
A trickle of unease ran through her at his words. “What?”
“I may have…well, that is…” He let out a stiff sigh. “I lied to you. Sort of.”
She blinked. “What do you mean, sort of? And what did you lie about?” Her mind skimmed through all the things he’d said to her. Was it about their coupling? Had he not liked it after all? Was she not good enough, not skilled enough?
“You remember when you asked me about that Greek word I used? The endearment?”
She frowned. “Yes. Phil…something.”
“Philé emé,” he said, the words fluid and lovely on his tongue. “I told you it meant sweetheart.”
“It doesn’t?”
“It’s not entirely incorrect. Which is what I told myself to assuage my guilt. But really, it means something closer to…” He hesitated, and she felt tension in his body where they touched. “My beloved.”
She turned the words over in her mind. My beloved. They felt heavy, loaded with a promise she wasn’t sure what to make of.
“I said it without thinking,” he continued hastily. “It doesn’t need to mean anything.”
He was giving her an opening to brush it off. She could simply agree, reassure him she didn’t give any significance to the word, and move on.
Maybe that was the safer choice, the easy choice, the choice she would have made a few weeks ago.
It would also be the cowardly choice, Lea realized. And she was no coward.
She raised herself on her elbow, turning to gaze at what she could make out of his face in the shadows. Her heart squeezed at the sight of him, and she realized with a startling lurch that the word suddenly seemed all too apt for the way she felt about him.
“It can mean something,” she said.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. Her trysts with Kallias were supposed to be enjoyable, distracting, soothing an itch she had no other remedy for.
They weren’t supposed to make her fall in love.
His breath drew in sharply at her words. “Good,” he whispered. “Because I think I love you, Lea, and it would be quite inconvenient to have to pretend I didn’t.”
A laugh blossomed from deep within her chest. All her misgivings fell away.
In the back of her mind, she knew there were things she should be worrying about, questions they needed to ask, problems that needed solving, but for now, she could only laugh as the joy of his confession overtook her.
“I’m afraid I’m falling in love with you too. Ph-philé emé,” she stammered.
He gathered her close and kissed her forehead. “Your accent is terrible, but I’ve never liked the sound of those words more.”
Kallias stared down at Lea’s sleeping face as dawn light bathed the floor in gold. He needed to leave soon, and he prayed his absence had gone unnoticed at the palace, but he couldn’t bring himself to move.
He wanted this every morning: Lea in his arms, her dark hair spread over his chest, the gentle rise and fall of her breathing. But until he extricated himself from the emperor’s service—and until Lea secured her own freedom—it was impossible.
He still couldn’t believe she loved him. His mind ran over and over those few words she’d uttered until he became half-certain it had just been a pleasant dream.
But in a dream, she probably wouldn’t have butchered her pronunciation of the Greek words and used the wrong form to address a man.
As the dawn brightness grew, he regretfully stirred, slipping his body out from beneath her as gently as he could. He rose to his feet and donned his discarded tunic.
Lea shifted in the bed, her eyes fluttering open. “You’re leaving?” The disappointment in her voice stabbed him in the heart.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I have to get back.” He leaned down to kiss her. He aimed for her forehead, but she turned her face up so his lips met hers. Her hand wound over his shoulder, holding him in place for a deep kiss.
He forced himself to break away. If she kissed him like that for much longer, they’d end up in bed again, and he’d never make it out of this room.
She caught her breath, a flush staining her cheeks.
“I’m fighting again on Thursday.” The games should have been over by now, but a few days ago, the emperor had announced a two-week extension to the games, just as Kallias predicted.
Gaius had also formally declared Drusilla as his heir, and the additional two weeks of the games would celebrate her new honors.
Kallias understood her meaning. “Wednesday night, then?”
She smiled. “If you should find yourself available.”
“I’ll be here.” He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed it, then allowed himself one last glance at her—her bare body soft yet powerful, scarred yet utterly perfect—before compelling his feet to move toward the door.